«How do you know?»
«Just by knowing her.»
«Then the only way you know she didn't have that money with her is by reaching a conclusion based upon an assumption. Is that right?»
«Well, when you come right down to it, I don't know she didn't have that money with her,» the witness admitted.
«I thought so,» Mason observed.
«But I'm almost certain she didn't,» Eagan blurted.
«Didn't she tell you that she was going to wave a sum of cash under the nose of the owner of this property? Or words to that effect?» Mason asked.
Eagan hesitated.
«Didn't she?» Mason insisted.
«Well,» Eagan said, «she told me she was figuring on buying a piece of property up there. And she had told me she felt the owner was up against it for cash and that if she waved the down payment under his nose, he might accept it.»
«Exactly,» Mason said triumphantly. «And when this automobile was fished out of the water, you were there?»
«Yes.»
«And there was no handbag in the bottom of the car?»
«No. I believe the officers failed to find any handbag. The back of the car was completely empty.»
«No fur neckpiece? No coat? No handbag?»
«That's right. The officers made an heroic effort to find the body but the divers weren't risking their lives trying to find little objects. As I understand it, the floor of the ocean is rocky there.»
«You don't know the driver of the car that hit you?»
«I am told it was the defendant.»
Mason smiled. «You yourself don't
«No.»
«You didn't recognize the defendant.»
«No.»
«It could have been anyone else?»
«Yes.»
Mason turned abruptly, walked back to the counsel table and sat down. «No further questions,» he said.
Judge Grayson said, «Gentlemen, we got a late start today because of another case which was a carry-over. I am afraid we're going to have to adjourn for the evening.»
«My case is just about finished,» Caswell said. «I think the Court can receive all of the evidence and make an order disposing of the matter before adjournment. This evidence certainly indicates that a crime has been committed and that there is probable cause to connect the defendant with that crime. That is all that is necessary for us to show in a preliminary examination. I would like to have it completed tonight. I have other matters on my calendar tomorrow morning.»
Mason said, «The assistant prosecutor is making a usual mistake in assuming that the case is entirely one-sided. The defendant has the right to put on evidence on her behalf.»
«Do you intend to put on a defense?» Judge Grayson asked.
Mason smiled, «Very frankly, Your Honor, I don't know. I want to hear
«Under those circumstances,» Judge Grayson said, «there is only one course of conduct open to the Court and that is to continue the matter until tomorrow morning at ten o'clock.
«Court's adjourned. The defendant is remanded to custody, but the officers are directed to give Mr. Mason a reasonable opportunity to confer with his client before she is taken from the courtroom.»
Judge Grayson left the bench.
Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake and Virginia Baxter gathered for a moment in a close huddle at the corner of the courtroom.
«Good heavens,» Virginia said, «who was the person who came to me and wanted that forged will made?»
«That,» Mason said, «is something we're going to have to find out.»
«And how did you know that she had fifty thousand dollars in cash in her purse?»
«I didn't,» Mason said, grinning. «I didn't say she had fifty thousand dollars in her purse. I asked Eagan if he didn't know she had fifty thousand dollars in her purse.»
«Do you think she did?»
«I haven't the slightest idea,» Mason said. «But I wanted to make Eagan say she
«Now then, Virginia, I want you to promise me faithfully that you won't talk with anyone about this case before you get into court tomorrow morning. I don't think they'll try to get anything more out of you, but if they do I want you to tell them that you have been instructed not to answer any questions, not to say one single word.
«Do you think you can do that, Virginia, no matter how great the temptation may be to talk?»
«If you tell me to keep quiet,» she said, «I will.»
«I want you to keep very, very quiet,» Mason told her.
«All right. I promise.»
Mason patted her shoulder. «Good girl.»
He stepped to the door and signaled the policewoman who took Virginia Baxter away.
Mason returned to indicate chairs for the others. He started pacing the floor.
«All right,» Paul Drake said, «give. What about the fifty thousand?»
Mason said, «I want a search made for that handbag. I want the officers to make the search. I think they'll do it now.
«Now then, Paul, here's where you go to work. I should have thought of this before.»
Drake pulled out his notebook.
Mason said, «Lauretta Trent was intending to have Eagan turn the car to the left and drive up to the Saint's Rest Motel. She had a reason for going there.
«When Virginia told me that Lauretta Trent had telephoned her and told her to go to the Saint's Rest Motel and wait there for her, I felt that perhaps Virginia had been victimized by the old trick of having some third party identify himself or herself over the telephone and, since the telephone doesn't transmit the personal appearance of the person talking, it's a very easy matter to deceive someone in a case of that sort.
«However, the fact that Lauretta Trent did intend to turn to the left and go up that road is strongly indicative of the fact that she
«Now,
Drake shrugged his shoulders, and Mason went on.
«It was either because she wanted to give Virginia some information, on the one hand, or get some information from Virginia, on the other. The strong probabilities are she wanted to get some information from Virginia.
«Now, someone must have overheard that telephone conversation. There's not much chance that the telephone line could have been tapped. Therefore, someone must have heard the conversation at one end of the line or the other. Either someone was listening in Virginia Baxter's apartment, which isn't likely, or someone was listening at the place where Lauretta Trent telephoned.»
Drake nodded.
«That person, knowing that Virginia Baxter was going to drive her car to the Saint's Rest, went up to the Saint's Rest, waited until Virginia had parked her car and was inside the motel room. Then that person took Virginia's car, drove it down to the coast highway and waited for Lauretta Trent to come along to keep her appointment.
«That person was a very skillful driver. He hit the Trent car just hard enough to throw it to one side of the road and then speeded up, threw the rear of the Baxter car into a skid which knocked the Trent car completely out of control.
«Then that person drove the crippled Baxter car up to the Saint's Rest Motel and parked it.
«Because other tenants had moved in in the meantime, the parking space where Virginia had parked her car was filled up, so he had to select another parking space.»
«Well?» Drake asked.
«Then,» Mason said, «he presumably picked up his own car, drove it back down to the highway and into oblivion.»
Drake nodded, «That, of course, is obvious.»
«But is it?» Mason said. «He couldn't tell about the timing element. He couldn't tell whether someone riding along behind got the complete license number of Virginia Baxter's car instead of just the last two numbers. He had to have a second string to his bow.»
«I don't get it,» Drake said.
Mason said, «He had to have it so he could conceal himself in the event he didn't have time to get back down to the highway. Now, how would he do that?»
«That's simple,» Drake said. «He'd rent a unit at the Saint's Rest Motel.»
«That,» Mason said, «is where you come in. I want you to go to the Saint's Rest Motel, check the registrations, get the license numbers of each automobile and run down the owners. See if you can get a line on anyone who checked in and then left without sleeping in the bed. If so, get a description.»
Drake snapped his notebook shut. «All right,» he said, «that's a job, but we'll get on it. I'll put a bunch of men on it and-«
«Wait a minute,» Mason said. «You're not finished yet.»
«No?» Drake asked.
Mason said, «Let's look at what happened after the car was crowded off the road, Paul.»
«There were big rocks there,» Drake said. «The chauffeur fought for control and lost out. The car toppled over into the ocean-you couldn't have picked a more perfect spot for it. I've checked it carefully. The road makes a left-hand curve there. As soon as you get off the shoulder, there are rocks-some of them eighteen inches in diameter-just regular rough boulders. There's only about ten feet between the road and the sheer drop straight down to the ocean.
«At that point there's an almost perpendicular cliff. The highway construction crews had to blast a road out of that cliff. It rises two hundred feet above the road on the left and it drops straight into the ocean on the right.»
«Presumably,» Mason said, «that's why this particular spot was chosen. It would be a perfect place to crowd a car off the road.»
«That, of course,» Drake said, grinning, «is elemental, my dear Holmes.»
«Exactly, my dear Watson,» Mason said. «But what happened to Lauretta Trent? The chauffeur told her to jump. Presumably she tried to get out of the car. The door on the left rear was
