"Your name is Della Street and you are the secretary of Perry Mason, who is appearing as an attorney in this case. On the night of the twentythird, did Perry Mason appear at your apartment carrying the cat known as Clinker and which is now in Court?"
"Answer the question," Perry Mason told her.
"I don't know," she said defiantly.
"Don't know?" Truslow asked.
"No," she said.
"What do you mean by that answer?"
"I mean that I don't know."
"Why don't you know?"
"Because I don't know whether this cat is the cat which belonged to the caretaker."
"But Winifred Laxter says it is."
"I am not responsible for what Winifred Laxter testified to; I am testifying under oath."
"But the cat shows that it knows Winifred Laxter."
"I am not responsible," she told Truslow icily, "for the cat's circle of acquaintances."
There was a laugh from the spectators. Judge Pennymaker smiled, even as he called the courtroom to order.
"But you admit that Perry Mason brought a cat to your apartment."
"I admit nothing of the sort. The question is not pertinent unless it has to do with the murder, and it can have nothing to do with the murder unless the cat which you claim was brought to my apartment was the caretaker's cat, and I have no knowledge whatever on that. I think you will have to ask these questions of Mr. Mason."
Truslow smiled ruefully and said to the court, "Perhaps the legal knowledge this young woman has acquired is responsible for some of Counselor Mason's success."
"She seems to have a very excellent grasp of the legal points involved," Judge Pennymaker observed.
Mason smiled.
"I am going to call Perry Mason to the stand," Truslow said. "I am aware that the procedure is unusual, but I am also aware that it is unusual for Counsel to take so active a part in the cases involving his clients as Perry Mason apparently takes. I am not asking for any confidential communication which came to him from one of his clients; I am going to ask him only what he did in connection with sheltering a criminal."
"Very well," Judge Pennymaker ordered; "Perry Mason will take the stand."
Mason stepped to the witness stand, took the oath and sat down. Judge Pennymaker looked at him with some sympathy, then said to Truslow, "After all, Counselor, while your comment as to Counselor Mason's methods of representing a client may have some justification, the fact remains that Counselor Mason is an attorney at law. He is not restricted to the representation of any one client. If it should appear, as I think it will appear, that he also represented Winifred Laxter, the Court will hold as a privileged communication anything which Winifred Laxter may have said to him. As you have so aptly pointed out, Counselor Mason's methods are perhaps somewhat unusual, but you must admit that his history shows a long line of successes which have been achieved, not through a defense of the guilty, but through strikingly original methods of demonstrating the innocence of his clients."
"I'm not talking about the past," Truslow said grimly, "I'm talking about the present."
"I thank your Honor for holding out a lifeline to me," Mason said smilingly, "but I hardly think it will be necessary."
Truslow said, "Your name is Perry Mason? You are an attorney at law?"
"That is right."
"You are the attorney representing Douglas Keene?"
"I am."
"Did you go to the waffle place operated by Winifred Laxter on the night of the twentythird?"
"I did."
"Did you take into your possession a cat at that place?"
"I did."
"What did you do with that cat?"
Perry Mason smiled. "I'll even go farther than your question, Mr. Truslow, the cat was given to me with the statement that it was Clinker, the caretaker's cat, and Winifred Laxter stated that the cat had been in her possession ever since shortly after eleven o'clock when it had been delivered to her by Douglas Keene, the defendant in this case.
"I told Miss Laxter that it was important the police did not find the cat there, and I took the cat and personally delivered it to my secretary with instructions to keep it in her possession."
"And just why did you do that?" Truslow asked.
"I did it," Perry Mason said, "so that there would be no chance for the cat to escape and return to the Laxter residence."
It took a moment for the meaning of Mason's words to penetrate to Truslow's consciousness. He frowned and said, "What?"
"I did it so the cat couldn't get back to the Laxter residence."
"I don't understand," Truslow stated.
"In other words," Mason remarked calmly, "I wanted to establish that if the cat tracks on the counterpane of the bed in which Charles Ashton was found dead were those of Clinker they must have been made prior to the time Douglas Keene left the house."
Truslow frowned. For a moment he forgot his role of questioner as he sought to follow Mason's reasoning. "That," he said, "doesn't benefit your client any."
"It does to this extent," Mason answered. "It clarified the situation so that the real murderer could be found."
Truslow asked no question, but stood in puzzled contemplation, waiting for Mason to go on, while Judge Pennymaker leaned forward in order to miss no word.
"I acted on the assumption," Mason said, "that Keene was innocent. I couldn't definitely prove his innocence except by proving someone else was guilty. The police officers jumped to the conclusion that Keene was lying. On the face of it, Keene must have been lying. Ashton was undoubtedly killed at ten thirty. Keene was undoubtedly in Ashton's room, where the body was subsequently found, at ten thirty. There were cat tracks on the counterpane. The police jumped to the conclusion those tracks were made by Clinker. But Keene said he had left the house shortly after eleven, taken Clinker with him, and, at the time he left, Ashton's body was most certainly not in the room.
"In place of following the reasoning of the police and acting on the assumption Keene was lying, I decided to act upon the assumption Keene might be telling the truth. In that event, the cat tracks could not have been those of Clinker; in that event Ashton could not have been at the place where his body was found at ten thirty. Yet, since he was undoubtedly killed at ten thirty, it becomes very apparent that he must have been killed at some place other than that in which his body was found. In that event, the cat tracks must have been made by some cat other than Clinker.
"When I had reasoned this far I suddenly realized the importance of proving just that point and of accounting for every minute of Clinker's time, from the moment Keene took him from the house.