The Case of the Horrified Heirs (20 page)

Virginia sat gazing at him openmouthed.

Mason squeezed her arm and brought her back to reality.

"Does that conclude the testimony of this witness?" Judge Grayson asked.

"It does, Your Honor."

"Any cross-examination?"

Mason got to his feet. "This will was the one you found in the sealed envelope?"

"Yes. The sealed envelope was in the drawer where Lauretta Trent said it would be. The will was in the sealed envelope."

"What did you do with it?"

"I put it in a safe and called the district attorney."

"Where was the safe?"

"In my bedroom."

"And your bedroom is in the house owned and occupied by Lauretta Trent during her lifetime?"

"Yes."

"The safe was already in your bedroom when you moved in?"

"No, I installed it."

"Why did you install it?"

"Because I had certain valuables and I knew that the house was big; and the reputation of Lauretta Trent for extreme wealth was well known; so I wanted to have a safe place where I could keep my wife's jewelry and such cash as I had in my possession."

"What has been your occupation?" Mason asked.

"I have done several things," Kelvin said with dignity.

"Such as what?"

"I don't think I need to enumerate them."

"Objected to as incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, not proper cross-examination," Caswell said.

"Oh, certainly," Judge Grayson said, "I think this is background material and cross-examining counsel should be entitled to it, although I can't see that it will affect the outcome of the case or materially affect the evaluation the Court is placing on the testimony of the witness."

"There's no need of going into his entire life," Caswell snapped irritably.

Judge Grayson looked at Mason inquiringly. "Do you have some particular reason for this question?"

"I'll put it this way," Mason said, "so I can summarize the situation. All these various business activities, which you yourself state have been numerous, were unprofitable, were they not?"

"That is not true, no sir."

"But the net result was that you went to live with Lauretta Trent?"

"At her invitation, sir!"

"Exactly," Mason said, "at a time when you were unable to support yourself."

"No, sir. I could have supported myself but I had had certain temporary financial losses, certain business setbacks."

"In other words, you were virtually broke?"

"I had had financial troubles."

"And your sister-in-law invited you to come and live with her."

"Yes."

"At your instigation?"

"The other brother-in-law, Mr. Boring Briggs, was living in the house. It was a large house and-Well, my wife and I went there on a visit and we never moved out."

"And the same was true of Boring Briggs, to your knowledge, was it not?" Mason asked.

"What was true?"

"That he had met with financial reverses and had come to live with his wife's sister."

"In his case," Kelvin said, "there were circumstances which made such a course of action… well a-necessity."

"Financial circumstances?"

"In a way. Boring Briggs had met with several reverses and was unable to give his wife the monetary advantages which she subsequently obtained through the generosity of her sister, Lauretta Trent."

"Thank you," Mason said. "That's all."

Kelvin left the stand.

"All right," Mason whispered, turning to Virginia Baxter. "Tell me about it."

"That's the will," she answered. "I remember now typing that wonderful tribute to her doctor."

Mason said, "I'm going up to get that will and take a good look at it. I don't want you to seem to be paying any great attention to what I'm doing, but look over my shoulder, particularly at the attestation clause and the witness clause and see if that really is your signature."

Mason walked up to the clerk's desk. "May I see the will, please?" he said. "I'd like to examine it in some detail."

The clerk handed Mason the will while Caswell said, "My next witness will be a member of the California highway patrol, Harry Auburn."

Auburn, in uniform, advanced to the witness stand. He proved to be the officer who had inspected the scene of the collision at the Saint's Rest Motel.

Mason, turning the pages of the will, casually paused to examine the signatures.

Virginia Baxter said in some dismay, "That's my signature and that's Mr. Bannock's signature. Oh, Mr. Mason, I remember it all now. This is the will all right. I remember several things about it. There's a little ink smudge at the bottom of the page. I remember it happened when we were signing it. I wanted to type the last page over but Mr. Bannock said to let it go."

"There seems to be a fingerprint there," Mason said, "a fingerprint in the ink."

"I don't see it."

"Over here," Mason said. "Just a few ridges, but enough, I would say, to make an identifiable fingerprint."

"Heavens," she said, "that will be mine-unless it should be Lauretta Trent's."

"Leave it to Caswell," Mason said, "he'll have found it out."

The lawyer flipped over the remaining pages of the will, folded it, replaced it in the envelope, went up and tossed it casually on the clerk's desk, as though not greatly interested in it, and turned his attention to the witness on the stand.

As Mason walked back and sat down beside Virginia Baxter, she whispered to him, "But why in the world would anyone want all this fuss about forging two wills when there already was this will? It must have been that they didn't know of its existence."

"Perhaps someone wanted to find out," Mason said. "We'll talk it over later, Virginia."

Harry Auburn gave his testimony in a voice without expression, simply relating what had happened, and apparently with every attempt to be impartial but, at the same time, to be one hundred percent accurate.

He testified that he had been directed by radio to go to the Saint's Rest Motel to investigate an automobile accident; that this had been a routine call; that he had gone up the road to the Saint's Rest and found that an automobile belonging to the defendant and one belonging to Perry Mason had been in a collision; that while he was investigating the facts of the collision he asked for a check on the cars, and he was called back on the radio of his car.

"Now, you can't tell us what anyone told you on the radio," Caswell said. "That would be hearsay, but you can tell us what you did with reference to that call."

"Well, after receiving that call, I interrogated the defendant as to whether she had been using the car, whether she had been in another collision, and where she had been in the last hour."

"What did she say?"

"She denied using the car except to make that one loop in the motel grounds. She said that she had been in her room in the motel for some two hours. She emphatically denied having been in any other collision."

"Then what happened?"

"I checked the license number of her car; I found two significant figures; I checked the make of the car; I found enough evidence to take her into custody.

"Later on, I returned to the scene of the accident. I picked up pieces of broken headlight which had come from her car; that is, they matched the broken lens on the righthand headlight.

"I then went to the scene of the accident on the coast road and picked up a bit of glass there which had come from a broken headlight; then I removed the headlight from her car and patched all of the pieces of the glass together."

"Do you have that headlight with you?"

"Yes."

"Will you produce it, please?"

Auburn left the stand, picked up a cardboard carton, opened it and took out an automobile headlight. The lens had been patched together.

"Will you explain these different patchings, please?"

"Yes, sir. This small piece around the rim was the part that was in the headlight of the defendant's automobile at the time I found it. I have marked those two pieces number one and number two with pieces of adhesive tape which have been placed on them.

"The pieces of glass I found at the scene of the accident at the Saint's Rest Motel, I numbered number three and number four; and these three pieces, numbers five, six and seven, were picked up at the scene of the hit-and-run on the coast road."

"You may inquire," Caswell said.

"No questions," Mason said cheerfully.

Judge Grayson looked at him. "No questions, Mr. Mason?"

"No questions, Your Honor."

"Now then," Caswell said, "I would like to recall George Eagan to question him on another phase of the case."

"Very well," Judge Grayson said.

Eagan approached the stand. "You're already under oath," Caswell said.

Eagan nodcjed and seated himself.

"Did you ever at any time approach the defendant and ask her to tell you about a will?"

"I never saw the defendant in my life until I was taken to see her in the jail."

"You never gave her five hundred dollars or any other sum to make spurious copies of any wills?"

"No, sir."

"In short, you had no dealings with her whatever?"

"That is right."

"Never saw her in your life?"

"No, sir."

"You may cross-examine," Caswell said.

Mason regarded the witness thoughtfully. "Did you," he asked, "know that you were a beneficiary under Lauretta Trent's will?"

The witness hesitated.

"Answer the question," Mason said. "Did you or did you not know?"

"I knew that she had remembered me in her will. I didn't know for how much."

"You knew, then, that when she died you would be comparatively wealthy."

"No, sir. I tell you I didn't know how much."

"How did you know that she had remembered you in her will?"

"She told me."

"When?"

"About three months ago, four months ago-well, maybe five months ago."

"You did a great deal of cooking, preparing foods that Lauretta Trent ate?"

"Yes, sir."

"Outdoor cooking?"

"Yes, sir."

"You used quite a bit of garlic?"

"She liked garlic. Yes."

"Did you know that garlic was a good method of disguising the taste of powdered arsenic?"

"No, sir."

"Did you, at any time, put arsenic in the food you prepared?"

"Oh, Your Honor, if the Court please," Caswell interposed. "This is completely incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. It's insulting the witness and it's calling for matters which have not been mentioned on direct examination. It is improper cross-examination."

"I think it is," Judge Grayson ruled, "unless counsel can connect it up. It is quite all right for him to show that the witness knew he was a beneficiary under the will, but this is an entirely different matter."

Mason said, "I expect to show that a deliberate attempt was made to poison Lauretta Trent by the use of arsenic on three distinct occasions. And on at least one of these occasions, the symptoms followed the ingestion of food prepared by this witness."

Judge Grayson's eyes widened. He sat forward on the bench. "You can prove that?" he asked.

"I can prove it," Mason said, "by pertinent evidence."

Judge Grayson settled back. "The objection is overruled," he snapped. "Answer the question."