The Case of the Mischievous Doll

“In addition to the things which you have done, and which have been documented, there’s a lot of whispering about nude swimming parties and things of that sort.”

“All right,” she said, “what of it? It’s my body, I like it and it’s beautiful. I’m not dumb enough to think that it isn’t.

“People go to nudist camps and everybody takes those camps for granted and leaves nudists alone, but if a person is reasonably broadminded and objects to the—”

“You don’t need to argue with me,” Mason said, smiling, “but I’m simply telling you that many a person has violated the moral code and then been unfortunate enough to be charged with murder. Jurors of a certain type love to throw the book at someone who has violated their particular moral code.

“Many an unfortunate individual has been convicted of murder on evidence that proved he or she was guilty of adultery.”

“All right,” she said, “in the eyes of many people I’m a scarlet woman. Is that going to keep you from taking my case?”

“No.”

“Is it going to interfere with my chances of an acquittal?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I wondered if you’d be frank or whether you’d engage in a lot of double talk. You don’t need to tell me anything about the hatchet-faced frustrated biddies who love to sit in judgment on their fellow women.”

“What I was trying to point out,” Mason said, “was that when a young woman tries to emancipate herself from the conventions and goes out of her way to build up a reputation for being a madcap heiress, it sometimes proves embarrassing.”

“If she gets charged with murder,” Minerva said.

“And you’re charged with murder,” Mason pointed out.

“Thank you for the lecture,” she said. “I’ll try and be a good girl after I get out. At least I’ll keep my name out of the papers.”

Mason said, “Apparently you have no realization of what’s going to happen. You’re good copy. The fact that you’re charged with murder is going to sell papers, and when something happens that sells papers it gets played up big.”

“I take it you mean really big,” she said.

“I mean really big,” Mason told her. “That brings up the picture I want to present to the public — a rather demure but highly active young woman who is bighearted, acts on impulse, and is sometimes misunderstood; but at heart you’re rather demure.”

“That’s the face you want me to present to the public?”

“Yes.”

“To hell with it,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not going to try to change my personality just to beat a murder rap. That’s up to you, Mr. Perry Mason. I’m not demure and I’m not going to put on that mask for public consumption in the press.”

Mason sighed as he picked up his briefcase and started for the door. “I was afraid you’d have that attitude,” he said.

“I’ve got it,” she told him. “And now you know.”

Chapter Twelve

Judge Everson Flint glanced at the deputy district attorney who was seated with Hamilton Burger at the prosecutor’s counsel table. “The peremptory is with the People.”

“We pass the peremptory,” the deputy announced. Judge Flint looked at the defence table. “The peremptory is with the defence, Mr. Mason.”

Mason stood up and made a gesture of acceptance, a gesture which somehow managed to be as eloquent as a thousand words. “The defence,” he said, “is completely satisfied with the jury.”

“Very well,” Judge Flint said, “the jury will be sworn.”

The deputy district attorney sneeringly mimicked Mason’s gesture of moving the left hand outward. “There’s no need to make a speech about it,” he said.

Mason’s smile in the direction of the prosecutor’s table was deliberately irritating. “Why try then?”

Judge Flint said, “Let’s try and get along without personalities, gentlemen. The jury will now be sworn to try the case.”

After the jury had been sworn, Colton Parma, the deputy, at a nod from Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, made the opening statement.

“This is going to be a very brief opening statement, if it please the Court, and you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said. “We propose to show that the defendant in this case inherited a fortune from Harper Minden. But she had reason to believe that there were other relatives of Harper Minden who were entitled to share in the estate; specifically, a young woman named Dorrie Ambler, who was the daughter of the defendant’s mother’s sister.

“The sister had died unmarried and it was presumed she had left no issue. However, we will introduce evidence showing that the defendant, by her own statement, had unearthed evidence that Dorrie Ambler was actually the daughter of her mother’s sister, born out of wedlock, and that she and the defendant had the same father.

“We are not going to try to confuse the issues in the case by going into the intricacies of the law. We are simply setting forth the facts as I have explained them to you in order to show the state of mind of the defendant.