Title: The Case of the Reluctant Model
Author: Gardner, Erle Stanley
Genre: Mystery
Book description
(from inside the jacket flap):
The
painting was a modern masterpiece. But was it authentic? Three experts staked
their reputations on the fact that it was. But Collin M. Durant called it a
rank imitation. The witness to his remark gave Perry Mason a signed affidavit,
and millionaire Otto Olney, owner of the painting, sued for slander.
Then the
witness-a beautiful blonde art student and model-disappeared, leaving Perry
Mason headed for the courtroom and a spectacular trial. A trial not, as
originally planned, for slander, but one for murder in the first degree…
My Read:
The
following part from the book is the one I had to read more than once to get the
idea and further appreciated the ingenuity and guts Perry Mason had owned.
“First,” Mason said, “because he thinks it may complicate
the situation and secondly because he’s going to try to force me to put Maxine
on the stand so that I can lay the foundation for bringing in this picture. If
she testifies that Durant told her to go to Rankin and tell him about the false
Feteet, then the whole think becomes admissible. But any attorney who puts his
client on the stand during a preliminary hearing in a murder case is generally
considered a likely candidate for the insane asylum.” “All the defendant can do
by her testimony is to raise a conflict in the evidence, and no committing
magistrate is going to resolve such a conflict against the prosecution; unless,
of course, it brings up a point which conclusively demolishes the whole theory
of the prosecution, and the chances of doing that are just about one in then
thousand.”
Mason said,
“I’m taking a calculated risk.” Mason said it twice to the Judge who advised
Mason not to put his defendant on the witness stand.
Mr. Mason
is a fighter; when he realized his client was telling the truth he would try
and find possible ways to prove his client’s not guilty. Perry Mason,
to me, stands for Justice.
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