Chapter 15

Back in his office, Perry Mason paced the floor, his thumbs thrust in the armholes of his vest. Della Street, seated at the corner of the big desk, the sliding leaf pulled out to hold her notebook, took down the words which Perry Mason flung over his shoulder as he paced up and down the room.

"… wherefore, plaintiff prays that the bonds of matrimony existing between her, the said Rhoda Montaine, and the defendant, the said Carl W. Montaine, be dissolved by an order of this court; that the said plaintiff do have and recover of and from the said defendant, and that the said defendant pay to the said plaintiff by way of alimony, and as a fair and equitable division of the property rights of the said parties herein, the sum of fifty thousand dollars, twenty thousand of which to be paid in cash, the remaining thirty thousand to be paid in monthly installments of five hundred dollars each, until the whole of the same is paid, such deferred payments to bear interest at the rate of seven percent per annum; that the said plaintiff prays for such other and further relief as to this court may seem meet and equitable…"

"That's all, Della. Put a blank on there for the signature of the attorney for the plaintiff and an affidavit of verification for Rhoda Montaine to sign."

Della Street finished making pothooks across the page of the notebook, raised her eyes to Perry Mason and asked, "Is she really going to file this suit for divorce, chief?"

"She is when I get done with her."

"That puts you in a position of fighting the annulment action, yet filing an action for divorce?" Della Street asked.

"Yes. If they got the annulment there wouldn't be any alimony. That's one of the things that C. Phillip Montaine is figuring. He wants to save his pocketbook. The district attorney wants Carl to testify in the murder trial."

"And if you can beat the annulment action, he can't testify?"

"That's right."

"Will he be able to testify if he gets a divorce, chief?"

"No. If they can annul the marriage Carl can give his testimony. In the eyes of the law a void marriage is no marriage at all. If there was a valid marriage, even if it was subsequently dissolved by divorce, he can't testify against his wife without her consent."

"But," Della objected, "you can't keep them from getting an annulment. The law plainly says that a subsequent marriage contracted by any person during the life of a former spouse is void from the beginning."

"I'm glad it does," Mason answered, grinning.

"But, when Rhoda married Carl Montaine, her former husband was still living."

Mason resumed his savage pacing of the office. "I can lick them on that with my eyes shut," he said. "It's the other things that are worrying me… Stick around, Della, and give me a chance to think. I want to think out loud. I may have something for you to write out. Is someone watching the telephone board?"

"Yes."

"I'm expecting an important call," Mason said, "from Danny Spear. I think we're going to find the persons who were putting the screws on Moxley for the money."

"Do you want to find them, chief?"

"I don't want the district attorney to subpoena them," he said. "I want to get them out of the country."

"Won't that be dangerous, compounding a felony, or something of that sort?"

He grinned at her, and the grin, in itself, was an eloquent answer. After a moment, he said softly, "And are you telling me?"

She looked worried and made aimless designs on the pages of her notebook. At length she glanced up at him, followed his pacing with anxious eyes and said, "Don't you think it would have been better if you'd relied on selfdefense?"

He whirled on her savagely. "Sure, it would," he said. "We could have worked up a case of selfdefense that would have stuck. We might not have secured an acquittal, but it's a cinch the prosecution could never have secured a conviction.

"But she walked into the D.A.'s trap. She can't claim selfdefense now. She's placed herself in front of the door, ringing the doorbell, when the murder was committed."

Della Street pursed her lips and asked thoughtfully, "You mean she didn't tell the police the truth?"

"Of course, she didn't tell them the truth. They gave her a nicely baited hook, and she grabbed at it, hook, line and sinker. She doesn't know that she's hooked yet, because it hasn't suited the district attorney to jerk the line and set the hook."

"But why didn't she tell them the truth, chief?"

"Because she couldn't. It's one of those cases where the truth sounds more unreasonable than any lie you can think up. That happens sometimes in a criminal case. When a person is guilty, a clever attorney makes up a story for him to tell the jury. Therefore, the defendant's story usually sounds pretty convincing. When a defendant is innocent, the facts don't sound nearly so plausible as they do when they're fabricated. When a person makes up a story, the first thing he tries to bear in mind is to make up a story that's plausible. When he relates events just as they happened, the story doesn't sound as plausible."

"I can't exactly see that," Della Street objected.

"You've heard the old adage," he asked, "that truth is stranger than fiction?" She nodded.

"This is simply a concrete example of that same principle. There are millions of facts that may fall from the wheel of chance in any possible combination. Ninetynine times out of a hundred those combinations of facts are plausible and convincing, but once out of a hundred the actual truth challenges credulity. When a defendant is caught in that kind of a trap, it's one of the worst cases a lawyer can get hold of."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Under the circumstances," he said, "I'm going to try to make the stories of the prosecuting witnesses sound improbable. What's more, I'm going to try and prove an alibi."

"But you can't prove an alibi," she said. "You, yourself, have just admitted that the witnesses for the prosecution will prove that Rhoda Montaine was out keeping an appointment with Gregory Moxley."

He nodded and chuckled. "Why the chuckle?" she asked.

"I've thrown some bread out on the water," he said. "I'm waiting to see what comes back."

There was a knock at the door. One of the typists who watched the switchboard when Della Street was in Perry Mason's private office said in a thin, frightened voice, "A man named Danny Spear just rang up. He said that he was one of Paul Drake's detectives, and that he couldn't wait for me to get you on the line. He said for you to come to fortysix twenty Maple Avenue just as fast as you could get there, that he'd be waiting for you in front of the entrance. He said that he'd already tried to get Paul Drake, but that Drake wasn't in his office, and that you should come at once."

Perry Mason jerked open the door of the coat closet, pulled out his hat, jammed it down on his head. "Did he sound as though he was in trouble?" he asked.

The girl nodded her head.

"Type out the divorce complaint, Della," Perry Mason said as he shot through the door. He sprinted down the corridor, caught an elevator, flagged a cab at the entrance to the office building, and said, " Fortysix twenty Maple Avenue, and keep a heavy foot on the throttle."

Danny Spear was standing at the curb as the cab pulled in to the sidewalk. "There you are, boss," said the cab driver. "It's the dump over there on the right—the Greenwood Hotel."

Mason fumbled in his pocket for change. "I'll say it's a dump," he said.

The cab driver grinned. "Want me to wait?"

Mason shook his head, waited until the cab had rounded the corner before he turned to Danny Spear.

Danny was a dejected and bedraggled looking individual. The collar of his shirt had been ripped open, and was now held in place with a safety pin. His necktie had been torn. His left eye was discolored, and his lower lip was puffed out and red. "What happened, Danny?" asked Perry Mason.