Chapter 20

Claude Drumm opened his morning attack, showing only too plainly his resentment of the dramatic defeat of the previous day. His manner was cold, formal and savage. He went ahead grimly with the gory details of impressing upon the jurors the fact that a murder had been committed; a murder, if you please, where a man's house had been invaded; where the man had been shot down in cold blood while in the act of shaving.

Witness after witness was called to the stand, examined with short, crisp questions, and each witness added his bit to the feeling of horror which permeated the courtroom.

These witnesses were the police officers who had come upon the scene. They described what they had found in the room. They told of the position of the body; of the faithful watchdog who had been ruthlessly shot down while trying to protect his master.

A police photographer produced a complete file of prints showing the house, the rooms, the body lying grim and grotesque on the floor of the sumptuous room. There was even a closeup of the head of the police dog, showing the glassy eyes, the lolling tongue, and the inevitable dark pool which seeped out from the body.

There was the autopsy surgeon who testified in great technical detail as to the course of the bullets; the distance from which they were fired, as evidenced by the powder burns on the skin of the deceased, and the singed hair of the dog.

From time to time, Perry Mason ventured some diffident crossexamination — questions asked in a meek tone of voice, designed to bring out some fact which the witness had overlooked, or to explain some statement which the witness had made. There was none of the battle of wits which the spectators had expected to see; none of that flashing brilliance which characterized the dramatic criminal lawyer.

The spectators had assembled in large numbers to see a show. They came in with expectant smiles upon their faces. They looked at Perry Mason, nudged one another and pointed out the great criminal lawyer — each to his neighbor.

Slowly, the expectant smiles faded from their faces. There came frowns, lowering glances at the defendant. This was a grim business — this was murder. And some one should pay for it.

The jurors had taken their places in the morning with cordial nods for Perry Mason; with tolerant glances toward the defendant. By noon, they were avoiding the eyes of Perry Mason; were leaning forward to get the gruesome details from the lips of the witnesses.

Frank Everly had lunch with Perry Mason, and it was evident that Everly labored under some great emotion. He barely tasted his soup, nibbled at his meat, refused his dessert.

"May I say something, sir?" he asked when Perry Mason had settled back in the chair, a cigarette between his lips.

Perry Mason regarded him with patient, tolerant eyes.

"Certainly," he said.

"This case is slipping through your fingers," blurted Frank Everly.

"Yes?" asked Perry Mason.

"I've heard comments in the courtroom. This morning you could have got the woman off without any difficulty. Now she'll never be able to save herself — not unless she can prove an alibi. That jury is commencing to realize the horror of the situation; the fact that it was a coldblooded murder. Think of the argument Drumm is going to make about the loyal watchdog who gave his life to save his master. When the surgeon brought out the fact that the gun was within but a few inches of the dog's chest when it was fired; was within less than two feet of Clinton Forbes when he was killed, I could see the jurors look at each other significantly."

Perry Mason was undisturbed.

"Yes," he said, "that's pretty telling evidence, and the worst blow is going to come out this afternoon, right after the trial starts."

"How do you mean?" asked Frank Everly.

"Unless I'm badly mistaken," said Perry Mason, "the first witness after lunch will be the man who's been brought from Santa Barbara, who has the firearm register. He'll show the registration of the gun that did the killing; show when it was received; when it was sold, and identify Mrs. Forbes as the one to whom the gun was sold. Then he'll bring the gun register into evidence and show her signature. That fact, coming on top of the morning's evidence, will alienate every bit of sympathy from the defendant."

"But can't you stop it in some way?" asked Everly. "You could keep making objections; keep the limelight on yourself; keep it from seeming to be so frightfully horrid."

Berry Mason puffed placidly on his cigarette.

"I don't want to stop it," he said.

"But you could make a break. You could do something that would keep the horror from cumulating in the minds of the jurors."

"That's just what I want to do," said Perry Mason.

"For heaven's sake, why?" asked Frank Everly.

Perry Mason smiled.

"Did you ever run for a political office?" he asked.

"No, of course not," said the young man.

"If you had," said Perry Mason, "you'd realize what a fickle thing the mass mind is."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Simply that there's no loyalty in it; no consistency in it," said Perry Mason. "And a jury is a manifestation of a mass mind."

"I don't see what you're driving at," the clerk said.

"On the other hand," said Perry Mason, "you've doubtless been to a good show."

"Why, yes, of course."

"You've been to shows where there's been some strong emotional scene; where there's been something that's brought tears to your eyes, a lump to your throat?"

"Yes," said Everly dubiously, "I have, but I don't see what that's got to do with it."

"Try and remember back to the last show you went to that was like that," Perry Mason said, watching the smoke curl upward from the end of his cigarette.

"Yes, I saw one just a few nights ago," Everly said.

"Now, then, can you remember the most dramatic part of the show — the place where the lump in your throat was biggest — where your eyes felt moist?"

"Certainly, I doubt if I'll ever forget it. It was a scene where the woman…"

"Never mind that right now," interrupted Perry Mason. "But let me ask you: what were you doing three minutes after that emotional scene?"

Everly looked at him in surprise.

"Why, sitting right there in the theater, of course."

"No, I don't mean that," Perry Mason said. "What was your emotion?"

"Why," said Everly, "I was just watching the play and…" Abruptly he smiled.

"Now," said Perry Mason, "I think you're getting my point. What were you doing?"

"I was laughing," said Everly.

"Exactly," Perry Mason said, as though that disposed of the matter.

Everly watched him in puzzled bewilderment for a few moments.

"But," he said, "I don't see what that's got to do with the jury in this case."

"It has everything to do with it," Perry Mason said. "A jury is an audience. It's a small audience, but it's an audience just the same. Now, the playwrights who are successful with plays have to know human nature. They recognize the fickleness of the mass mind. They know that it's incapable of loyalty; that it's incapable of holding any emotion for any great period of time. If there hadn't been a chance to laugh after that dramatic scene in the play you saw, the play would have been a flop.

"That audience was fickle, just like all audiences are fickle. They had gone through an emotional strain of sympathizing with the heroine in her darkest hour. They felt for her. That feeling was sincere. They would have died to have saved her. They would have killed the villain, could they have laid hands on him. They felt honestly, sincerely and wholeheartedly. But they couldn't have held the emotion for more than three minutes, to have saved their lives. It wasn't their trouble; it was the heroine's trouble. Having felt for her deeply and sincerely, they wanted to even the emotional scales by laughing. The wise playwright knew that. He gave them an excuse to laugh. And, if you'd studied psychology, you'd have noticed how eagerly the audience grasped at that opportunity to laugh."

Everly's eyes lit up.

"All right," he said, "now tell me just how that applies to the jury. I'm commencing to think I see."

"This case," Perry Mason said, "is going to be short, snappy and dramatic. The policy of the district attorney is to emphasize the horror of a murder case; to emphasize the fact that it's not a battle of wits between counsel, but the bringing to justice of a human fiend who has killed. Ordinarily, the defense attorney tries to keep that impression of horror from creeping into the case. He jumps to his feet with objections to photographs. He waves his arms and shouts arguments. He crouches in front of the witnesses and points his finger in dramatic crossexamination. It has a tendency to break the emotional chain; to soften the horror of the situation, and to draw the jurors back to the courtroom drama, instead of letting their minds revert to the horror of the murder."

"Well," said Frank Everly, "I should think that would be exactly what you'd want to do in this case."

"No," said Perry Mason slowly, "it always pays to do exactly the opposite of what custom decrees. That is particularly true with Claude Drumm. Claude Drumm is a logical fighter; a dangerous, dogged adversary, but he has no subtlety about him. He has no sense of relative values. He isn't intuitive. He can't 'feel' the mental state of a jury. He's accustomed to putting in all of this stuff after a long battle; after the attorney on the other side has done everything possible to soften the horror of the situation.

"Did you ever see two men in a tug of war, where one man let go suddenly and the other man staggered backwards off balance and fell down?"

"Yes, of course."

"For the simple reason," said Perry Mason, "that he was pulling too hard. He was expecting a continued opposition. When he didn't get it, he pulled so hard that he was thrown down by the very vehemence of his own effort."

"I think I begin to see," Frank Everly said.

"Exactly," Perry Mason told him. "The jurors came into court this morning, interested spectators expecting to see a show. Drumm started in showing them horrors. I didn't do anything about it, and Claude Drumm simply went wild on the horror angle. He's had the jurors soaked in horror all the morning. He'll continue to soak them in horror after lunch. Unconsciously the minds of the jurors will seek some relief. They'll want something to laugh at. They'll unconsciously pray for something dramatic, such as happened yesterday, to take their minds away from the horror. It's a subconscious effort of the mind to adjust itself. Having experienced too much horror, it wants a bit of laughter as an antidote. It's part of the fickleness of the human mind.

"And remember this, Frank: whenever you get to the trial of a case, never try to arouse one single emotion in the minds of a jury and bear down steadily on that emotion.

"Pick some dominant emotion if you want, but touch on it only for a few moments. Then swing your argument to something else. Then come back to it. The human mind is like a pendulum; you can start it swinging a little at a time and gradually come back with added force, until finally you can close in a burst of dramatic oratory, with the jury inflamed to white rage against the other side. But if you try to talk to a jury for as much as fifteen minutes, and harp continually upon one line, you will find that the jurors have quit listening to you before you finish."

A look of dawning hope came over the young man's face.

"Then you're going to try and stampede the jury this afternoon?" he asked.

"Yes," said Perry Mason, "this afternoon I'm going to bust that case wide open. By not objecting, by not crossexamining, except upon minor points, I am speeding the case up. Claude Drumm, in spite of himself, finds his case moving so rapidly that it's getting out of hand. The horror sensation that he had expected to be doled out at varying intervals, over a period of three or four days, has all been dumped into the lap of the jury in two hours. It's too much horror for the jury to stand. They're getting ready to seize on some excuse to furnish an emotional relief.

"Claude Drumm expected to fight his way doggedly toward a goal. Instead of that, he finds that there's no resistance whatever. He's galloping down the field with such unexpected speed that his information can't keep up. He's busting his own case wide open."

"And you're going to do something this afternoon?" asked Frank Everly. "You're going to try something of your own?"

"This afternoon," said Perry Mason, his face set in firm lines, his eyes staring fixedly ahead, "I am going to try and get a verdict of not guilty."

He pinched out the cigarette, scraped back his chair.

"Come on, young man," he said, "let's go."