The Case of the Queenly Contestant

“What about Wight Baird?” Della Street asked. “Couldn’t he have fired the fatal bullet?”

“Sure he could,” Mason said, “and for all we know he did. There’s a modem young man who wants to go through life the easy way. I don’t know how much the Bairds left him, but if it wasn’t a substantial amount he could have pretty well gone through it. And if it was a substantial amount he could have decided that a couple of million more might be very acceptable.”

“But, then, why would he kill Agnes Burlington, whose testimony would establish his claim to the two million?”

“How do we know her testimony would have established his claim?” Mason asked. “We have the word of Ellen Adair for it, but how many times has Ellen Adair lied to us?”

Della Street nodded. “You have a point there,” she said.

“Well,” Mason said, “the preliminary examination starts tomorrow, and by that time we’ll find out a lot more about the case.”

“You won’t try to get the case dismissed?” Della Street asked.

“Not with all this evidence piled up against our client,” Mason said. “Not unless we can get some sort of a break.”

“Well, we can always hope,” Della Street said.

“The whole thing turns on that fatal bullet,” Mason said, “whether it was fired from Ellen Adair’s gun or whether it wasn’t.”

“What does Wight say about the gun?”

“What you’d expect him to say,” Mason said. “He borrowed the gun for target practice a week or ten days earlier. He fired the gun several times, then put it back in the glove compartment of Ellen Adair’s car, where he had told Ellen he’d leave it. Natural enough in one way when you consider his youth, his diversification of interests, girlfriends, studies, hot-rod automobiles, and liquor.”

Della said, “I shudder to think of what that young man would do with two million dollars in cash.”

Mason regarded her thoughtfully. “Look at it from his standpoint,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Figure out what he’d do without two million dollars in cash.”

Chapter Sixteen

Judge Dean Elwell took his position on the bench, glanced at his court calendar, said, “The case of the People of the State of California versus Ellen Calvert, also known as Ellen Adair, defendant.”

“Ready for the defendant,” Perry Mason said.

Stanley Cleveland Dillon, the chief trial deputy of the district attorney’s office, stood up with impressive dignity.

“We are ready for the people,” he said. “And the people respectfully wish to point out that this is a preliminary hearing solely for the purpose of determining whether a crime has been committed and whether there are reasonable grounds to determine that the defendant has committed that crime.”

Judge Elwell said with some acerbity, “The Court understands the rule of law, Mr. Dillon.”

“I know the Court does,” Dillon said. “But I wanted to point out the position that the prosecution will take when it comes to combating the harassing, delaying tactics which are so much a part of the defense in some of these cases.”

“We won’t go into any personalities,” Judge Elwell ruled. “Call your first witness.”

Stanley Dillon, who prided himself upon having sent more defendants to their deaths than any other trial deputy in the State of California, was visibly annoyed at Judge Elwell’s treatment.

Of late, there had been some criticism that Dillon regarded defendants in criminal cases as so much game to be stalked. Then an irate defense attorney had remarked that if it had been legal Dillon would have disinterred the bodies, mounted the heads of the various defendants whom he had sent to the gas chamber, and had them arranged as trophies in his study.

Criticism of this sort bothered Dillon and caused him to explain that he was only doing his duty as a public servant. He claimed that he took no personal satisfaction whatever in securing verdicts of death in the criminal cases he had prosecuted. He was very conscious of public relations.

Now he was well aware of the crowded courtroom.

Not only had the case attracted much public attention because of newspaper publicity and the issues involved, but the two half brothers of Harmon Haslett, Bruce and Norman Jasper, were present in court, as were “Slick” Garland, the troubleshooter, and Jarmen Dayton, the detective.

Ellen Adair sat beside Mason, still maintaining that air of queenly dignity, divorcing herself as a person from the proceedings in which she was the accused.

“I am, if the Court pleases, going to make this as brief as possible,” Dillon said. “I will call Lieutenant Tragg as my first witness.”

Lieutenant Tragg came forward, took the oath, seated himself comfortably in the witness stand, and gave his name, address and occupation to the clerk.

“I am going to ask you, Lieutenant, very briefly to tell the Court what you found when you were called to a duplex dwelling at 163S Manlay Avenue on the fifth of the month. I will ask you to describe briefly what you found.”