"
Mason yawned.
Shuster laid a restraining hand on Sam Laxter's arm. "Now let me do the talking," he said, "let me do the talking. Don't get excited. Keep calm, keep calm. I can handle him. You let me make the statements."
Mason sat down once more in his big swivel chair, leaned back and took a cigarette from the cigarette case on the desk. "Anything else?" he asked, tapping the end of the cigarette on his thumbnail.
Frank Oafley said, "Mr. Mason, I want you to understand my position. My relationship with Edith DeVoe is no longer a secret. She had done me the honor to marry me shortly before her death."
He stopped for a moment while a spasm of expression crossed his face; then he went on, "She had told me about what she had seen, but I hadn't been inclined to give it much thought until after the district attorney pointed out to me how easy it would have been for someone to have put carbon monoxide into Grandfather's room.
"Naturally, this came as a big shock to me. I know my cousin well. I can't believe that he was capable of any such thing, and then I remembered that Edith had never told me that she had positively recognized Sam as the one in that car. The man in the car had his face concealed under the broad brim of Sam's hat. That was what led Edith to believe the man in the car was Sam Laxter.
"Now, if you told the officers that Edith said Sam Laxter was seated in that car, you have made a statement which was unwarranted by anything Edith said."
Mason, studying Frank Oafley's face, said speculatively, "So that's your story, is it?"
"That's my story," Oafley said, blushing.
Shuster's face was cunning. "Consider, Counselor, what a position you're in," he said to Mason. "You make a charge against my client. You can't back that charge up; you have got no evidence. You can't testify what Edith DeVoe told you because that's hearsay. Dying declarations are admissible when a person making them knows he is going to die, but this wasn't a dying declaration. When she told you this, she thought she'd live to be a hundred, so you haven't got a leg to stand on. My client can take you into court. He can trim you. He can stick you; he can soak you—but he won't do it if you make a retraction."
"What Shuster means," Oafley said, "is that you emphasize that Edith didn't know who it was in the car."
Sam Laxter's face was scowling. "I want more than that," he said. "I want a retraction and an apology. I never sat in that car, and Mason knows it."
Perry Mason stretched forth his hand to a row of books which stood on his desk, supported by book ends. He pulled out a book, opened it, and said, "Speaking of law, gentlemen, I'll read you a little law. Section 258 of the Probate Code reads as follows: 'No person convicted of the murder of the decedent shall be entitled to succeed to any portion of the estate; but the portion thereof to which he would otherwise be entitled to succeed goes to the other persons entitled thereto under the provisions of this chapter. There is some law for you to think over, Frank Oafley."
Shuster sputtered into speech with moist vehemence. "What a trick!" he exclaimed. "What a scheme! He tries to turn you one against the other, reading from his law books, making his dirty slanders. Close your ears to his words, close your hearts to his thoughts, close your…"
Mason interrupted, speaking directly to Frank Oafley. "You would like to protect your cousin," he said, "but you know as well as I do that Edith DeVoe wasn't the sort of girl to jump at false conclusions. Perhaps she didn't see the man's face, but she saw the man's hat, she heard his voice and she thought that man was Sam Laxter."
Oafley's forehead knitted thoughtfully as he said slowly, "She did hear his voice."
"Go ahead," Sam Laxter said bitterly, "put on an act, Frank; pretend you're being convinced, but you're not fooling me any. The minute this lawyer showed you that you could hog all of my inheritance by getting me convicted of murder, I knew what was going to happen."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Shuster half screamed. "Don't do it; don't fight. It's a trap. Don't walk into it. He gets you fighting between yourselves and then his damn cat inherits the estate. What a scheme! What a scheme! Oh, what a trick!"
Mason, looking at Sam Laxter, said, "How do you account for that tube being found in your car?"
"Someone planted it," Laxter said belligerently. "You led the officers to the garage and they 'found' a tube in my car, after you suggested they look for it."
Mason said, "Do you think I planted the tube in your car?"
Shuster rushed in front of Sam Laxter, grabbed him by the lapels of his coat, pushed him back and shouted, "Don't answer! Don't answer! It's another trap. He gets you to charge that he planted it and then he sues you for defamation of character. You can't prove he planted it there; don't say it; don't say anything. Let me do the talking. Keep quiet, everybody; keep calm. Don't get excited. I'll handle it."
Oafley moved a step closer to Laxter and said, over Shuster's shoulder, "Are you insinuating that I planted it there, Sam?"
Laxter, his voice edged with bitterness, said, "Why not? You don't fool me any, Frank Oafley. You'd do a damn sight more than that for half a million dollars. I'm commencing to see this thing in a new light now."
"You forget," Oafley said, with cold dignity, "that it was Edith DeVoe who saw this. I didn't see it, and when she first told me, I didn't attach any significance to it."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Shuster pleaded, turning his head rapidly to look beseechingly first at Laxter, then at Oafley. "Gentlemen, calm yourselves. This isn't what we came here for. Keep cool. Remember what I told you to say. Let me do the talking. Shut up, everybody."
"Edith Oafley," Sam Laxter sneered, paying no attention to the lawyer. "If she weren't dead, I could say plenty about her."
Oafley, with an inarticulate expression of rage, pushed Shuster aside with his right hand and slapped Laxter's face with his left.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Shuster screamed. "Remember…"
Sam Laxter's left fist, swinging in a sizzling blow aimed at Oafley's jaw, caught Shuster full in the face as the little attorney pawed at Laxter's coat. Shuster went to the floor, moaning. Laxter swung his bandaged right arm, struck Oafley a glancing blow on the cheek. Oafley stepped in, swinging his right. Laxter missed with a left. For a moment the two men stood toe to toe, slugging wildly, their blows doing but little damage.
Shuster, on the floor, tugged at their trousers legs.