Erl Gardner - Case of the Cautious Coquette

All of my life I have fought for the underdog and tried to improve the administration of justice.

I am assuming that the readers of this book are interested in crime and in justice.

I am hoping that this foreword can call attention to one of the great injustices of our day.

When a criminals sentence has expired he walks down the front steps of the penitentiary a free man. Theoretically he has paid his dept to society and is on his way to sin no more. Actually in far too many cases an embittered, deadly enemy of society is walking out without any restraining influence whatever, ready to start a new series of depredations.

Parole boards recognize this fact.

When a man is paroled before his sentence expires society has some control over him. He must report to his parole officer. He is placed in some position of gainful employment on his release, and he is supposed to remain on that job and report periodically. If he doesnt do that, he has violated his parole and can be returned to prison.

It is, therefore, patently obvious that even in the most desperate cases it is far better to place any prison inmate who shows any signs of rehabilitation on parole than to hold him to the last minute of his sentence and then let him vanish into our crowded civilization, subject to no restraining influence, to engage in activities over which the authorities can have no control, and about which they have no knowledge.

Therefore, parole boards, who understand these facts, try to use the power of parole which is vested in them to protect society as much as possible and at the same time give the prison inmate at least an opportunity to engage in legitimate, gainful employment when he is released.

When the parolee makes good the public never hears about the case. The public doesnt know that John Doe, who is giving them such courteous, efficient service in the filling station, is a man who made a mistake, paid his debt to society, and is now on his way up once more.

But when a parolee does commit another crime the public certainly does hear about it. Then there is a hue and cry, a clamor. The parole board is put on the grid and taken to pieces.

Undoubtedly there are many men paroled who shouldnt be paroled. For every such failure, however, there are a dozen successes.

The main point is, the public doesnt realize that virtually all of these men who have been paroled and again violate the law would have been discharged anyway within a relatively brief period.

In the face of this widespread public misunderstanding, in the face of this adverse, unfair smearing in the press, parole boards continue to exercise their best discretion, to study the cases carefully and do their duty as they see it.

Many times these parole boards have but little discretion because the prisons are filled to overflowing. With taxpayers indifferent to the problem, refusing to expand prison facilities, with law enforcement officers sending a constantly increasing stream of new inmates to prison, it is simply a mathematical necessity to let some men out in order to make way for the new men who are coming in. In some instances parole boards make costly mistakes. Human nature being what it is. human judgement being as fallible as human judgment must always be, the only wonder is that they dont make more.

By and large our parole boards are doing a good job.

So by this foreword I wish to pay tribute to a group of men who are courageously continuing to do their duty as they see it. I wish to dedicate this book to the greatest underdog of all in the field of public relations:

Perry Mason A brilliant and resourceful lawyer caught in an awkward jam

Paul Drake Topnotch detective for whom none of Masons exacting assignments are impossible

Della Street Masons confidential secretary with an intuitive flair for the feminine angle

Lucille Barton Blond, beautiful, desirable and inexplicable

Arthur Colson Lucilles devoted business partner who plays his cards dangerously close

Hartwell L. Pitkin Stephen Argyles butler and chauffeur, possessing a questionable past and hardly any future

Stephen Argyle Wealthy oil man who was willing to admit his liability

Carlotta Boone Who usually insists on cash but would settle for a check

Daniel Caffee Also wealthy and also willing to admit liability

Bob Finchley The young man whose fractured hip started the whole fracas

Frank P. Ingle Shrewd insurance adjuster whose nose is put quite definitely out of joint

Lieutenant Tragg Of Homicide sarcastic and suspicious though cooperative

Carl Evert Goshen A most reluctant and unusually distressed witness

Jerry Lando Tall, athletic, good-natured and ready to take on most anything

Sergeant Holcomb Also of Homicide, also suspicious and thoroughly uncooperative

Hamilton Burger The district attorney, big, ponderous, dignified and hostile and determined to get Perry Mason

Judge Osborn Administering grim justice does not inhibit his sense of humor

Promptly at nine oclock, Perry Mason joined Paul Drake for breakfast.

The tall detective, head of the Drake Detective Agency, grinned at the lawyer, said, Youre thirty seconds late, Perry.

Mason shook his head. Your watch is thirty seconds fast. Have you ordered?

Ive ordered, Drake said. Double pineapple juice, ham and eggs, toast and coffee. Itll be coming right up. Have you seen my ad in the paper?

No, Mason said. What ad?

In that Finchley case.

I was going to ask you about that.

I have an ad in the morning papers. I also have one that came out in the Blade yesterday afternoon.

The waiter, entering the booth with the pineapple juice, said, Good morning, Mr. Mason. Mr. Drake told me to go right ahead and put your order on the stove. The ham and eggs will be right up. He said youd be here.

Im here.

Drake took a long drink of the pineapple juice, then put down the half empty glass, reached in his brief case and took out a newspaper. Here it is, he said.

Mason looked at the classified ad indicated by the detective.

ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD!! If the parties who were changing a tire on an automobile at the intersection of Hickman Avenue and Vermesillo Drive at about five oclock on the afternoon of the third will communicate with the Drake Detective Agency and give a description sufficient to identify the black sedan which was speeding east on Vermesillo Drive and crashed into the Ford going north on Hickman Avenue they will receive one hundred dollars, cash. Bystanders think the young woman in this parked car jotted down the license number of the speeding sedan but left the scene before the ambulance arrived. Any information from anyone leading to an identification of this hit-and-run driver will result in the prompt payment of one hundred dollars. Address all communications Drake Detective Agency, Box 624.

That should produce some results, Mason said, putting down the folded newspaper. That Finchley kid was badly hurt... I hate a hit-and-run driver.

Probably hed had a few cocktails and didnt dare to stick around, Drake said. Of course the people in that parked automobile may not have seen anything.

As I get the story, they did, Mason told him. There were a man and a woman in the car. It was a light-colored sedan fairly new. Theyd evidently just finished changing a tire. The man was putting the flat tire back in the trunk when the accident happened. The woman wrote something down in a notebook. Apparently it was the license number of the automobile that speeded away from the scene of the accident after slamming the Finchley Ford over against the lamppost.