"They'll try all sorts of tricks on you, and probably tell you Rob Gleason has made a full confession, or that he has told the officers he has reason to believe that you committed the murder, or that you made certain incriminating statements to him, or they'll tell you that he has come to the conclusion that you are guilty and has made a confession in order to take the jolt so that you'll be spared. They'll try all sorts of stuff. Simply look at them with a dumb expression on your face, and say nothing. And for God's sake, don't lose your temper. They'll probably do things that will make you want to kill them, but if you lose your temper and fly into one of your rages, they'll spread it all over the front pages of the newspaper, that you've got an ungovernable temper, and are one of these tiger women."
"I understand," she said.
There was the sound of a siren drifting up through the windows of the office.
Frances Celane shuddered.
"Well," said Nevers to the photographer, "get your camera all loaded up, boy, because some of these cops will want to get their picture in the paper, taking the suspect into custody. Probably Carl Seaward will show up from the Homicide Squad. He's one of those birds that likes to stick his stomach in front of a camera and put his hand on the shoulder of the prisoner, with a photograph for the front page labeled: 'Carl Seaward, intrepid investigator of the Homicide Squad, taking the suspect into custody, marking the termination of a case which has baffled the entire police force for the past fortyeight hours.
"Maybe I'd better get in this picture too. I wonder if my hair is on straight. I can pose as the STAR reporter who assisted the police in locating the suspect."
And Nevers struck a pose in front of the camera, grinning.
Frances Celane surveyed him in scornful appraisal.
"Show a little leg," she said.
Chapter 17
Paul Drake perched on the edge of Perry Mason's desk and shook tobacco from a cloth sack into a brown paper which he held expertly between cigarettestained fingers.
"Well," he said, "we've got our contact with Mrs. Mayfield. But it isn't getting us anything. We had one devil of a time. The police had her in custody as a material witness for a while."
"Have you worked the rough shadow business on her yet?" inquired Mason.
"Not yet. We're building up to it. We've got a woman operative who's posing as a woman who's been abroad as a governess, and is now out of work. We've checked back on Mrs. Mayfield and found all about her early associates. We managed to run one of them down and got all the dope from her about the names of the people she knew, and all that sort of stuff."
"This woman is getting across all right?" asked Mason.
"I'll say she's getting across. She's got Mrs. Mayfield confiding in her, all of her troubles with her husband, and all that sort of stuff."
"But she hasn't said anything about the murder?" asked Mason.
"Not a peep so far. That is, of course, she mentions that she was taken to the District Attorney's office and held for awhile as a material witness until they got a signed statement out of her, and a lot of that stuff. But she isn't going into details. All that she's telling is simply a rehash of what she's told the newspapers."
"How about Don Graves?" inquired the attorney. "How are you getting along with him?"
Paul Drake put the finishing touches on the cigarette.
"We're making some real progress there," he said, "We've got a young lady operative who has contacted him, and Graves is falling for her like a ton of brick. He's telling her everything he knows."
"About the case?" asked Mason.
"About the case, about everything. He's turning himself inside out."
"This woman must be good," said Mason.
"I'll say she's good," explained Drake enthusiastically. "She'd knock your eye out. She's got one of those confiding techniques that snuggles up and looks at you with big eyes, and seems to listen all over. You just naturally ache to tell her things. My God, every time I go out with that broad, I sit down and start telling her all of my troubles; about the girl that jilted me in my childhood, so that I never got married, and all that stuff.
"You've seen a guy when he's about ninetenths drunk, going around and weeping on the necks of total strangers and telling all of his private affairs? Well, that's just the way this jane works. She affects the fellows just about like ninetenths of a drunk. They fall all over her and spill everything."
"That's fine," said Mason. "What have you found out?"
"So far, just stuff you don't want to hear," said the detective. "It don't help your client a damn bit."
"All right," said Mason, "give me the lowdown, and don't try to put a sugar coating on it. Give me the facts."
"The facts are," said Drake, "that this Celane girl had on a pink negligee the night the murder was committed. Graves was sent by Edward Norton to ride up with Judge Purley and Arthur Crinston to get some documents. He kept looking back toward the house as they went around the curves in the road and when they got to the point in the road where he could look up at the window in Edward Norton's study, he saw somebody standing back of Norton, who was seated at his desk.
"More than that, he says that he saw the man swing a club down on Edward Norton's head, and Norton collapsed across the desk. He says that he saw the arm, shoulder and head of a woman, and that he thinks he is positive of the identity of both the man and the woman. The woman had on a pink negligee."
"He made that statement to the District Attorney's office?" asked Mason.
"Yes, he's made it, and subscribed and sworn to it."
"That isn't the statement he made the first time," Mason pointed out. "When they were making their first investigation, Graves said that he saw the man in the room, who struck the blow, and didn't see anyone else except Norton."
"That won't help you any," said Drake casually. "You can't prove that."
"They took the statement down in shorthand," said Mason.
Drake laughed.
"Those notes have been lost. I'm just telling you in the event you don't know it," he said. "I made it a point to ask one of the newspaper reporters to inquire of the shorthand stenographer who took down the statements there that night. Strange as it may seem, something happened, and the notebook had been misplaced. It's disappeared."
He grinned at the lawyer.
Perry Mason stared down at the surface of his desk, his brows in straight lines of frowning concentration.
"The dirty crooks," he said. "The D.A. always howls to high heaven about the crooked criminal lawyers who manipulate the facts. But whenever the D.A. uncovers any evidence that gives the defendant a break, you can bet something happens to it."
The detective shrugged his shoulders.
"The D.A.'s want convictions," he said.
"Can your operative get into Mrs. Mayfield's room in Norton's residence, Paul?" Mason asked.
"Sure. That's a cinch."
"All right, I want her to make a report on every dress that's in there. In other words, I want to see if there's a pink dress or a pink negligee in there."
Paul Drake squinted at the lawyer significantly.
"It wouldn't be such a hard job to put one in there," he said.
"No," said Mason, "I'm going to play fair."
"What's the use of playing fair?" asked Drake. "They didn't play fair with you."
"I can't help that," said Mason. "I think I've got an out in this case, and I'm going to play it fair and square. I think I can beat the rap if I can get a decent break."