The Case of the Queenly Contestant

Maxine Edfield said, “It’s a trap. He’s given this witness a phony identification. How do you know Ellen Calvert didn’t come out here and take the name of Jessie Alva and go to work as a private detective? Just the fact that she’s now got a driver’s license under the name of Jessie Alva doesn’t mean she isn’t really Ellen Calvert.”

Duncan Lovett became apprehensive. “A great deal depends, Maxine, on your recognition, your...”

“Of course I recognize her. She hasn’t changed that much. She’s still got the same stuck-up method of holding her chin up and trying to act like a queen. She’s older now than when I used to double-date with her, but she hasn’t changed a damn bit. You let this Perry Mason start twisting you around his finger and he’ll have you jumping through hoops.”

Lovett became thoughtfully silent.

Jarmen Dayton said, “How about you. Garland?”

Garland grinned. “As far as I am concerned, I am sitting on the sidelines. But I’m the one that is responsible for this debacle. I made the fatal mistake of underestimating my adversary.

“Of course, the only identification I had was an old photograph taken twenty years ago and a description that she was unusually tall and had a rather dignified, regal air about her. When I baited Perry Mason into sending for his client and this woman came to his office and left and I tailed her here — well, I admit that, now I think back on it, it was just too darned easy. You don’t tangle with Perry Mason and come off that easy.”

Dayton said, “You don’t think she’s Ellen Calvert?”

Garland laughed and said, “If she’s Ellen Calvert, I’m Napoleon Bonaparte.”

Maxine Edfield screamed, “You can’t gyp me out of my money that easy! Of course she’s Ellen Calvert!”

Mason glanced significantly at Della Street, who had been taking notes.

“What do you mean ‘gyp you out of your money,’ Maxine?”

“That guy Lovett was going to pay me—”

“Shut up!” Lovett shouted. “You damn fool, keep your trap shut!”

Maxine Edfield suddenly became silent.

“You got that down, Della?” Mason asked.

“Every word of it,” Della said.

Mason grinned. “I think we can all go home now.”

“Now just a minute, just a minute,” Lovett said. “I don’t want those last statements misinterpreted. I agreed to pay Maxine Edfield her expenses out here and a hundred dollars a day for the time she was here. I did not agree to pay her for any testimony.”

Mason smiled politely. “I think,” he said, “my prior remarks still stand and we can adjourn the meeting.

“As far as you’re concerned, Miss Alva, you can report to Paul Drake that you’ve done everything you were hired to do, that you’re vacating the apartment. And thank you very much for your cooperation.”

Mason arose, walked to the corridor door, held it open, smiled and said, “This way out.”

Chapter Eight

Mason and Della Street left the elevator and walked down the long corridor toward Mason’s offices.

“Do we stop in and say hello to Paul Drake?” Della Street asked.

Mason shook his head. “No. Drake will have received a report from his operative, Jessie Alva. He’ll know that the case is terminated as-far as he’s concerned.”

“And as far as we’re concerned?”

Mason grinned. “Well, we had a dramatic conclusion anyway.”

Della Street laughed. “I’ll never forget the expression on that lawyer’s face when he had so patronizingly stated that he had expected more from you in the line of cross-examination and then suddenly realized that you had trapped his witness and his whole case had blown up in his face.”

Mason said thoughtfully, “Of course, Della, the fact that Maxine Edfield made a mistake in the identity of Ellen Calvert actually doesn’t discredit her whole testimony.”

“But the way you trapped her into the admission it does,” Della Street said.

“That,” Mason told her, fitting his key to the lock on the door to his private office, “is only one thing. Her admission of receiving payment for her testimony is going to hurt that side of the case more than anything.”

The lawyer opened the door, held it for Della, then entered behind her, removed his key, and closed the door.

“Of course, Maxine Edfield could have been telling the truth. She was too eager to be of service to Duncan Lovett. And when Lovett assured her that they had run Ellen Calvert to earth and they went to the apartment and the door was opened by a tall woman with a queenly bearing who matched the general description of Ellen Calvert, Maxine naturally jumped to an erroneous conclusion.

“After all, she had the word of Duncan Lovett, of Stephen Garland, and of Jarmen Dayton that this was the person they were looking for.”

Della Street said, “Gertie’s still working. I’d better report to her that we’re here.”

She picked up the telephone to the outer office, said, “We’re back, Gertie. If there’s anyone... what?... WHAT!”

“Good heavens!” Della said. “Hang on!”

She turned to Perry Mason and said, “The real Ellen Calvert is in the office impatiently waiting to see you.”

“Good lord!” Mason said. “Now we will have a field day!”