The following are quotes (without permission) from Perry Mason novels. The name of the novel is mentioned at the end of each quote. Some more quotes are in this wiki link. All quotes are indented. Un-indented lines are my own comments. The purpose of these quotes is to understand the person that Mason was and to understand the person, the author was. Brief biographical details of the stories and the chronology are here.
Neither Sergeant Holcomb nor Lieutenant Tragg finds a place in this novel. The district attorney Hamilton Berger also is absent. The D.A. is never named. Mason's client gets acquitted before the case goes to court.
This novel is also interesting for few more reasons. 1. Mason gets his client arrested for murder because she accused him of murder in the first place. He had to stay out of trouble in order to help her. 2. The client's personality is very interesting as is that of her husband who was murdered. The husband's personality is briefly described by his nephew. The wife, who is the client, plays a larger role. And her nature is vividly described.
Hate details? That doesn't fit in....
Some people prefer the caring that one gets from another person (spouse / parent etc) because of WHO they are (meaning the role they are in). Some prefer that people care for them because of WHAT they are than for WHO (spouse / child etc) they are.
Mason said "If your witness can't answer questions when you're here to ensure that I don't bullyrag him or browbeat him, he isn't going to make much of a witness when you put him on the stand and I have a chance to pour questions at him when nobody can stop me." - Lazy Lover.
This is so feminine, meaning the ability to read the meaning of the expression and react accordingly.
"You [Ellen Robb] intend to explain that to Mrs. Ellis? Mason asked. "Not so much as well... the facts of marriage." "What" Mason asked "are the facts of marriage?" [Ellen] "A man asks a woman to marry him because he enjoys her companionship. As long as he enjoys her companionship he's going to stay home with her. When he begins to wander around it's because something has happened to take the keen edge of [off] that enjoyment." "Doesn't that happen with time?" Mason asked. "It can" she said. "But the point is that when it does, the natural thing for a woman to do is to start reproaching the man, throwing it up to him that he is neglecting her, and that he's getting tired of her now that she's given him the best years of her life, and all of that." - Velvet Claws.
George said soothingly "Your husband was in a little private game last night, Mrs. Ellis.I don't know how he came out. I believe that he did perhaps lose a little, but I haven't tried to figure out just how much. I can assure that the game was on the up and up. I was in it myself. If we gambled with people at night, let them take a chance on winning the place, and if, they weren't lucky give them back the money they had lost the next morning, it wouldn't be very long before I'd be selling apples in the street corner." He laughed at the idea, his mouth making the laughter, his eyes anxiously watching her, appraising her mood. - Velvet Claws.
"She doesn't mind that." Della Street said "She's accustomed to appearing in public with nothing much on. She likes it." "Tut, tut," Mason said "don't sell our client short." "If it had been a man" Della Street said "would you have done as much in the interests of justice?" Mason thought for a moment and met her eyes "Hell, no" he admitted. - Velvet Claws.
Mason settled himself in his swivel chair and sighed. "I presume one can't go through life just skimming the cream of existence" he said. Sooner or later one has to get down to chores and get down to drudgery. But I really did enjoy yesterday, Della. It was in the nature of an adventure.... Now I'm somewhat in the nature of a housewife, who has given a very successful party, has ushered the guests out with cordial good-nights, and walks out into the kitchen to find a sink full of dirty dishes." - Velvet Claws.
"You mean she has probably done about everything? Mason asked. "Except teach Sunday school" Mason said dryly. "And you are warning me" Mason said "not to become fascinated by a pair of beautiful legs that I lose my perspective." "Not only legs" Della Street said. "I have a feeling that she deliberately puts herself on exhibition in order to get what she wants." "But this time she will be conventionally garbed." "She may be conventionally garbed" Della Street said "but I'm willing to bet she's wearing something that's cut rather low in front, and that during the course of the conversation, she finds occasion to bend over your desk for some reason or other." - Velvet Claws.
[Mason to Drake] "It's sort of an obsession with me to do the best for my clients. My clients are entitled to do the best I can for them. it's not my job to determine whether or not they are guilty. That's for the jury to determine." - Velvet Claws.It isn't Mason's job to determine whether or not a client is guilty? This is in such contradiction to what Mason says in other novels. Did the author change Mason's deepest values in his later novels - this novel being one of his first ones?
It was [Detective] Sydney Drumm who gave the situation its last touch of irony. "Hell," he said "Eva Belter was the woman who told us where you were, Perry. She said she was going to see you this morning and that we could wait until someone else came here and claim we'd followed that other person. She wanted to have you think we'd followed Della Street or someone else instead of her." - Velvet Claws.
[Eva Belter to Mason] "I knew they [authorities] could never convict you, because you were too smart and skillful. You could get out of it, and I figured that if they got to crowding me too close, I'd give them information that I did [have] so that they'd go after you and that would clear me. If they ever tried to come back on me after you had first drawn their fire, I knew that it would be an easy case to beat." - Velvet Claws.
[Perry Mason to Eva Belter] "Your husband told you that you were disinherited or else you found the will in his safe. At any rate you knew the terms of the will, and you knew where it was kept. You tried to figure some way of getting around that will. You knew that if you destroyed it, it wouldn't do you any good because Carl Griffin and Arthur Atwood, his lawyer had seen the will, and that your husband had told them about it. If it was missing, they'd suspect you.... But you figured that if you could trap Griffin into claiming under the will was a forgery, you'd have Griffin in a questionable position. So you went ahead and forged the will that your husband had drawn, making your forgery crude enough to be easily detected, but copying the will word for word. Then you planted your forged will where you could get it whenever you wanted to." - Velvet Claws.
Della Street stared at Eva Belter. "I'm sorry" she said, but I'll have to have that table." Eva Belter arched her eyebrows and picked up her glass from the table, much with the gesture of a woman gathering her skirts about her when encountering a beggar in the street. - Velvet Claws.
[Perry Mason to Eva Belter] "Now listen, that's the reason I wanted to get in touch with you. If Burke didn't do it [murder of Mr George Belter] who did?" She shifted her eyes. "I told you some man had a conference with my husband. I don't who he was. I thought it was you, it sounded like your voice." He got to his feet, his face darkened. "Listen" he said "if you go trying that kind of a game on me, I'll throw you to the wolves. You've tried that game once. That's enough." She started to cry and sobbed. "I c-c-can't help it. You asked me. There's nobody listening. I t-t-told you who it w-w-was. I heard your v-v-voice. I won't t-tell the p-p-police, not even if they t-t-torture me." He shook her by the shoulders and slammed her down on the bed. He pulled her hands from her face and stared at her eyes. There was no trace of tears in them. "Now listen" he said "you didn't hear my voice, because I wasn't there at all. And cut out that sobbing act - unless you've got an onion in your handkerchief." "Then it was somebody whose voice sounded like yours" she insisted. He scowled at her. "Are you in love with Burke?" he asked. [Mason] "And trying to put me in a position where you can throw me over in case I can't square the thing for Burke?" [Eva] "You wanted me to tell the truth. And I'm telling it." [Mason] "I'm tempted to get up and walk out on you, and leave you with the whole mess on your hands" he threatened. She said demurely "Then, of course, I'd have to tell the police whose voice it was I heard in that room." - Velvet Claws.The interesting thing in Eva is the act of crying and claiming that she would never reveal his name to the police and her subsequent threat that she would claim to the police that it was his voice he heard in the room just about the time of the murder. What she utters or thinks has nothing much to do with truth but with the expedient of what she thinks at the moment is good for her. And the arrogance and the way she looked down on people (example Della, see above) - she was an interesting character.
[Eva Belter to Mason] "You can trust me. I can keep a secret" she told him. "You're a good liar" he said judiciously. "If that's what you mean. But this is once where you don't have to lie. The less you know, the less you stand a chance of telling." - Velvet Claws.
[Eva Belter to Mason] "It's just like I thought it was" she said "only I didn't come off as well as I had expected. I thought that he would at least leave enough to let me go to Europe and look around, and.... and sort of get readjusted." "You mean and get yourself a man." "I didn't mean any such thing." - Velvet Claws.
[Eva Belter to Mason] "You know that my husband is a queer man. He doesn't really love anyone. He wants to own and possess, to dominate and crush, but he can't love. He hasn't any close friends he's completely self-sufficient. - Velvet Claws.
[Perry Mason to Eva Belter] "You're sure it wasn't his voice you heard up there in the room? She hesitated for a moment. "No," she said "it was yours." "That is" she said hastily "it sounded just like yours. He had that same way of quietly dominating a conversation. He could raise his voice, and yet make it seem quiet and controlled, just like you, but I'll not mention that to anyone. never in the world! They could torture me, but I'll never mention your name." She widened her blue eyes by an effort and stared full into his face with that look of studied innocence. - Velvet Claws.Eva meant that the voice she heard inside arguing with her husband was Mason's implying that Mason must have murdered her husband.
[Perry Mason to Eva Belter] "You told me then because you didn't think there was any possibility that I would suspect him [Congressman Harrison Burke, with whom Eva was having an affair] of having been in that room with your husband while the shot was fired." "That's not so" she said. He nodded his head slowly. "You're just a little liar" he said judiciously and dispassionately. "You can't tell the truth. You didn't play fair with anybody, not even yourself. You're lying to me right now. You know who that man that was in the room." - Velvet Claws.
Carl Griffin was a rather good looking young man with a face which was flushed with drink, marked with dissipation. His eyes were red and bleary but there was a certain innate dignity about him, a stamp of breeding which made itself manifest in the manner in which he tried to adjust himself to the emergency. - Velvet Claws.Breeding is sufficient to adjust to an emergency? Hmmm.
"I'll bet you he's drunk as a lord, no matter whether he seems to be sober or not," snapped Mason [to Sgt. Hoffman]. "Some of these fellows are pretty deceptive when it comes to carrying their booze. They get so they can act as sober as judges, but they haven't very much of an idea what they are doing or saying." Bill Hoffman looked at him with a suggestion of a twinkle in his eyes. "Sort of discounting in advance whatever it is that he is going to say, eh, Mason?" - Velvet Claws.
"How did you feel toward him?" asked Hoffman [of Carl Griffin about his uncle Mr. Belter] "I respected his mind" Carl Griffin replied, choosing his words carefully, "and I think I appreciated something of his disposition. He lived a life that was very much apart, because of his disposition. I doubt if he was capable of having affection for anyone." "Why did that condemn him to live apart?" asked Sergeant Hoffman. Griffin made a slight motion with his shoulders. "If you had a mind like that," he said "you wouldn't need to ask the question. The man had wonderful intellectual capacity. He had the ability to see through and to penetrate sham and hypocrisy. He was the type of a man who never made any friends. He was so thoroughly self-sufficient that he didn't have to lean on any one, and therefore, he hadn't any ground for establishing friendship. His sole inclination was to fight. He fought the world and everyone in it." - Velvet Claws.
[Perry Mason to Eva Belter] "How about getting in touch with you?" She said quickly enough. Ask for my maid and tell her that you're the cleaner. Tell her you can't find the dress I inquired about. I'll explain to her, and she'll pass the message on to me. Then I'll call you." Mason laughed. "You've got that down pat" he said. "You must have used it often." She looked at him and her blue eyes set in a wide stare of tearful innocence." Mason pushed back his swivel chair, got to his feet, and walked around the desk. "In the future" he told her "you can save yourself the trouble of putting on that baby stare with me if you want to. I think we understand each other pretty well." - Velvet Claws.
The two women [Eva Belter and Della] maintained toward each other that air of aloof hostility which characterizes two dogs walking stiff legged, one around the other. - Velvet Claws.This is interesting. Earlier there was another quote about how Eva gathered her skirts about her in front of Della the way an aristocratic woman would behave in front of a beggar. Slight dissonance here.
Her [Eva Belter's] face drained of color. The blue eyes became dark with sudden panic. Then, by an effort, she controlled the expression of her face, and the blue eyes enlarged to that wide-eyed stare of baby innocence which she had practiced when she had been in the office with Mason. - Velvet Claws.
Mason said impatiently, "Every time you come here, you lie to me. You're one of those baby faced little liars that always gets by deceit. Just because you're beautiful you have managed to get by with it. You've deceived every man that ever loved you, every man you ever loved. Now you are in trouble and you are deceiving me. - Velvet Claws.
"I hate everything she stands for" said Della Street. "I've had to work for everything I got. I never got a thing in life that I didn't work for. And lots of times, I've worked for things and have had nothing in return. That woman is the type that has never worked for anything in her life! She didn't give a damned thing for what she gets. Not even herself." - Velvet Claws.Della sounds quite harsh. So unlike her. Perhaps meeting an Eva causes great unrest in a person like Della.
[Mason to Drake] "It's better to have them [habeas corpus] when you don't need them than to need them when you haven't got them. - Velvet Claws.This seems to be one of the earliest Perry Mason novels. Drake and Della address each other formally. Della adresses Mason formally. Mason himself does detective work. And Mason discusses payment rate details for detective work with Drake. Mason also mentions something about Della's past life that she came from a wealthy family which had lost its wealth. Also, Della doesn't take notes while Mason is with a client. She comes to the room only when she is called - she is not there by default taking notes as she usually does. The easy informality between the two that is generally seen in other novels is absent here. Mason tells Della to call Drake and adds that he is the head of the Drake detective agency.
Neither Sergeant Holcomb nor Lieutenant Tragg finds a place in this novel. The district attorney Hamilton Berger also is absent. The D.A. is never named. Mason's client gets acquitted before the case goes to court.
This novel is also interesting for few more reasons. 1. Mason gets his client arrested for murder because she accused him of murder in the first place. He had to stay out of trouble in order to help her. 2. The client's personality is very interesting as is that of her husband who was murdered. The husband's personality is briefly described by his nephew. The wife, who is the client, plays a larger role. And her nature is vividly described.
[Mr. Sydney Zoom] "But it's a good thing. Saved the executioner a job. Frankly I'm glad of it. Captain Mahoney sighed and stared at Zoom curiously. "A reasoning machine he commented, "devoid of sympathy." "Sympathy, bah! That's the trouble with the world's attitude towards the criminal. Here is a man who planned murder, planned to pin it on an innocent woman, and you prate of sympathy." - The Vanishing Corpse (from the multistory novel - The Crying Swallow)Here my mind wanders into that grey area again. This is a T behavior (as against F behavior as in MBTI) being described. I still can't accept that there exists a reasoning machine devoid of sympathy which goes about murdering or pinning a murder deliberately on an innocent person. Is it a case of a weak Venus / Moon (being devoid of emotions) or a case of weak Saturn (having no sense of right/wrong)?
Only his secretary, Vera Thurmond, with her woman's instinct, had learned that back of this was a vast yearning, a loneliness of soul which craved companionships the personality repelled. - The Vanishing Corpse (from the multistory novel - The Crying Swallow)
[Major Winnett to Mason] "Women feel many things without the necessity of words. - Crying Swallow.
Victoria Winnett was the conventional composite of a bygone era. There were pouches beneath her eyes, sagging lines to her face, but the painstakingly careful manner in which every strand of hair had been carefully coiffed, her face massaged, powdered and rouged, indicated the emphasis she placed on appearance, and there was a stately dignity about her manner which, as Della Street subsequently remarked, reminded one of an ocean liner moving sedately up to its pier. Had she carefully rehearsed her entrance and been grooming for hours to convey just the right impression of dignified rebuke, Mrs. Victoria Winnett would not have needed to change so much as a line of her appearance. - Crying Swallow.
The occupant of the trailer must have been a man. Notice the canned beans, a can of chili con carne, potatoes, bread, onions - no tomato peelings, no lettuce leaves, no carrots, in fact no fresh vegetables at all. A woman would have had a more balanced diet. - Crying Swallow.Men seem to be the same everywhere.
As someone had expressed it, Kinsey was always trying to improve the appearance of the package, because he knew the goods inside were rotten. - Screaming WomanQuite consistent with the Tamil adage "Aal paadhi aadai paadhi" (meaning the packaging / cover and the book / content are equally important).
[Mason to Della] "I'm putting in a lot of time and running up quite a bill for detectives." "Wouldn't it have been better to have waited until you were sure?" she said. "From a dollars and cents basis, yes" Mason said, "but somehow, Della, I'm not built that way. I want to protect a client and, knowing that while I was sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for a formal notice of employment and a retainer the case might have been blown wide open, I preferred to take a gamble." "Part of the service you give clients" Della said. "Part of the service I try to give clients" Mason told her. "Of course you lose out sometimes but in the long run it winds up in the credit side of the ledger." - Screaming Woman.
He [Mason] drove for a while in silence, and then said [to Della] somewhat savagely, "Ethics are rules of conduct that are made to preserve the dignity and the integrity of the profession. I'm inclined to confirm to the spirit of the rules of ethics rather than the letter.... I'm a lawyer. It may sound corny but my life is dedicated to improving the administration of justice. - Screaming Woman.
[Norma Logan to Mason] "She [Norma's stepmother] was terribly in love with my father up to the day she died. Dad had that way about him. When women fell in love with him, they never just got over it. I think they all recognized his shortcomings, but his fascination, his charm, and his gallantry, his romantic way of looking at life made him a perpetual prince charming." - Screaming Woman.
[Mason to Mr. Pelham] "The district attorney has all those alibis in front of him. They are mathematical clues. No one except the murderer of Tidings knows exactly when he [Mr. Tidings] was killed. Each person thought that he was killed shortly before he or she made the discovery of the body.... Therefore, the district attorney only has to check back on the alibis to pick the ones that cover the longest periods, and he knows he's getting warm. Mrs. Tidings started making her alibi date back from Monday Afternoon.... You can figure what that means." - Baited Hook.
[Ms. Hastings to Mason] "Must you dominate everyone with whom you come in contact? Can't you leave anyone a shred of self respect and self-volition? My first experience with you was so humiliating that I could cry about it, but now..." Mason said calmly "Let's face the facts, Miss Hastings. Your experience with men have been confined to social affairs where women are extended polite courtesy. I deal with problems of life and death. I have neither the time nor the patience for polite courtesies." [Ms. Hastings to Mason] "Don't you give an adversary an opportunity to save her face?" Mason said, "I'm sorry Miss Hastings, I deal in results. I care little for methods." - Baited Hook.That sounds like a J (as in MBTI). The P is more likely to look at the method? But I do know of J's who are very focused on the method. Which MBTI parameter indicates goal orientation?
[Ms. Hastings to Mason] "I could learn to hate you with very little effort. Mason's tone was detached and impersonal. "Many people hate me." - Baited Hook.
[Mason to Della] "truth is the most powerful weapon a man can use, and if you practice law the way we do, it's the only weapon powerful enough to use. A lawyer doing the things I do and relying on anything less powerful than the truth would be disbarred in a month." - Baited Hook.
[Mason] "Any time you go to court relying on something that isn't the truth, your whole defense may collapse under you. I don't handle my cases that way. I find out the truth, and build up my defense on a solid foundation...." - Baited Hook.
[Mr. Freel to Mason and Drake] "Oh, they [adoption homes] want to know all about the child, everything they can find out. They usually make the girls give them the names of their fathers. The girls hate to do that.... It's strange the way they try to protect the men who have betrayed them. It's the natural loyalty women have for men. Women are a lot more loyal to men than men are to women." - Baited Hook.
"Whoever got anything in life by being careful? Mason reported. "Every time you stop to figure what the other fellow is going to do, you unconsciously figure what you'd do in his position. The result is that you are not fighting him but yourself. You always come to a stalemate. Every time you think of a move you think of a perfect defense. The best fighters don't worry about what the other man may do. And if they keep moving things fast enough, the other man is too busy to do much thinking." - Baited Hook.
He [Mason] slammed the telephone receiver on its hooks, then suddenly started to laugh. "Dammit" he said to Della Street "one of those frosty, reserved, human adding machines gets under my skin worse than a dozen shysters who try browbeating tactics." - Baited Hook.Certainly that doesn't look like a T (as in MBTI).
"Well" she [Della] went on. "It's just guesswork, but i can't figure Ms. Hastings on any other basis. As a woman judging another woman, I'd say she was in love with Peltham.... At any rate she has a faith in him which doesn't seem entirely justified by the circumstances, and she's taking pains in making that faith public." - Baited Hook.
[Mason] "The term, CORPUS DELICTI, means the body of the Offense. In order to show it, in a charge of homicide, the Prosecution must show the death as the RESULT, and the criminal agency of the defendant as the MEANS. - Stuttering Bishop.
[Drake] "Now, of course, the old man wanted proof before he paid over the money, but he also WANTED to believe the girl was genuine. He wanted to be convinced. Eaves and the girl wanted to convince him. There wasn't anyone to take the other end of the argument. That's something like having a lawyer argue his case to the judge without having any witnesses or lawyer on the other side." - Stuttering Bishop.
Mason grinned. "Have you ever gone down to the sailing of one of those big ships, Della?" "No, why?" "Along at the last" he [Mason] said "there is a rush which jams the gangplank with a solid mass of jostling, pushing humanity. Now if YOU were a detective, and had seen a man go aboard in a black suit, with his head swathed in bandages, your mind would get just lazy enough to play tricks on you when the big rush started. In other words you wouldn't study each face. You'd subconsciously be looking for a bandaged and a black suit." - Stuttering Bishop.
This is so similar to what someone said to Bhaniram!
[Della to Mason] "You'll defend this Branner woman and not get a cent out of it, yet you're turning down a fee that's almost a fortune." Mason said "This Branner car has an element of mystery, a hint of poetic justice. There are all the elements of a gripping human drama. I'm not definitely committing myself to go all the way in it. I'm going to use such talents as I may possess to see to it that justice is done. But if I took that Warren case, I'd be using my talents and education to justify the sordid crime of the spoiled, pampered soon of a foolish and indulgent father." - Stuttering Bishop.
Life had not been particularly kind to her, and under the impact of adversity she [Stella Kenwood] had learned to turn the other cheek until her manner showed an utter non-resistance. - Stuttering Bishop.So interesting to see that she turned out to be the one who fired bullets into a man in order to safeguard her daughter's interests which specific interests the daughter had no right to in the first place.
He [Mason] nodded, eyes brimming with the joy of living. "How I love a mystery, Della," he said. "I hate routine. I hate details. I like the thrill of matching my [wits] with crooks. I like to have people lie to me and catch them in their lies. I love to listen to people talk and wonder how much of it is true and how much of it is false. I want, life, action, shifting conditions. I like to fit pieces of facts together, bit by bit, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle." - Stuttering Bishop.What an amazing character!!!
Hate details? That doesn't fit in....
Her hair was the color of spun copper, and she had the smooth complexion which usually goes with such hair. - Stuttering Bishop.This means women didn't dye their hair then. The author has correlated hair color to complexion.
"The law CAN make you [Della] testify." Mason said. "Why, I thought a lawyer's Secretary was in the same position as a lawyer in being a witness against a client." "She is" Mason told her "buy that applies only to confidential communications. It doesn't keep a lawyer's secretary from testifying things she's seen. And you know how I feel about suppressing evidence, Della. Any time I have to won cases that way, I'll quit practicing law." - Substitute Face.He often says this. Mason is very very particular that the truth come out. But he is quite flexible about the means he employs and the procedures he violates. If he wasn't particular about truth, there is very little difference between Mason and a bad man.
Mason said " She [Ms. Fell] is opinionated, obstinate and hates to lose an argument. She didn't take the stand as a witness but as an adversary. She was just going to give me 'a piece of her mind' and particularly anxious to show that no smart lawyer was going to rattle her. We run up against witnesses like that every so often, both men and women, people who will do anything rather than admit the possibility that they are mistaken." - Substitute Face.
[Drake to Mason] "How did you know that the Fell woman would blow up?" "I noticed her in the dining room. Whenever she wore an evening dress she left off her glasses. I'd noticed her rather particularly, because it seemed to me such an absurd gesture for a woman who had that wall of reserve thrown up around her, and who seemed to be so completely immune to emotion to sacrifice the comfort of her vision to make herself sounds attractive. I noticed from the way she walked that she seemed rather careful of putting her feet down and had an idea she depended pretty strongly on her glasses." - Substitute Face.Now, Is this the same man who doesn't observe how women are dressed but just knows that they ARE dressed? Hmmmmm. Look at the quote below. What was Gardener thinking?
Mason said "Paul, here's something. A piece of cloth torn from a woman's dress. I want you to make a few quiet inquiries among the passengers and see if you can find who had a dress of that description." "Wouldn't you know?" Drake asked. "You were on the ship." "Good Lord, no!" Mason said. "I see that they have clothes on and that's about all". - Substitute Face.Mason has too much Ne. I can't believe he could be that naive.
[Mason] "When i talk with a man I form an impression of whether or not he's telling the truth. If I can look Eves in the eyes and ask him about Della, I'll bet money I can tell whether he's lying". - Substitute Face.Definitely NF (not NT).
"Nothing doing" Mason interrupted. "I won't ask a man to take any chances that I won't take myself." - Substitute Face.
Mason promised "I won't say anything about what you've told me. If, of course, I should get the information from some other source, I couldn't guarantee." - Substitute Face.Were people aware of such NDA clauses in that era?
[Della to Mason] "Chief", she said you're clever when it comes to figuring evidence. You're usually good when you figure character. But there are some things about this woman [Mrs. Newberry] I don't think you have taken into consideration." "What?" Mason asked. "She's attractive," Della said, "and you can see by the way she throws her personality around that she's been accustomed to rely on it. A woman who uses her charm to get the things she wants out of life becomes dangerous when she reaches the late thirties and early forties. I'm telling you, Chief, that woman is shrewd, clever and designing. She trapped Moar into marriage, not because she cared anything about him, but because she wanted a home for her daughter and a veneer of respectability for herself. Moar was sufficiently unsophisticated to be easy. You never did hear Moar's side of this thing. Note you never will. It's my opinion that if you had ever heard Moar's story, you'd would have an entirely different slant on the whole thing. I think Belle realized that when she wanted you to talk with her father, and I think Mrs. Moar realized it and was willing to do absolutely anything to keep you quiet." - Substitute Face.
Mason said "You [Mrs. Newberry] told the captain you didn't go on deck. You insisted that you'd left the dining saloon, gone to your stateroom and your husband had left you there. Now then, you're going to have to change that story. Public sentiment is a funny thing. You can change your story once and get away with it, if you have some good explanation as to why you didn't tell the truth the first time. But you can never change your story twice. - Substitute Face.
[Belle to Mason] "Dad used to be prejudiced against what he called criminal lawyers, but that was before he served as a juror when a man was being tried for murder. The man was innocent, Dad says, but his lawyer, a man named Van Densie, seemed to have sold him out. But they couldn't fool dad. Dad held out for an acquittal, even when the other eleven were against him. And Dad finally managed to convince those other eleven jurors that the man was really innocent." - Substitute Face.Now this seems so similar to the "12 Angry Men" theme. The Case of the Substitute Face was written in 1938.
[Mason] "Jackson is a rotten fighter. He's tagging along taking what Rooney hands out. That's not the way to get anywhere. A good scrapper keeps the other man on the defensive, trumps the first ace he plays, and after that never lets him get a chance to lead with the others." - Substitute Face.Now this is an attitude which doesn't seem to fit with any of EINSFTPJ in MBTI. I wonder which parameter measures this attitude.
[Mason to Della] "That's partially it," he told her. "The other reason is that I don't like to represent persons who are guilty." - Substitute Face.
[Mason to Della] "Mass belief is a tangible psychic force. Notice the authenticated stories of persons who have violated Island beliefs and come to grief." - Substitute Face.
[Della and Mason] "Are you" she said "proposing to me?" He nodded. She looked thoughtfully down into the water, then raised her eyes to face him frankly. "As your wife" she asked "would I continue to be your secretary?" "Hardly. I couldn't give you orders. It wouldn't set well with the clients. But you wouldn't need to work. You could have a car of your own and-". "That's what I thought" she interrupted. "We're getting along swell the way it is. You'd would establish me in a home somewhere as your wife. Then you'd get a secretary to help you with your work. The first thing you knew, you'd be sharing excitement and experience with the secretary and I'd be entirely out of your life. No, Mr. Perry Mason, you aren't the marrying kind. You live at too high speed. You're too wrapped up in mysteries. I'd rather share in your life than in your bank roll." "But think of all that baggage" he told her, sliding his arms around her waist. It had those perfectly good initials "D.M", which we can't let go to waste." She snuggled close to him. "No," she said "my hunch is right. Chief, I think it is better for me to remain Della Street and have the baggage wrong than to become Della Mason and have everything else wrong." - Lame Canary.What a sweet phraseology in the last sentence.
Some people prefer the caring that one gets from another person (spouse / parent etc) because of WHO they are (meaning the role they are in). Some prefer that people care for them because of WHAT they are than for WHO (spouse / child etc) they are.
Mason said thoughtfully "It sounds foolish and yet it's getting me some place. It's paradoxical. The man who was murdered isn't the man who was murdered but the man who committed this murder. Now if we follow this contradictory premise through to a logical conclusion, Della, we're certainly going to be one step ahead of the police, because that's the starting point of deductive reasoning which would never suggest itself to them." - Lame Canary.This is N (may be Ne) definitely. But is this deductive or inductive reasoning?
[Mason to Della] "It depends on what you mean by being guilty. I don't necessarily define murder the same way the district attorney defines it. If there were circumstances of moral provocation, they might be just as compelling as circumstances of physical provocation. In other words, the law says that if a man is in a position to do great bodily harm, or to kill you, and he comes at you, apparently for the purpose of putting a murderous intent into execution, you have the right to kill him. In other words, that's a physical provocation. It's all the law, in it's blundering generality, can take into comprehension. But, how about the person who brings about a crushing mental or moral pressure upon a more or less helpless victim?" - Lame Canary.
[Mason] "Virtually every man has enemies. Sometimes they're business enemies. More often they are personal enemies, people who hate him, people who will look down their noses and say it's too bad when they hear he's bumped off, but who will be tickled to death just the same; but it takes a peculiar psychological buildup to perpetrate a murder. A man must have a certain innate ferocity, a certain lack of consideration and, usually, a lack of imagination." [Della] "Why a lack of imagination?" "I don't know" he [Mason] said "except that it's nearly always true. I think imaginative people sympathize with the sufferings of others because they're able to visualize those sufferings more keenly in their own minds. An unimaginative person on the other hand can't visualize himself in the shoes of another. Therefore he sees life only from his own selfish angle. Killers are frequently cunning but they are rarely original. Of course, I'm not talking about a murder which is the result of some sudden overpowering emotion." - Lame Canary.When Mason uses the word "unimaginative" I assume he means "unempathetic". Are killers really unimaginative or unempathetic? Or are people with empathy or feelings very unlikely to be killers?
Dimmick struggled to his feet. "You [Mason] look here" he shouted "you can't bulldoze us. You're not doing business with some cheap firm of shysters! Dimmick, Gray and Peabody represent the -". Mason said "Don't forget what the doctor told you Mr. Dimmick. You mustn't get excited." - Lame Canary.So very similar to the blood pressure incident!
[Mason] "You see, his manner very much contrasts my own. I sit in court with an armful of legal monkey-wrenches and toss them into the machinery whenever I see a couple of wheels getting ready to move around. Cuff is one of those chaps apparently wants to cooperate all the time. He was so nice down there at the inquest that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Yet he managed to squeeze out from under and leave Rita Swaine holding the sack." - Lame Canary.
[Drake to Mason] "Driscoll can't touch the principal until he is thirty five. The income goes to him in accordance with the terms of the trust, one of which is that he can't have more than three hundred dollars a month in some gainful and legitimate occupation. Then he can get more- but that's at the discretion of the trustees again." - Lame Canary.
[Mason] "Hundreds of thousands of marriages go on the rocks each year, but that doesn't mean that either or both parties to the divorce action are not ordinary likeable human beings. It simply means that emotions don't remain static; that love, like any other fire will burn itself out unless fresh fuel is added, and many people don't understand the art of making fresh fuel to romance, once the romance has culminated in marriage." - Lame Canary.Reminds me of what I read long time back - that a successful marriage is all about falling in love all over repeatedly with the same person.
Usually, hot towels on his face made him relax into a state where he was neither awake nor asleep, a peculiar drowsy half-dreaming condition in which, his imagination stimulated, he could see things with crystal clarity. - Lame Canary.
Della Street surveyed the lawyer with thoughtfully speculative eyes. "Chief" she said "speaking to you as a woman who has no illusions as to her sex and is, therefore, immune to feminine wiles and tearful entreaties, did it occur to you there's something strange about the way she reacted to that love affair? She wouldn't look you in the eyes when she talked about it. She acted as though something furtive, something to be concealed, something of which she was ashamed. Don't you think she may double-crossed her sister more than she admits - in order to get Jimmy, I mean." - Lame Canary.
[Rita] "You see Rosalind left this morning and Walter might make it appear that Jimmy had something to do with her leaving." "But Jimmy is in love with you" Mason said. She [Rita] nodded. "Well then" Mason said "why not simply come out and same so? Why not announce your engagement? "Because" she said "people might think it was something Jimmy, Rosalind and I had cooked up to prevent Walter from getting anywhere with his case." Mason's eyes narrowed. "So, you HAVE thought of that, have you?" - Lame Canary.This is so F and unlike T.
[Mason] "Now you have explained a perfectly intriguing mystery into an interesting commonplace." Her (Rita Swaine's) eyes showed indignation."I'm so sorry I bored you Mr. Mason!" she blazed. "After all my sister's happiness doesn't mean a thing as compared WITH YOUR entertainment." - Lame Canary.
[Mason] "An inveterate cigar smoker invariably wants to quiet his nerves with a cigar when he's about to engage in some particularly desperate undertaking."
Mason grinned. "A murder case is simply a jigsaw puzzle. If you have the right solution, all of the parts will fit into that puzzle. If some of the parts don't seem to fit, it's a pretty good indication you haven't the right solution."This rule has been mentioned in another case.
[Mason] "A person who enters a building with intent to commit larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary." - Lonely Heiress.How can it be so? Doesn't there have to be a burglary also committed? One doesn't convict a person solely on the basis of intentions. An act is also needed.
[Della to Mason] "What would you know about fixing evidence so that it would seem as though a girl had been unpacking instead of packing? You would botch it all up. Any man would. Don't be silly. Let's go." - Lonely Heiress.This seems one of the earlier Perry Mason novels since (a) Mason seems to be willing to modify crime scene evidence, (b) Tragg and Mason don't respect each other.
"What's holding us back?" she [Della] asked. Mason said "My damned conservative disposition." - Lonely Heiress.Here Della suggested to Mason that they go to crime spot and change evidence so that the suitcase which was supposed, by the police, to have been in the state of being packed by the murdered person was actually being unpacked.
"No Lieutenant, really, it isn't" (Tragg) "No?" Lieutenant Tragg raised his eyebrows with just the expression of polite incredulity." - Lonely Heiress.
[Mason] "There is altogether too much sloppy thinking about the 'natural' relatives being entitled to inherit. The only real protection an elderly man out sick man has in this world is the power to dispose of his property the way he wants to. That enables him to to reward special service and special attention if he gets it and enables him to hold his relatives in line. If a man couldn't make a will leaving his property to whomever he wanted, relatives would simply crowd him into the grave as fast as they could - that is, lots of them would." - Lonely Heiress.
"Just a glance" she [Della] said. "You couldn't possibly tell anything about her." "I can jump at conclusions" Mason grinned. "They may be wide off the mark, but in any event they're conclusions." - Lonely Heiress.Jumping to, perhaps, wrong conclusions!
[Mason] "Who is Arthur Ansell Ashland? I can't remember ever having heard of him." [Caddo] "Oh, you wouldn't ever have heard of anyone whose stuff appears in my magazine, Mr. Mason." [Mason] "Why not?" Caddo coughed deprecatingly. "Occasionally one finds it necessary, almost imperative, in fact, to do considerable detail work in order to be certain that there will be an ample supply of stories carrying out the general theme of the magazine." "You mean you write them yourself?" Mason asked. - Lonely Heiress.This is again an example of Ne.
Mason said "If your witness can't answer questions when you're here to ensure that I don't bullyrag him or browbeat him, he isn't going to make much of a witness when you put him on the stand and I have a chance to pour questions at him when nobody can stop me." - Lazy Lover.
[Mason] "we don't want him to do what's good for him. We want him to do what's good for my client... If my client is lying, she may be guilty. If she is, I am simply going to represent her to the best of my ability and let it go at that, but if Fleetwood is guilty, and if he is trying to blame it on my client, I'm going to try and outwit him." - Lazy Lover.Strange that Mason says this. He always believed in justice.
Mason - "how long would it take to pick out a dress which would have good striking black and white lines that would photograph well? Something with a deep V in front and white lines that emphasize the figure? "It might not take long" Della Street said, then at the expression on Mason's face, hastily said, " Again it might take quite a while to get EXACTLY what YOU have in mind." - Long-Legged Models.
This is so feminine, meaning the ability to read the meaning of the expression and react accordingly.
[Mason] "You must learn Della that an attorney cannot conceal evidence and he cannot destroy evidence. You must also learn that an attorney with imagination and an abiding belief in the innocence of the client he is representing can do a great deal. We have two things to be thankful for." [Della] "What?" [Mason] "First, we know in advance the police are going to trace the route taken by that taxicab [which Mason and Street used earlier in the day], and, second, the fact that Homer Garvin's wife insisted their first child should be named Homer, Jr." "That", Della said, wrinkling her forehead, "is just half as clear as mud." - Long-Legged Models.
[Mason] "If facts can be shuffled in such a way that it will confuse a witness who isn't absolutely certain of his story, and if the attorney doesn't suppress, conceal, or distort any of the ACTUAL EVIDENCE, I claim the attorney is within his rights.Concealing and destroying evidence is not OK as per Mason while planting misleading evidence is OK. He plants evidence often.
"I'm always glad to cooperate with the police." Mason said. Tragg drew his extended forefinger across his throat. "If everyone cooperated like you do, Mason, the D.A wouldn't have a thing to worry about." [Mason] "No?" [Tragg] "No. We'd never catch anyone, so he wouldn't have to try any cases." - Long-Legged Models.
[Tragg to Mason] "When did he [Mr. Garvin] last consult you?" "I take care of all his legal business, I believe" Mason said. "Sometimes I will have quite a bit of work for him and then at other times things will go along for months at a time without my hearing from him." Tragg turned again to Della Street. "Just listen to this fellow, Miss Street. Lots of interrogators would get sidetracked and forget what the question was about by the time they'd digested an answer like that." - Long-Legged Models.
"Well" Tragg said, "I can cross that information off." [Mason] "What do you mean you can cross that off?" "It doesn't have very much connection with the murder" Tragg said "Or you wouldn't have told me all of that". - Long-Legged Models.isn't it cute the way Mason answers questions. So guarded.
[Mason to Tragg] "I take it you mean that my obligation not to betray a client would control all of the other rules of ethics."Isn't that F?
[Tragg to Mason] "When you drove up in the taxicab, you were getting just a little careless. You should have paid off the cab a block from the office and walked the rest of the way. As it is now, I have the number of the cab, and as soon as I call the dispatcher, the cab driver will be asked to report to us..." "Doubtless you will" Mason said, "I'm glad you called my attention to a mistake in my technique, Tragg." "Don't mention it" Tragg said "I knew from the expression on your face, that as soon you as saw me you were mentally kicking yourself for not walking that last block." - Long-Legged Models.
"From the first moment I saw Vivian Carson" Morley Eden said "I was strongly attracted to her.". "It was mutual" Vivian Carson said. "This is a horrible confession for a woman to make, but I trembled like a leaf when I was around him". - Fenced-In Woman.
Lieutenant Tragg's eyes narrowed. "Perry mason is truthful. He'll either run you around in circles or he'll drag a red herring across the trail, or he'll s squeeze out of things but if he tells you something definitely and straight from the shoulder it's true. - Fenced-In Woman.
[Genevieve] "Some men are like that. They're essentially salesmen. They like to sell their stuff and feel they're getting an order on the dotted line, but when they've bought the merchandise, when it's in the house with them all the time, when it's eating with them, sleeping with them, traveling with them, they don't have any incentive to sell. And when they can't strut their selling, they get bored. After they get bored they get unresponsive. A man who is unresponsive is a net loss to himself and to the world. - Fenced-In Woman.
[Genevieve] Any girl who used to be respectable, and isn't, has to put up a front [to lie]. - Fenced-In Woman.
[Della] "Did you get your hair trimmed?" "I got the works" Mason said. "I got my hair trimmed, had a shave, a massage, a manicure and a shine. You told me that I needed to look my best for newspaper photographers and I thought it was a good idea." - Fenced-In Woman.
Mason started his cross-examination with the caution that a veteran lawyer uses when it becomes apparent the prosecution has dumped a witness in his lap knowing the defense attorney will have to cross-examine and that every answer the witness makes to questions on cross-examinations is going to damn the defendant still more. - Reluctant Model.
Mason picked up his briefcase. "I'm going down to have a talk with Maxine" he said."Want me with you?" Della Street asked. Mason shook his head. "I'm going to talk with her and see at what point she starts lying. She'd be more cautious with another woman present. I want her to turn on the charm and try to make a believer out of me." - Reluctant Model.
[Mason] "That's the tragic part of those cases where the jewelers were sued for putting the man in jail over the weekend. They just didn't have guts enough to fight and to dig into the guy's past, to check on the girl and find out all about her... Come on. Della, we're going up to Drake's office and see that he has a sleepless night. By this time tomorrow we're going to know tomorrow all there is to know about the background of Maxine Lindsay and all we can find about Collin M. Durant." "All on the strength of the fact that you didn't like Durant?" Della Street asked. "All on the strength of the fact that Durant impresses me as a phony." Mason said, "and if Otto Olney with his money has been trapped into a situation of this sort, I intend to beat everybody to the punch." - Reluctant Model.
"I know." Mason said, "That's because different people have different threshold of credulity. The average person looks at action which has been photographed and thinks the action is real. A lawyer or someone who has been working with a lawyer, like you, becomes more skeptical, and the faintest overacting, the faintest attempt to milk a situation past a critical point and you suddenly revolt. The subconscious mind refuses to accept the story, the conscious mind enters the picture with the realization that the whole thing is phony." - Reluctant Model.
Mason said "You know Della, the law schools teach law. No one teaches anything about the facts to which the law is applied, or what to do with the facts. Yet when a young lawyer starts practicing law he finds that his problems for the most part don't deal with the law but deal with proof. In other words they deal with facts.... Now let's take this case for instance. Ranking was all steamed up. He wanted to file suit. He wanted to get his name in the paper. He wanted to put his own professional reputation out on the block and he had a perfect legal right to do so. If I had let him walk into that trap, however, he would have been hung, drawn and quartered in the market place. Everyone would have remembered him as the art dealer who had been accused by another art dealer of peddling a phony painting... Now, however, the shoe is on the other foot. Durant is on the defensive. Rankin is sitting pretty, and the ultimate result will be to enhance Rankin's reputation." - Reluctant Model.What about Otto who was advised indirectly to file suit against Durant? Was he sitting pretty?
"All right," Mason said "instead of having you [Mr. Lattimer Rankin, the art critique/dealer] sue Durant for half a million dollars' damages, claiming that he has destroyed your reputation, and putting you in the position of going on the witness stand and trying to prove that Durant's statement was made with malice and that it undermined the confidence of your customers, actual and potential, we go to see Otto Olney [who bought a picture from Lattimer which Durant said, in private to Maxine, was a fake]". "Then" Mason went on "people reading the newspapers know that a man with the standing of Otto Olney has accused Durant of being a malicious spite-peddler.... The only thing that is in issue is the authenticity of the painting, not the amount of YOUR damages, not anything that can be dredged up from your background that you might not want to have publicized." - Reluctant Model.This is an amazing piece of offbeat thinking - to foist the case from the art dealer to the person who purchased the picture from the are dealer. Though this issue comes up in a telephonic discussion between Mason and the attorney for Otto Olsney, the former convinces the latter that Otto may have an issue if the public think he had been swindled into buying a fake picture. Perhaps a picture is not fake is a lot easier than proving that someone defamed you. Wowowow.
"That is why I [Mason] asked you [Lattimer] if the painting was genuine. If there is no room for doubt, we're going to handle it some other way. In a deal of this sort we have to fit our strategy to our facts." - Reluctant Model.
Some of these experts were so conscientious that they refrained from reading the opinions of the other experts until after they had formulated their opinions, lest they be influenced by others' thinking. - From the Foreword - Reluctant Model.Reminds me of a doctor who wanted to know what other doctors (in other specialties) said before he gave his own opinion. This was with respect to a battery of tests run on a patient. When I asked him WHY he needed to know what other doctors said, he replied that medicine is a complicated field and one had to take a holistic approach. I told him that was the job of the doctor who had requested for the set of tests to be conducted. It was neither the privilege nor the responsibility of each radiologist / cardiologist / urologist etc to give an overall view summarizing (a) the view of all doctors and (b) results of all tests. Usage of the word "holistic" is indicative of a personality that prefers width to depth.
[Mae Farr] "Because he has one of those devious minds that never approaches anything directly. He works around in a circle. If you want to know where he is going, you never look in the direction in which he's headed."
Duane Jefferson, cool and calm, got up and walked slowly to the witness stand. For a moment he didn't look at the jury, then when he did deign to glance at them, it was with an air of superiority bordering on contempt. "The damn fool" Mason whispered under his breath. - Terrified Typist.
Mason smiled at the witness [Yvonne], who promptly returned his smile, shifted her position slightly and crossed her legs, so that two of the masculine members of the jury hitched forward in their chairs for a better look while the chins of two of the less attractive women on the jury were conspicuously elevated. Her [Yvonne Manco's] neckline was high and her skirt was fully as long as the current styles dictated, but the attempt to make b her look conservative was as unsuccessful as would have been an attempt to disguise a racing car as a family sedan. - Terrified Typist.
[Mason] "And you couldn't find that cab?" [Drake] "My men are still working on it. But that's like going to some babe wearing a skirt reaching to her knees, a tight sweater and asking her if she remembered anyone whistling at her yesterday as she walked down the street yesterday." - Terrified Typist.
"Do better than that," Mason said. "As soon as you've finished with this girl, jump in your car and come up here. There's no use waiting around there any longer. We've found what we were looking for. You can close the office tomorrow. Take your ads out of the papers and tell all other applicants that the job is filled. Let's start cutting down the expense." - Terrified Typist.Usually Mason would not tolerate it if the police thought they found what they were looking for. He would expect that the police did a complete search. Now what is he doing here?
Della street said "how did you know about using unbalanced cross lighting to bring out the ridges?" "Cross examining photographers" Mason said "plus a study of books on photography. A lawyer has to know a little something about everything." - Terrified Typist.
[Mrs Dorla Belfour] "Not yet. Ted either doesn't know or won't tell. Apparently it was some trollop from the wrong side of the tracks." Mason's frown showed annoyance. [Dorla] "All right, all right" she said "I'm out of order. Remember, Mr mason, I came from the wrong side of the tracks myself, and I made it, but I'm telling you it's a long hard climb." - Lucky Loser.
[Addison Belfour] "All right I'm telling you. Don't trust Dorla. Dorla is a snob. Ever notice that people who have real background and breeding are considerate, tolerant, and broadminded, while people who haven't anything except money that they didn't earn themselves are intolerant?" - Lucky Loser.
"The skillful perjurer is he who sticks to so much of the truth as is possible, and only departs from it when it becomes absolutely unnecessary. These men who make up stories out of whole cloth usually leave a few loose threads somewhere." - Sulky Girl.
"Judge Purley" he [Mason] said "is rather opinionated and he would very much have disliked having to confess himself in error. In fact if I had asked him that question the first time he was on the witness stand he would have indignantly denied that such could have been the case, and the denial would have so impressed itself upon his own mind, that no amount of subsequent testimony could have caused him to even entertain the faintest notion that he might have been mistaken." - Sulky Girl.
In man there is implanted a sporting instinct to side with the underdog, but this is in man, the individual. Mob psychology is different from individual psychology and the psychology of the pack is to tear down the weaker and devour the wounded. Man may sympathize with the underdog, but he wants to side with the winner.
- Sulky Girl.
The defense had staked much on the happenings of a certain event, on the turn of a single card, and it is human nature to crowd breathlessly forward as spectators when men are risking high stakes on a single card. - Sulky Girl.
"The way to get to the bottom of a murder" he [Mason] said "is to pick out any pertinent fact that hasn't been explained and find the real explanation for that fact." - Sulky Girl.Beautiful, isn't it? Wowowow.
"Do you know what it would mean to a girl of her fire and temperament to be shut up in a penitentiary for the rest of her life?" asked Gleason. Perry Mason shook his head impatiently. "Of course I know" he said "Let's not start worrying about that now. Let's get down to facts." - Sulky Girl.Now that is a complete T (as in MBTI).
[Mason] "Give them all the material that they want to write about sob sister articles, character sketches and that stuff. But the minute they start talking about the case, or what happened on that night, simply dry up like a clam. Tell them that you're awfully sorry,that you'd like to talk about it, and that you don't see any reason why you couldn't, but that your lawyer has given you specific instructions that he's to do all the talking. Tell them you think it's silly and that you can't understand why your lawyer feels that way because you have nothing to conceal and you'd like to come right out and tell th whole circumstances as you remember them but you've promised your lawyer and you're not going to break your promise to anybody." - Sulky Girl.Is Mason really INTJ? Isn't there a good amount of F? No T appreciates the impact of how thing should be made to look. Does seem like F and perhaps P rather than J.
"Don't waste your film" Mason told him; "they won't publish my picture unless it's in connection with a courtroom scene, or walking down the street with Frances Celane, or something like that." Harry Nevers looked at him moodily and said in that bored monotone: "I'm not so certain. It depends on what you have got up your sleeve. You've pulled a couple of fast ones lately, and I'll have these pctures for the morgue in case we need'em. You can't ever tell what's going to happen." Perry Mason looked at him shrewdly. "In other words" he said "you've heard that there is some talk of arresting me as an accessory after the fact." - Sulky Girl.Most likely shrewdness, Ne (as in MBTI), F go together.
"Did Rob see your uncle the day he [uncle] was murdered?" asked Mason. She [Frances] shook her head, hesitated a moment, then nodded it. "Yes" she said "he did." "And the reason you changed your story just now and admitted it" he said "is that you suddenly remembered there is someone who knows [that] Rob saw your uncle. Who is that someone?" - Sulky Girl.
"What do you mean by cooperation" asked Mason. [Mr. Blackman] "I mean that I want the family to convey the impression to the police that they are not at all vindictive; that if Devoe did anything he was drunk when he did it, and that if the District Attorney will take a plea of manslaughter they'll be just as well satisfied. And that I'm going to want some of the gravy." "You mean" said Mason "that you want Frances Celane to see that you get paid to plead Pete Davor [Frances' family chauffeur] guilty of manslaughter so as to hush up any scandal? Is that what you're trying to convey to me?" Blackman got to his feet with ponderous dignity. "I think counselor" he said "that you understand my errand perfectly. I think that I have stated my position fairly and frankly and I do not care to commit myself by replying to the rather crude summary which you have attempted to make." - Sulky Girl.What I am impressed with is the author's turn of phrase. I also wonder about this kind of character (Mr Blackman). The subtlety that he employs.
"Yes sir" said the secretary. "You'll find several life insurance policies in cash to the estate. Those were taken out in order to have sufficient ready cash in the estate to pay inheritance taxes without necessitating a sale of securities at a loss." - Sulky Girl.
"We're going to let him be his own man for a while and recover his poise. We're also going to give him a chance to outwit the police just as much as possible. If his half brother tries to show that he is incompetent again, we can show that he was outwitting Lieutenant Tragg and that calls for rather a high IQ." "I thought you were trying to make him the murderer and prove that he was legally insane." Della said. Mason grinned, "the good campaigner changes his battle plans in accordance with changing facts." - Beautiful Beggar.
"Why not?" Drake asked. "I'll stick my neck out. I'll put the license on the line to give your client a break." "It isn't that," Mason said "In the first place I am an officer of the court, I can't tamper with evidence. As a licensed detective, you can't. In the second place, I've always found that truth is the strongest weapon in the arsenal of any attorney." - Beautiful Beggar.
Driving back to his office, Drake said "Why all the flowery talk, Perry? The money [tips to the waitress] would have been enough. That's what they care about." Mason shook his head "They like appreciation." [Drake] "You show it with money." "No you don't." Mason said "It takes both money and words. Money without words is vulgar. Words without money are cheap." - Beautiful Beggar.
"No skullduggery about it" Mason said grinning. "Darwin Melrose is the kind of attorney who goes into so darned much detail he sometimes lets the general issue slip by through his fingers". - Beautiful Beggar.Incidentally, this story has a minor plot where a bona fide person tries to cash a check for $125,000 from her uncle's account which cannot be cashed because the villain has wiped the account clean. Now there happens to be a new credit of $50,000 into the uncle's account which the villain isn't aware of. Mason takes a loan of $75,000 from the bank, deposits the same into the uncle's account, then cashes the $125,000 for the niece, repays his $75,000 loan to the bank and pays $50,000 to the niece. I have come across the same plot in an English novel :( I forget the name of the novel.
[Mason] "Daphne, you have been the victim of a very clever conspiracy. Also it's a conspiracy as old as the hills. A wealthy man has relatives. Some of the relatives are close to him; some are not. The relatives who aren't close to him come to visit, get themselves established in the house, get rid of the relatives close to the man, then take advantage of the absence to claim the old man is mentally weak and subject to being exploited by shrewd and designing persons. They have themselves appointed conservators, tear up any will they may find and so put themselves in a position of sharing in the estate." - Beautiful Beggar.
[Daphne] "But how can they get a person declared incompetent when he's really in full possession of all his faculties?" "That" Mason said "is the diabolically clever part of it. You take any man who is past a certain age, who is accustomed to love, devotion and loyalty then surround him with people who are willing to perform perjury; who constantly irritate him and perhaps are willing to use drugs, and the first thing you know you have a man who seems to be incompetent."
[Mrs Reedley] "Orville has no peace within himself and therefore people whom he comes in contact with don't have any peace either." - Borrowed Brunette.
[Mason] "Here we have Reedley, apparently a man of considerable means, with a restless driving temperament that makes him turn from one thing to another and would naturally make him go from one woman to another. As he gets older, his changes will be made less frequently; but that type of man never celebrates a golden wedding anniversary." "What I am getting at" Mason said "is that a man of such temperament never furnished an apartment in the way that one is furnished." - Borrowed Brunette.
[Mason] "The husband's detectives are shown a photograph that's a fuzzy snapshot, given a description and told to go to that address, pick up Helen Reedley and shadow her day and night. They get on the job, the address is right, the apartment is in the name of Helen Reedley. A brunette who answers the description of the woman they want is living there. They start shadowing her. There's a chaperone living there with her and the two are inseparable. The husband gets a steady string of reports showing the greatest decorum all around. He gets discouraged and tells his lawyers to make the best settlement possible in the circumstances." "And in the meantime the real Helen Reedley is out playing the field?" Drake asked. "Well" Mason said "she is probably being a little discrete about things, but my guess is that she isn't spending the long evenings by the fireside with her crocheting and knitting". - Borrowed Brunette.
Mason's nod was not one of agreement, but much the gesture of a man who doesn't want to waste time in profitless argument and so yields the point, leaving his mind free to concentrate. - Borrowed Brunette.
Della Street, knowing how much of his success was due to his ability to make instantaneous appraisals of character and to a sympathetic understanding of human nature, saw nothing unusual in the fact that Mason should interrupt a busy schedule to count the brunettes who were standing at corners on the south side of Adams Street." - Borrowed Brunette.Instantaneous appraisals of character are not made by T.
Mason sighed "I'he always been used to controlling events. I hate like hell to find myself in a position where events are controlling me." - Mischievous Doll.
Drake seemed uncomfortable. "The police" he said "are trying to pin this [murder] on Brogan. They're claiming the fingerprints are those of Brogan's accomplice. That Brogan engineered the whole thing. Mason grinned. "Aren't you going to tip them off" Della Street asked "so that they can lay off Brogan and catch Jarrett Bain before he disappears into the jungle?" Mason grinned. "There's such a thing as poetic justice. Let's let Mr. Brogan sweat a little. They can't actually convict him on the evidence they have now. They have evidence enough to arrest but enough to convict. As far as Jarrett Bain is concerned let's let the police solve their own problems. Our responsibilities are very definite and very limited, Della. We were representing Hattie Bain who has now been discharged from custody." Hattie Bain and her green eyed sister" Della said. "Oh by all means" Mason grinned "the green eyed sister. Little Miss Fix-It. We mustn't forget her." "Oh my Lord" Della Street exclaimed "That telegram summoning Jarrett to the jungle on account of that new archaeological discovery! Remember she said --." She broke off and looked wild eyed at Mason. The lawyer lit another cigarette. "Little Miss. Fix-It" he said. - Green Eyed Sister.Mason's opinion that he was representing Hattie Bain and that the police could find the real murderer themselves is at variance with his usual attitude that he serves the interest of justice. Here he seems to be much more interested to prove that his client was innocent than in catching the true culprit.
She [Mrs. Atwood] said "After your conversation with Dad yesterday afternoon he was very upset." "Naturally" Mason said "but you must remember that the thing that upset him was not my conversation but what J. J. Fritch had told him." - Green Eyed Sister.
"And" Della Street said bitterly "Not being a woman you can't break out crying on Sergeant Holcomb's shoulder and have him solicitously put you to bed." Della Street said "She is too busy stealing her sister's boyfriend." "No, she is just giving her sex appeal it's morning exercise" Mason said. [Della] "That's what you think." - Green Eyed Sister.
"Who's your client? she [Della] asked sharply". [Mason] "Technically, I suppose it's Sylvia Atwood, but actually I think we are representing the cause of justice."
[Mrs. Atwood] "His wife is filthy rich and terribly snooty." [Mason] "In other words she doesn't like you". - Green Eyed Sister.
[Mason] "But you have just told me that Hattie is now going to have her chance with Edison Doyle. [Mrs. Atwood] "I hope she's going to have her chance but - well - a man wants a lot of things in a woman. He wants a mate. He wants someone to keep his home. He wants someone to raise his children. He wants a companion. He also wants fun." "Are you trying to tell me" Mason asked "that Edison Doyle was happy with Hattie [Mrs. Atwood's sister] until he began to see more of you and then lately you felt he was comparing you and Hattie and perhaps becoming a little interested in you?" [Mrs. Atwood] "Good heavens, am I that obvious?" - Green Eyed Sister.This is another example of how (an) F summarizes and and another (F) catches on. They say it takes one to know/catch another one. Or as better put in the Tamil adage பாம்பறியும் பாம்பின கால். (A snake recognizes another snake's leg)
[Mason] "You can take a horseshoe magnet, run it around a spool of tape and erase everything on it, but a good flat magnet works a lot better". "Well I'll be dammed" Drake said. "I never knew that. That is, I never thought of it exactly in the same way. I know, of course that conversations were recorded due to pulsations in a magnetic field." - Green Eyed Sister.This seems similar to the first evening scene in 3 Idiots where, on the first day at college, Rancho is ordered to come out of the room immediately by the seniors who threaten to piss on his room door and Rancho's subsequent action. Whereupon someone comments that while everyone had read the science involved, Rancho had put the science to real use.
(Brogan) "I am willing to act as an intermediary. I am willing to represent Mrs Atwood in securing possession of certain evidence which she feels, or which she works feel, might be very embarrassing to her family. I am certainly not going to identify myself in any way with that man Fritch. I don't like him. I don't like his tactics. I would certainly never permit my professional reputation to be smirched by engaging in any such nefarious activity". - Green Eyed Sister.Interesting to note that Brogan was the real blackmailer.
"She is Mrs Atwood and the green eyes are as cold as a cash register", Della street said. "Her manner, on the other hand, is a purely synthetic attempt to belie the expression of her eyes. I imagine her whole life has been like that." (Mason) "What does she want? " it's a business matter", Della street said, her voice mimicking the mincing manner of the client. "A matter too complicated to be discussed except with a trained legal mind." (Della) "Very hoity toity. Very snooty. Very superior. Very very definitely moving in a social stratum from that occupied by secretaries." (Mason) "Well you have given me a pretty good description of a client whom I don't think I am good to like." A coldly hostile glance at Della Street plainly showed her [Mrs. Atwood's] annoyance at the presence of a secretary. Then she twisted about in the chair in a peculiarly feline manner and adjusted herself into the most comfortable position. - Green Eyed Sister.Reminds me of Badhri's mother.
Her [Della's] eyes looked out over the long reaches of the desert that stretched out far below.. "We're happy now" she said. "You can't tell what marriage will do to us [Perry and Della]. We'd have a home. I'd be a housekeeper. You'd need a new secretary - you don't want a home. I don't want you to have a new secretary. Right now you're tired. You've been matching wits with a murderer. You feel as though you'd like to marry and settle down. Day after tomorrow you'll be looking for a new case where you can go like mad, skin through by a thousandth of an inch. That's the way you want to be and that's the way I want you. You'd never settle down and I don't want you to. And besides, Salty couldn't leave the camp all alone tomorrow. - Drowsy Mosquito.
[Pete Sims about how to make a sucker out of a customer] "If you had been the one who discovered the chunk of ore the sucker would have been suspicious. He'd would have wanted to call in a couple of mining engineers and had you give him bank references before he'd even listen to you. But when he discovers it, and thinks he's slipping one over on you, he becomes the salesman and you're the customer. That's all there is to it. It's his own baby and he is putting it across." - Drowsy Mosquito.This shows incredible practical intelligence in a person like Sims. Is it crystallized or fluid? N or S (MBTI)?
Mason had no trouble recognizing the profile. It was that of Lillian Bradissonm, and the illumination from the green-shaded desk lamp on the top of the roll-top desk etched the lines of expression on her face - lines of cunning greed, an avarice which had become unchained and had wiped all of the carefully cultivated smirk from her face. In that moment, Mrs. Bradisson's emotions had lost their protective covering and stood unpleasantly naked for his inspection. - Drowsy Mosquito.
[Mason] "I'll thank you to remember that my clients are not criminals until they have been convicted by juries - and so far that hasn't happened." - Drowsy Mosquito.Mason used to always claim that he would never defend a guilty person - implying that the guilt of a person can be ascertained independently of a jury's verdict.
Tragg said curiously "I suppose you'll tell me next that the person who slipped that poison into your sugar is entitled to the benefit of all the safeguards of the law." [Mason] "Why not?" [Tragg] "Don't you feel any resentment?" [Mason] "I couldn't feel any resentment against anyone to ask that due process be disregarded. Due legal process is my own safeguard against being convicted unjustly. It's law and order." - Drowsy Mosquito.
Velma Starler R.N. had been troubled of late with insomnia. Nurselike, she fought against taking drugs. particularly as she realized that her sleeplessness was due to an inner conflict. Her patient had moved out of the house, sleeping under stars, eating an unbalanced diet, scorning advice - and thriving on the treatment. - Drowsy Mosquito.
Pete is a claim salter, a bunco artist, a periodic drunkard with an aversion for work. Howard small, a mining broker and promoter who has been dabbling around in psychology and the power of mental suggestion, told Pete, a year or so ago, about split personalities-and ever since then Pete has had a secondary personality for a scapegoat. It's absolutely ludicrous, but he seems naively sincere about it. He claims Small asked permission to use him as a subject in continuing hypnotic experiments, and that almost as soon as he became hypnotized this secondary personality makes its appearance. What makes it so urgent ridiculous is that Pete hasn't a sufficient idea of split personalities to make his stories even slightly plausible. He just goes ahead with his drinking and swindling and then blames all of his lapses on this secondary personality, a mysterious entity whom he calls "Bob". - Drowsy Mosquito.This idea of split personalities has been the theme in the Tamil movie Anniyan as well as a Sydney Sheldon novel Tell Me Your Dreams. A quote from the novel: "my alter ego Pete did it".
[Della] "Not exactly. It's so keeping out of your position [referring to Mason's placing an eye in the hand of deceased]. You do the damnedest things. You're half saint and half devil. There isn't any middle ground. You go to both extremes." He [Mason] laughed at her and said "I hate mediocrity". - Counterfeit Eye.
"How about Hazel Fenwick?" she [Della] asked. "They'll pick her up one of these days" Mason told her. "Dick Bassett certainly had a narrow escape. If it hadn't been for that murder the female Bluebeard would have chalked up two more victims." [Della] "Two more?" "Sure" he [Mason] said. She'd have bumped Hartley Bassett first, and then Dick. Perhaps she would have cleaned up Sylvia Bassett as well". [Della] "How can women do things like that?" [Mason] "Just sort of a disease" he said "a mental quirk". - Counterfeit Eye.
I don't ask a man if he is guilty or innocent. When I start to represent him, I take his money and handle his case. Guilty or innocent he is entitled to his day in court, buy if I should find one of my clients was really guilty of murder and wasn't morally or legally justified, I'd make the man plead guilty and trust to the mercy of the court." - Counterfeit Eye.
"I've been in law business a long time" Mason told them. "I've seen them come and I've seen them go. I've seen men of this type before. Their first crime is usually a small crime. Someone covers it up, with a great deal of sacrifice. Now, I'm willing to bet you ten to one that this isn't the first time you've had to make good for Harry, isn't it?" [Mason] "He's one of those fellows who want to be 'big shots'. He hasn't got guts enough to go out and do it by hard work." - Counterfeit Eye.
[Mason] "It's just the feeling I have when I get off on a wrong trail. Perhaps its my subconscious trying to warn me." "When you once get the correct pattern, every single event fits into that pattern. It dovetails with every other event that impinges upon it." - Drowning Duck.The last sentence seems like a description of Ne (as in MBTI) behavior.
[Mason] When the master pattern seems to accommodate all of the events except one, and you can't make that event fit in, it's pretty apt to mean that your master pattern is wrong." - Drowning Duck.
[Mrs. Dangerfield] "Sarah and I didn't always get along too well, although, because our husbands were partners, we made things seem very smooth and harmonious on the surface". "Did the men know you didn't get along?" Mason asked. [Mrs. Dangerfield] "Good heavens, no! It was too subtle for men to get, just the little things that women can do. The raising of an eyebrow at the appropriate time, or just the way she happened to look at the length of skirt I'd be wearing or when her husband would compliment me on my appearance and turn to her to ask if she didn't think I was getting younger every day she'd agree with him, with just touch of cooing sweetness which is entirely lost on a man but means so much to a woman." - Drowning Duck.That is an excellent summary of F (MBTI).
A woman would have placed her [Mrs. Burr] in the thirties. A man would have placed her in the twenties. Her white gown, although far from conservative, was not daring in cut. It was the manner in which it clung to her body that ensured her of the attention of every man in the room. Her [Lois'] dress was of a different type. Nor did she walk with the swaying seductive rhythm which made Mrs. Burr's every movement very noticeable. She moved with the natural verve of a dynamic young woman who is entirely free from self-consciousness. Her presence gave the room a wholesome freshness and in some way flattened out the highlights of Mrs. Burr's more seductive personality. - Drowning Duck.
Marvin said "She's out there pacing the corridor. I presume she feels rather helpless". Lois Witherspoon flashed him a swift glance. "Helpless, in that gown?" [Marvin] "You know what I mean, Lois." [Lois] "I do and I know what she means. That woman is altogether too man conscious to suit me." - Drowning Duck.
[Della] "He [Mr Witherspoon] claims he either takes to a man at first sight or never likes him at all." "A dangerous habit" the lawyer [Mason] commented. - Drowning Duck.Strong indication of P and not J (as in MBTI).
It was a face that mirrored a sensitive mind, a mind that was capable of great suffering, one that a great shock might unbalance. - Drowning Duck.How can a face be categorized (supposedly accurately) like this?
[Mason] "No matter what happens, a lawyer should never become convinced of the guilt of his client". "Why?" Drake asked "Are lawyers' consciences that brittle?". "It isn't a question of lawyer's conscience." Mason said. "It's a question of doing justice to a client. Once you become convinced your client is guilty you interpret all of the evidence in a false light and weigh it by false standards." - Drowning Duck.
"The little things," Mason said, "little details which escape the average observer, are the things that tell the whole story. If a man really understands the significance of the little things no one can lie to him. Take that wrangler, for instance. The people who come here have money. They are supposed to be intelligent. They've had, as a rule, the best education money can buy. They usually try to exaggerate their ability as horsemen, in order to get better mounts. And they are oblivious of the little things to do which give lie to their words. The wrangler stands by the hitching post, apparently sees nothing and yet can tell to a certainty just how much a person knows about a horse. A lawyer should appreciate the significance of that." - Drowning Duck.
"Prior to 1929", Mason said, "kids had too much of everything. Then after the crash, they didn't have enough of anything. So they became too much concerned with economic problems. We began to think too much about sharing wealth, instead of creating it. Youth should create something and it should have something to create". - Drowning Duck.
He always made allowances for human weaknesses, and frequently had said that every man who has long enough to be more than a stuffed shirt, has a closed chapter in his life. If he hasn't, he isn't a man. - Drowning Duck.
Once when Della Street had asked him what was the most valuable attribute a lawyer could have, Mason had answered, "That peculiar something which makes people want to confide in you". When he seated himself in a hotel lobby or on a train, persons who were seated next to him almost invariably started a casual conversation and wound up baring their innermost secrets. As Mason himself had once said, a lawyer either has it or he doesn't. If he has it, it's as much a natural gift as having a good ear for music. If he doesn't have it, he shouldn't practice law. Della Street insisted that it was merely the instinctive reaction which people gave to one who could comprehend human frailties, and extend sympathetic understanding. - Drowning Duck.
"I guess she must have been more in love with me than I thought" Garvin said somewhat thoughtfully. It was my second marriage that turned her into a hell-cat. She probably felt there was a hope for reconciliation before that". "Don't be so certain, Edward" Lorraine [2nd Mrs. Garvin] said puncturing his ego in well-chosen words. "It was only when you married me, she saw an opportunity to squeeze money out of you by filing a bigamy charge." - Dubious Bridegroom.
[About Mrs. Ethel Carter] While her figure did not have the lines of early youth, it had, nevertheless, maintained the slim-waisted symmetry which comes with a well disciplined diet. There was about her face and about her eyes, the calm self-contained look of a woman who has coordinated her life with the greatest care and makes every move as the result of some carefully preconceived plan. "You shouldn't have done that" she added in a tone that indicated she might well have added "Silly Boy". "When a man possesses a woman" Mrs Garvin said "he has acquired a very peculiar possession. It is, in a way, an emotional mirror, a sounding board, an animated echo of his emotions. He gets back exactly what he gives." "The man may lie to his wife; he may cheat a little, but he will always value her as his prized possession. But when he starts regarding her as a ball and chain, she can slam the door of the prison very, very tight, Mr. Mason, and throw away the key." "Mr. Mason, a woman frequently tells a man a lot of things when she is trying to renew his passion, his love, his regard for her. For instance, she may tell him that she's about to commit suicide, she may make all sorts of threats, all sorts of statements, all sorts of promises." - Dubious Bridegroom.
Della Street said "The second Mrs. Theilman is a plaything, a highly polished, perfectly poised, expensively plaything. She's on her way up. As long as she's on her way up, she is going to keep planning. She doesn't intend to remain static. When she quits moving up, she will move out. After she has been with Morley Theilman long enough to get a good property settlement, she isn't going to remain with a man fifteen years her senior and settle down. She is going to keep a tight hold on Morley Theilman until she is entirely finished with him. When she is entirely finished with him, Morley Theilman is going to have had all that he wants of sleek sex. He's going to look around for the plain, sincere, sweet, simple and honest in life. Janice Wainwright just may be grooming herself for the part of the third Mrs. Theilman." - Shapely Shadow.Incidentally, when Mason meets the second Mrs, Theilman, she is described to be a person who is in her late twenties while Mr Theilman is supposed to be 38. So he cannot be fifteen years her senior.
"According to my book that's the main trouble with unhappy marriages. If a woman finds her husband is slipping she doesn't have guts enough and nerve enough to face the facts and clear out of the picture while she is still attractive to other men. She temporizes and nags and becomes frustrated and loses her looks and then the inevitable happens and she is cast out on the world and sings the same old familiar dirge that she gave her husband the best years of her life." - Shapely Shadow.
[Bertha] "Of course I couldn't make him [the dog] overcome a big fear just by reasoning with him or struggling with him. But I can find out the little fears and get him to conquering them. After that the big ones will ones will take care of themselves." "A man's got to respect himself in order to get respect from others. It's the same way with a dog" - The Valley Of Little Fears - The Crimson Kiss.
Sixty-five years old, white-headed, steely eyed, square of shoulder and broad of beam, she had experienced many and varied vicissitudes in life, and from them had extracted a salty philosophy of her own. Her love was big enough to encompass those who were dear to her with a protecting umbrella. Her hatred was bitter enough to goad her enemies to confused retreat. - Crimson Kiss.
[Mason] "Did you ever start out trying to fry eggs, break the yolks and then save your face by scrambling them and pretending you had intended to scramble them all along? Neely grinned, "Yes", he admitted". "That's a damned good way to try a lawsuit when you are up against a frame-up" Mason said. "When you scramble eggs no one can tell which yolk was accidentally broken and when you scramble facts you have at least upset the plans of the man who thought he had a perfect frame-up." - Restless Redhead.
Judge Kippen interrupted, "The law is the science of applying justice to facts which have previously been determined and which are properly adduced in a court of law. When those facts haven't been properly collected the law is groping in the dark. That's why we have cases involving a miscarriage of justice." - Restless Redhead.
[Mason] "A Lawyer is trained to look at facts with a good healthy cynicism". [Della] "But she said the gun hadn't been fired". [Mason] "That's what she said" - Restless Redhead.
"I don't know any law that you don't" Mason replied "but I've been practicing long enough to realize that it's advisable to get all the facts and then apply the law". - Restless Redhead.
"She was tall, about five feet six." - Restless Redhead.About 70 years ago that was true of American women. Increase in longevity, height, weight are indicative of having traveled more in the continuum of evolution.
[Irene Smith] "What I mean is your pictures look just like you". "Well, why shouldn't they?" Mason smiled and indicated a chair. "After all", he said, "that's the whole purpose of having a picture made." [Irene Smith] "No it isn't. You would be surprised at the number of people who want pictures made that don't look like them". - Restless Redhead.
"There were times when she felt a qualm at the idea of Nancy occupying her mother's bedroom but that was when Nancy wasn't physically present. There was something about Nancy, a verve, an originality, a somewhat different way of looking at things, that made her distinctive and colorful. One could never resent Nancy Gilman in the flesh." - Duplicate Daughter.
Mason said "When I looked down at [the woman's dead] body, it didn't seem to me that she's been a woman who would have had a voice such as the one I'd had heard on the telephone. So I asked - this other party - if the housekeeper had been up in the world at one time, and then had some bad luck. Had to go to housekeeping. That would have accounted for the well bred voice you know." - Empty Tin.
"She looked at it with the frowning displeasure of a systematic individual finding something definitely at variance with an established system" - Empty Tin.
"In other words Gillett was one of a type, a man who doesn't think very far ahead but plots to escape from a predicament as fast as it develops without carefully planning the whole situation" - Bigamous Spouse.
"Now let me see if I understand your testimony", Mason said. "If the defendant in this case had killed Mervin Selkirk, she would have gone to a house owned by Barton Jennings, she would have found some way of possessing herself of a weapon belonging to Barton Jennings, she would have then left the house and gone to the San Sebastian Country Club; she would have fired a single shell which resulted in a fatal wound bringing death to Mervin Selkirk, and then, regardless of whether she carried an eighty five pound printing press out into the brush into the dark without stumbling, tearing her clothes or getting ink all over her garments, she would have returned to her room in the Jennings house, would have taken a rattail file and spent some time working on the barrel of the gun so that the bullet could not be identified and then would have conveniently left that gun under the pillow of the bed on which she was sleeping so you find it there without any difficulty. Now my question is this, is there anything in your testimony that is inconsistent with such facts?" - Deadly Toy.What an amazing way to destroy an allegation!!!
"It is far better to resort to the unorthodox and the dramatic than it is to have an innocent defendant convicted of crime." - Deadly Toy.
"In other words, you [Lieutenant Tragg] don't join with Sergeant Holcomb in considering that his discovery of the printing press represented an epochal achievement in the chronicles of crime detection?" - Deadly Toy.
"Well" she said, "Paul Drake wasn't happy". "I didn't expect him to be happy" Mason said. "When you hire a detective you pay him for services rendered. If he follows instructions, you can guarantee to keep him out of jail, but you can't guarantee to make him happy." - Deadly Toy.Would any F say this?
"Can't you" she [Della] asked "use the knowledge so you can drop a monkey wrench in the prosecutor's machinery without bringing the boy into it?". "I'm darned if I know," Mason admitted, and then added grinning, "of course you would look at it from a woman's viewpoint and want to protect the child regardless of anything else". - Deadly Toy.
"The indolent, smiling politeness, the affable courtesy of his manner, was a mask. Beneath the partially contemptuous, partially amused but always polite manner with which he regarded the world, was a sadistic streak, an inherent selfishness which covered itself with a veneer of extreme politeness." - Deadly Toy.
"I didn't make a mistake in advising her in regard to the law" Mason said, "but I made a mistake in letter her stick her neck way, way out; and then notwithstanding the fact that I had been warned about her tendency to disregard her lawyer's advice and do things on her own, I let her out of my sight during the most critical period of all". - Fabulous Fake.;
"It's not any one particular thing" Mason said. "It's a combination of things. You take a man who is making his living directly or indirectly out of women and he knows there is something wrong inside. He tries to cover it up. He tries to square himself with himself. He tries to put the best possible veneer on top of what's underneath in order to hide the rotten part. So he goes in for a faultless personal appearance. His shoes are always shined. His trousers are sharply creased. He wears expensive shirts and ties. His nails are always well manicured. The skin of his hands is well cared for. His chair is cut, combed and brushed so that it makes a flattering appearance in the mirror. Then there's his voice. A voice that isn't used to carrying weight with the world in general but is sharply authoritative in dealing with a situation which he thinks he can handle. It lacks tone and timbre. You have the feeling that if he became enraged and flew off the handle his voice would rise to a sharp falsetto" - Fabulous Fake.Ayn Rand's writing seems to resemble his so much...
It was, Mason decided as he accepted her invitation and entered the house, an interest [in people, things] which would make this woman very fascinating. This was not the eager curiosity of the youngster, nor the exploitation of the adventuress, but rather the appraisal of one who has acquired a perspective, has lost all fears that events may get out of hand, and is frankly quite curious to see what new experiences life has to offer. - Buried Clock.
She said "Mr Mason, I will tell you something you can't use as evidence. It isn't worth a snap of your fingers anywhere. If you tell it to anyone, they'll laugh at you, but you can take it from a woman who knows her way around that Milicent Hardisty went out there to kill her husband. She went out with the deliberate intention of murdering him. Probably not because of the hurt he had inflicted on her but because of the hurt he had inflicted on someone else. She came within an ace of killing him. Perhaps she even fired a shot and it missed. And suddenly she realized the full potential effect of what she had almost done, realized what the gun she held in her hand really was. It ceased to be a mere means by which she could remove Jack Hardisty [her husband] from her life forever, but became the key which fitted the door of a prison cell. It became the symbol of the bondage to the law, something that would chain her to a cell until she was an old woman, until love had left her life forever. And she had this sudden revulsion of feeling, and wanted to get rid of that gun. She had a horror of it. She wanted to throw it so far that she'd never see it again. And then she was going to the man she loved. And, regardless of consequences, she was going to live her life with that man." - Buried Clock.
The interesting this about this quote is that a woman saw another woman throwing a gun away, saw her face actually for a fleeting moment only. The quote above is the opinion of the former woman about the latter woman based on that fleeting moment. What did the former woman see that she could see so much?
"Okay you win", Tragg interrupted. "You don't have to explain when you have won. Winners never explain. Losers always do." - Fiery Fingers.
"Really, Lieutenant, you mustn't attach too much importance to such inanimate clues. It's much more satisfactory to analyze motivations and opportunities and deduce what must have happened." - Haunted Husband.
"Any time I have to depend on perjured evidence to get my client acquitted, I will quit trying cases" - Sleepwalker's Niece.
"A lawyer looks at a case differently from the way other people do. Murders are just cases to a lawyer. He doesn't know the people who are killed, he doesn't know the people who are accused. He is able to give better service that way. He is not blinded by sympathies and his mind isn't clouded by worries." - Sleepwalker's Niece.
Doesn't that remind you of Boman Irani in Munna Bhai MBBS? - It's interesting how the movie made fun of the surgeon and glorified a gunda who cured people with his magical hugs. And this is so T and un-F. And here is an example of Mason being shown as a T while he is usually shown as a F.
"Men like Duncan, prejudiced, egotistical and opinionated, are the most dangerous perjurers in the world because they wont admit, even to themselves, that they are committing perjury. They are so opinionated all of their reactions are colored by their prejudices. They cant be impartial observers on anything." - Sleepwalker's Niece.
Is there a link to Cognitive Dissonance in such characters?
“What the hell can a man lose? He can't lose his life because he doesn't own that, anyway. He only has a lease on life. He can lose money, and money doesn't mean one damn thing as compared with character. All that really counts is a man's ability to live, to get the most out of it as he goes through it, and he gets the most kick out of it by playing a no-limit game.” - Caretaker's Cat
The case of the footloose doll written around 1933 seems to provide the theme for the Tamil movie Ooty Varai Uravu as well as for the Hindi movie Kati Patang. Not only that, the crutch of the murdered man was drilled into (in one of Perry Mason novels "The Caretaker's Cat") and was the hiding place for some expensive diamonds. Somehow I related this to the crutch used by the Jackal in the final scenes in the novel Day of the Jackal.
We usually say that a man is innocent until proven guilty (in a court of law). And I think this is interpreted as: no matter what a person is known to have done, he isn't guilty until the court says so. And if that is so, none of us knows what is right or wrong until a jury or the judge decides. If we can't know anything about right or wrong before a pertinent authority tells us so, then what are morals for?
The last two paragraphs in page 3 in this Perry Mason novel about the Shoplifter's Show "Tell me, Chief ... would risk her life to save you from drowning" are very interesting. Again in the same book, read page 12 "You have to interpret facts in terms of theory....in order to understand theories". Ni and Ne?
“I know it,” he told her. “It’s something of a strain, but I can stand it all right. That isn’t what’s bothering me. What’s bothering me is why the facts don’t fit together. Don’t ever fool yourself that facts don’t fit, if you get the right explanation. They’re just like jigsaw puzzles - when you get them right, they’re all going to fit together.” - Howling Dog.
“Certainly,” Perry Mason told him. “I wouldn’t get you into anything that I wouldn’t go into myself.” - Howling Dog.
“And yet,” Drake told him thoughtfully, “you know as well as I do that Bessie Forbes actually went out there in that taxicab. She was the woman who went to the house.”
“That,” said the lawyer, “is a matter of conjecture and speculation unless the district attorney introduces some evidence to prove it.” - Howling Dog.
“Because,” said Perry Mason slowly, “you think she’s innocent now. Everybody thinks she’s innocent. That means the jury thinks she’s innocent. If I put her on the witness stand I can’t make the jury think she’s any more innocent. If I don’t put her on, they may think she’s got a dumb lawyer, but they’ll return a verdict of not guilty.“Now, I’m going to tell you something, young man. There are lots of ways of trying a lawsuit. There’s the slow, tedious way, indulged in by lawyers who haven’t any particular plan of campaign, other than to walk into court and snarl over objections, haggle over technicalities, and drag the facts out so interminably that no one knows just what it’s all about. Then there’s the dramatic method of trying a lawsuit. That’s the method I try to follow.“Somewhere along the line the district attorney is going to rest his case. I’m going to try and stampede the situation so that when the district attorney rests his case the sympathies of the jury are all going to be with the defendant. Then I’m going to throw the case right into the lap of the jury right then. They’ll return a verdict, without even stopping to think it over, if it goes right.” “What if it doesn’t go right?” asked Everly. “If it doesn’t go right,” said Perry Mason, “I’ll probably lose my reputation as a trial lawyer.”“But you’ve got no right to jeopardize that,” said Frank Everly.“The hell I haven’t,” Perry Mason told him. “I’ve got no right not to.” - Howling Dog.
“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 thesame. 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. - Howling Dog.
“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. - Howling Dog
“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.” - Howling Dog.
[[Mason]] “Under the law relating to circumstantial evidence, it is necessary that before a conviction can be had at the hands of a jury, the jurors must be convinced that the circumstances can be explained upon no reasonable hypothesis, other than the guilt of the defendant. - Howling Dog.
“I mean,” Bradbury said, “that I want you to under stand the situation. That if he should approach you, I want you to remember that you are employed by me. He might offer you a note, or something.” “I see,” Perry Mason said. “In other words, I’m to remember that you’re the one who arranged that Miss Clune should have the benefit of my services, and that the credit goes to you exclusively. Is that it?” A frown of annoyance came to Bradbury’s face, which was speedily dissipated by a smile. “Well,” he said, “that’s putting it rather directly, but I guess you have the idea.” - Lucky Legs
“No, Bradbury,” he [[Mason]] said, “you’re not a fighter; you’re the type who takes advantage of another person’s mistakes. You’ve got the banking type of mind. You sit on the sideline, watch, wait and pounce, when you think the time is ripe. I don’t fight that way. I go barging out, making my own breaks and taking chances. You don’t take any chances; you sit in a position of safety. You never risk your own skin.” - Lucky Legs.
Mason said slowly, [[To Hamilton Burger]] “Since you’re being frank with me, which is something no other district attorney has ever done, I’ll be frank with you, which, incidentally is something I’ve never bothered to be with any other district attorney. I don’t ask a man if he’s guilty or innocent. When I start to represent him, I take his money and handle his case. Guilty or innocent, he’s entitled to his day in court, but if I should find one of my clients was really guilty of murder and wasn’t morally or legally justified, I’d make that client plead guilty and trust to the mercy of the Court.” - Counterfeit Eye
[[Della to Mason]] “But you shouldn’t have done that. In the first place, you had no right taking those chances. In the second place it wasn’t… wasn’t… I can’t describe it.”“Is ethical the word you’re groping for?” he asked. “Not exactly. It’s so out of keeping with your position. You do the darnedest things. You’re half saint and half devil. There isn’t any middle ground. You go to both extremes.” He laughed at her and said, “I hate mediocrity.” - Counterfeit Eye
Drake went on in the mechanical tone of voice of one who is primarily interested in facts rather than in their interpretation. [[Another way of saying that he was S instead N. Myers Briggs didn't turn up until 1950s.]] - Counterfeit Eye
Mason made a grimace. “Shucks, Paul, I didn’t want you to dig up facts that would put my client in a spot; I wanted you to dig up something that would put Sam Laxter in a spot.” “Well,” Drake remarked in his dry, expressionless voice, “they’re some of the pieces in the puzzle picture. I’m hired to get the pieces; you’re hired to put them together. If they’re going to make the wrong kind of picture when they’re put together, you can always lose some of the pieces so no one else can find them.” - Counterfeit Eye
“Douglas Keene stuck by you, eh?” Mason asked, bringing the subject casually around to the young man whose framed picture stood on the table facing the bed. “I’ll say he stuck by me. He was a brick. He’s the most wonderful boy in the world. I never realized just how much there was to him - you know, words don’t mean anything - anyone who can talk can use words. Some people can use them better than others. Many insincere people, who have the gift of expressing themselves, can sound more sincere than those who are perfectly loyal.” - Counterfeit Eye
[[Winifred Baxter to Mason requesting him to defend her fiance. She is a heroine.]] “I haven’t much,” she said. “I’m building up a good business here. I can make my living, and I can make more than my living. I’ll pay you by the month. I’ll give you anything that I make. You can have the business and I’ll run it for you without any salary except just what I need to eat, and I can live on waffles and coffee, and…” - Counterfeit Eye
[[Drake to Mason]] “A couple of weeks ago Ashton dropped into Babson’s place. Ashton had his crutch made there. He wanted his crutch altered. He wanted a hole bored near the tip of the crutch, wanted it reinforced with metal tubing and lined with chamois skin. He wanted the metal threaded so that a cap could go on the end and the whole business be concealed under the rubber tip of the crutch.” [[As in Day Of The Jackal]] - Counterfeit Eye
Mason said impatiently, with a gesture which included both of them, “What the hell can a man lose? He can’t lose his life because he doesn’t own that, anyway. He only has a lease on life. He can lose money, and money doesn’t mean one damn thing as compared with character. All that really counts is a man’s ability to live, to get the most out of it as he goes through it, and he gets the most kick out of it by playing a no-limit game.” - Counterfeit Eye
[[Mason]] “What did he say?” [[Della]] “He sort of grunted, the way a man does when he’s going to do what a girl wants him to but doesn’t want to let her think she’s having her own way.” - Counterfeit Eye
[[Mason to judge]] He found there a man - a Watson Clammert - who was dying; who had no relatives and no property. Ashton gave this man the best medical attendance and nursing, knowing in advance that it was a hopeless case. He built up, by this means, a fictitious relationship, so that no question was raised when Ashton took the body after the man had died. [[Similar to John Grisham's The Partner]] - Counterfeit Eye
Brownley's lidless eyes twinkled with frosty merriment. "I can well understand that, Counselor," he said, "but since you have investigated my family, you may have investigated me and if so, you have doubtless learned that I am a ruthless fighter, a hard man to cross, and one who always gets his own way." [[Mason]] "You are now speculating," Mason said, "upon the out come. Your statement a moment ago was to the effect that you were going to keep me from starting proceedings." - Stuttering Bishop
Mason said, "This Branner case has an element of mystery, a hint of poetic justice. There are all of the elements of a gripping human drama. I'm not definitely committing myself to go all the way in it. I'm going to use such talents as I may possess to see that justice is done. But, if I took that Warren case, I'd be using my talents and education to justify the sordid crime of the spoiled, pampered son of a foolish and indulgent father. - Stuttering Bishop
"Along at the last," he [[Mason]] said, "there's a rush which jams the gangplank with a solid mass of jostling, pushing humanity. It's just a steady stream of faces marching past. Now if you were a detective and had seen a man go aboard in a black suit, with his head swathed in bandages, your mind would get just lazy enough to play tricks on you when the big rush started. In other words, you wouldn't study each face. You would subconsciously be looking for a bandaged head and a black suit. If your man walked down the gangplank wearing a tweed suit or an inconspicuous gray suit, with a felt hat pulled rather low on an unbandaged forehead, you'd unconsciously pass him up. Remember, things happen fast, and hundreds of people are funneled out of that gangplank, to disperse into a yelling mass of enthusiastic humanity." - Stuttering Bishop
[[Mason to Drake]] “Because this partnership isn’t going to last very much longer. They’re fighting. Duncan is a shrewd thinker. Grieb flies off the handle. Now then, figure it out. If this partnership is going to bust up, it’s a lot better to have eighty-five hundred dollars in cash to divide than seventy-five hundred in IOU’s to try and collect.” - Dangerous Dowager
“Paul,” Della Street interrupted in a tone of finality, “when the chief tells me to do something, I do it. I’ve learned by experience that it doesn’t do any good to argue with him.” - Dangerous Dowager
“Forget it,” Mason interrupted [[Mason to Drake]]. “He sold us out, and that’s that. You can’t apologize it away, and you can’t explain it away. It’s happened, and that’s all there is to it. It’s one of those things that are bound to happen when you have to work through operatives. You can’t expect a man who draws eight dollars a day and expenses to pass up a juicy chunk of coin when a newspaper offers it to him.” - Dangerous Dowager
[[Coroner]] “However, we’re only trying to determine what caused this man to meet his death. And, so far as I know, at the present time, Mr. Cuff, there’s no charge against your client implicating him in any way with this death.” “I resent that remark,” Cuff said quickly. “You are intimating that before the inquest is concluded evidence will indicate that my client, Mr. Driscoll, had something to do with the death.” - Lame Canary. [[It's interesting to see how Cuff interprets what the coroner says]] - Lame Canary
Della Street said, “No, one woman doesn’t laugh that way at another woman’s wisecracks — not when there’s a man in the party. She laughs courteously and politely. You didn’t laugh politely. You thought I was trying to say that his drinks ran off his back. - Shoplifter's Shoe
[[Me. Marquad, a banker]] He made a note on a pad, smiled a cold farewell at the departing visitor, and then got up to come to the partition and regard Mason and the detective with an expression of neutral greeting. Mason felt that the face could change instantly into patronizing courtesy or cold negation without seeming in the least inconsistent with that initial expression. - Shoplifter's Shoe
“Yes,” she [[Lone Bedford]] said. “I knew then that there’d be an inquiry, and I didn’t want to get caught in it.” “Why?” [[Mason said]] “Because of Pete,” she said. “Can’t you see? I didn’t want Pete actually to catch me in an affair. That would have been fatal. On the other hand, I didn’t want him to think he could start chasing around and get away with it. If I’d gone out and been a drab little personality, virtuously plodding my way through some routine job which would have barely paid my keep, Pete would have come out and got me. He’d have been contrite on the surface, but he’d have had the smug feeling that I was his woman, that no one else wanted me, that I knew it, that if I left him again, it would be to go to work. He’d let me work a while, until I got good and lonely, and then come and pick me up. But, by going away and sailing on a cruise, I kept him guessing. I wanted to keep him guessing, but I certainly didn’t want any of that guessing to become a cold certainty.” - Shoplifter's Shoe
When Drake had left, Mason turned to face Della Street, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. She studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “You know, if you were a little boy and I were your mother, I’d make a rush for the jam closet … and find I’d got there too late. You, Mr. Perry Mason, have been up to mischief. - Shoplifter's Shoe
[[Sara Breel to Mason]] “I try to look at life and death from a broad-minded viewpoint. If you’re going to have births, you must have deaths. Life is a stream death is a part of the scheme of things and it’s a necessary part. If babies kept being born, and no one died, the world would become completely overcrowded. If babies weren’t born and no one died, it would be a pretty sorry, disillusioned world with no youth and gaiety, no romance, no honeymoons, and no children’s laughter. [[Vanthavar ellaam thangi vittaal..song]] - Shoplifter's Shoe
[[Mason to Sara Breel]] They know, of course, that you have told the officers you can’t remember anything which happened, that your mind is a blank as to the things which took place after noon on the day of the murder. Those two are plenty smart. They’re shrewd opportunists who have gone through life taking advantage of every break which had been offered. Naturally, they’re smart enough to realize that if you can’t remember anything about what happened on that day, you can’t deny anything.” - Shoplifter's Shoe
Mason said, “If the Court please, this is rather an unusual case. Ordinarily, it is incumbent upon the Prosecution to prove the defendant guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. It is not incumbent upon the defendant to prove himself or herself innocent. However, in this case, since the Prosecution has really proved how the murder could not have happened, the Defense is going to show how the murder could have been perpetrated.” - Shoplifter's Shoe
“Did you compare the fingerprints of the defendant with the fingerprints on the copper coin?” Sergeant Holcomb said, “She was wearing gloves. She wouldn’t have left any fingerprints.” “I’m not asking that,” Mason said. “I’m asking if you compared the two fingerprints.” “Yes.” “Were they the same?” “No.” [[That was a smart attempt at prevarication]] - Shoplifter's Shoe
[[Belle Newberry to Mason]] “Dad used to be prejudiced against what he called criminal lawyers, but that was before he served as a juror when a man was being tried for murder. The man was innocent. Dad says, but his lawyer, a man named Van Densie, seemed to have sold him out. But they couldn’t fool Dad. Dad held out for an acquittal, even when the other eleven were against him. And Dad finally managed to convince those other eleven jurors that the man really was innocent. - Substitute Face[[12 Angry Men]]
Mason said, “If she’s in love with him I don’t see … “ “I understand exactly how she feels,” Della Street interrupted. “Taking things in her stride, mingling with him on terms of equality, she’s been able to interest him. But the minute he realizes she’s not in his set, the minute his friends start patronizing her, he’ll begin to lose interest in her. She and the Dail girl have been running neck and neck. Give Celinda Dail the handicap of being able to patronize Belle, and Belle will be entirely out of the running.”
“I’m not so certain,” Mason said. “Well, I am,” Della Street told him. “That Dail girl is clever. She won’t rub it in. Instead, she’ll try and drag Belle out to all sorts of affairs where Belle will be among strangers but everyone else will know each other with that intimacy which comes of years of rubbing elbows and taking each other for granted. Belle will be completely out of place.” ...“Because,” he said, “if Belle’s going to step out of Roy’s life, there’s no reason why should go to a lot of trouble trying to fix things up with the Products Refining Company.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” Della told him. “It would be the greatest tragedy of Belle’s life if detectives should meet her father at the gangplank tomorrow and snap handcuffs on his wrists. And particularly if he had embezzled money from a company operated by Celinda Dail’s father. Chief, you must stop that, no matter what happens. Can’t you see? She wants Roy to remember her as a woman of mystery, not pity her. And she could never bear to have Celinda Dail gloating in triumph over her.” - Substitute Face
Mason watched him thoughtfully. “Let’s see if I get you straight, Hungerford. You come to me with all this dirt, hoping I’ll be able to contradict it, hoping I can tell you something good about her, is that right?” “No,” Hungerford said. “The hell it isn’t!” Mason told him. “You’re interested in Belle, but you don’t know how much. You’re so wrapped up in conventions that you can’t separate her from her parental environment. When you come right down to it, it’s not Belle you’re uncertain of, but yourself.” - Substitute Face
[[Mason to Hungerford]] Moar had been working and saving on a small salary. He’d been a bachelor much of his life. He wasn’t Belle’s father. Belle’s father abandoned her and her mother when she was three years old. They’ve never seen or heard from him since. Mrs. Newberry had a little money, enough to get by on. She put Belle through college. Then she married Carl Moar. Naturally, Belle had but little sympathy for her natural father. She became very much attached to Carl Moar. - Substitute Face
[[Drake to Mason]] “How did you know that the Fell woman would blow up?” “I’d noticed her in the dining room,” Mason said. “Whenever she wore an evening dress she left off her glasses. I’d noticed her rather particularly, because it seemed to me such an absurd gesture for a woman who had that wall of reserve thrown up around her, and who seemed to be so completely immune to emotion to sacrifice the comfort of her vision to make herself more attractive. I noticed from the way she walked that she seemed rather careful of putting her feet down, and had an idea she depended pretty strongly on her glasses. But she’s one of those opinionated persons who will cheerfully commit perjury rather than admit they’re wrong. And I knew that unless I had a photograph to show her and could definitely prove her custom of not wearing glasses with a dinner gown, she’d swear she had her glasses on that night.” “Just how much do you suppose she actually did see?” “She had a bluffed conception of figures struggling. She heard shots but she didn’t see any gun, and she doesn’t know what gun fired the shots,” Mason said. “She’s opinionated, obstinate, and hates to lose an argument. She didn’t take the stand as a witness, but as an adversary. She was just dying to give me a ‘piece of her mind,’ and particularly anxious to show me that no smart lawyer was going to rattle her. We run up against witnesses like that every so often, both men and women, people who will do anything rather than admit the possibility they may have been mistaken. - Substitute Face
[[Mason about Della]] “She’s going to tell the truth,” Mason said. He got to his feet and stared at Drake. “She’s going to tell the truth,” he repeated, “because I’m going to make her tell the truth. If my client’s guilty of murder, she’s guilty of murder. No client is going to make Della Street get it the witness stand and take a chance on a perjury rap in order to give me a break. Do you get that?” - Substitute Face
[[Mason]] “Carl Moar tried to take the easy way. As is so often the case, it turned out to be the hard way, yet we must not judge him too harshly. He had confidence in Evelyn Whiting. He was a thinker, something of a dreamer. He didn’t have a great deal of what is known as worldly wisdom. He lived in an artificial world peopled largely by his own ideas and administered largely according to his own ideals. Evelyn Whiting had but little difficulty in convincing him that Morgan Eves was innocent. She had less difficulty because she herself really believed it. It looked like a good chance for Moar to do the right thing and at the same time pick up enough money to give Belle her chance…” - Substitute Face
A man who has lost more than he can afford in a place where alcoholic beverages flow freely and there is boisterous excitement, is quite apt to make what is known, in the, parlance of the game, as a “beef.” A man who feels just a little out of his element, who is forced to don formal attire, who is surrounded by external evidences of wealth, will be inclined to accept his losses with dignity and make a quiet exit. Not until he has divested of his formal attire, and seen his environment in the pitiless glare of daylight, will remorse and self condemnation make him realize that a loss is a loss. Then he is quite apt to realize that taking losses “like a gentleman” is a racket fostered by those who profit-but by then it is too late. - Silent Partner
[[Tragg to Mildred Faulkner]] “No,” he said, “but when a woman has a gun in her possession which has probably been used to commit a murder, when I find a noted criminal attorney closeted with her at two-thirty in the morning, and when, as soon as a police car drives up, she discharges the revolver, and when the first word which comes into her mind in connection with paraffin is the word ‘test,’ then I have pretty good reason to believe that the lawyer told her about the paraffin test, that she is a woman of intelligence, and realizes that the only way to protect herself is not by trying to get the powder out of her hand, but by having a perfectly legitimate excuse for showing powder in her hand. “You see. Miss Faulkner, if a policeman were asked what word he associated with paraffin, he might very well say ‘test,’ but for a woman who is in the business of selling flowers to the public to associate paraffin with the nitrate test-well, it’s just a little too much.” - Silent Partner
[[Mason to Della]] She said, “But you don’t even know him. Chief.” “Yes, I do. You don’t need to see a man, look in his face, shake his hand, and hear him talk, in order to know him. You can watch the things he does. You can see him through the eyes of others...“But the eyes of others are distorted by prejudice.” “You make allowances for that prejudice when you know the others. You can then judge the extent of their distortion. That’s the only way you can solve cases, Della. You must learn to know the characters involved. You must learn to see things through their eyes, and that means you must have sympathy and tolerance for crime.” - Silent Partner
[[Mason to Della]] That’s the difference between a good businessman and a bad businessman. The good businessman wants something and weighs the cost of what he wants against the utility of the article he desires. That’s the way Peavis plays the game. The poor businessman sees something that he wants, and he must have it. The price represents only an obstacle which stands between him and possession.” - Silent Partner
[[Mason to Della]] “His only out, Mason said. “His wife still had money. There were other securities. If she died, Lawley wouldn’t have to account to her. He wouldn’t have to account to Mildreth Faulkner. Her death wouldn’t get him back the property he’d lost, but it would give him the stake for another gamble, and, above all, it would save his face. With a man of Lawley’s type, the saving of face is the thing of paramount importance.” - Silent Partner
Mason’s manner [[to the judge]] was quietly matter-of-fact. He said, “Your Honor, there are two horns to the dilemma which confronts the plaintiff in this action. Either he can appear in the role of holding himself out as a prospective purchaser for the stock in question, in which event the fact that Lynk died before the stock could be sold leaves the plaintiff with no right whatever to maintain his action or he can adopt the position that Lynk to his agent, purchasing the stock for the plaintiff in this action. That is the only theory !on which he can maintain the present action. The minute he adopts that theory, he becomes responsible for everything which Lynk, as his agent, did. Now then, in place of seeking a legal remedy, he has sought an equitable remedy. He is now in a court of equity. It is an axiom that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. If the actions of his agent, Lynk, in obtaining this stock were such as to shock the conscience, if he employed illegal means, or if he resorted to entrapment, fraud, or oppression, then the plaintiff is not entitled to an equitable remedy because the courts of equity won’t let him cross the threshold.” - Silent Partner
[[Mason to Van Nuys About Daphne Milfield]] “And she’s suffering from one at the present time?” “She was.” “An affair with you?” “With me.‘“Van Nuys laughed. “I’m just a friend of the family. I know her too well, and she knows me too well. I’m only the shoulder she cries on—and that’s all I want to be. No, this man was a chap in San Francisco. She had decided to burn her bridges. She had left Fred the usual note that the husband receives under such circumstances, and was about to leave fr San Francisco, join her lover and let Fred get a divorce, anything else he damn pleased. That’s Daphne. She goes completely overboard when she falls. You have to hand it to her for that. She’s thorough.”..."Daphne is a woman who has to be violently, madly in lov with someone every minute of the time.” "“She has a husband,” Mason suggested. “Come, come, Mr. Mason, you’re a realist, or you should be. Marriage is a working relationship. It has its moments of genuine, downright boredom. That’s the trouble with Daphne. She can’t stand being bored, She has to be in love—madly in love, and it’s difficult to be madly in love with a husband three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.” "The note was written in pen and ink in a smooth, even handwriting. Dear Fred, I know you’ll think I’m no good, particularly in view of everything that has gone in the past, but I can’t help it. As I’ve told you a dozen times, I can’t control my heart. I can only try to control my emotions. But I simply can’t control that peculiar deep-seated something which is perhaps akin to emotion and alive with emotion, yet is far beyond mere emotionalism.
I have debated this step for a long time. I think you will do me the justice to realize that. I think, perhaps, that you have recognized my symptoms, but were afraid to diagnose them, just as I was at first. In short, Fred, I am in love with Doug, and that’s all there is to it. It isn’t anything you have done, or anything you have failed to do. Nor is there anything either of us can do now. You have been wonderful to me, and I shall always admire and respect you. I will admit that I got lonely during the last four or five weeks when it seemed every minute of your time, day and night, was taken up with this oil deal. But I know how those things are, and realize that you’re doing a splendid job and are in a position to make a lot of money. My congratulations to you. Needless to say, Fred, I won’t want a cent. You can go ahead with divorce proceedings and make out a waiver, or property settlement, or whatever it is you have to make out under such circumstances. Your lawyer will tell you. I hope we can always be friends. Good-by, Dear. Yours, DAPHNE - Crooked Candle
[[Mason's client Mr Karr to Mason about Tragg]] “Why was it a good gag?” “Because when an officer’s working up a case, he talks with a lot of witnesses. From them he gets a pretty good idea of what happened and when it happened. Naturally, an officer likes to get newspaper publicity, so he stands in pretty well with the newspaper reporters. Otherwise he doesn’t stay on the force. The newspapers see to that. So when you tell a man like Lieutenant Tragg to keep your name out of the newspapers, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. But if you give him testimony which is at variance with the facts in the case he’s working up, then he’s certain to see your name is kept out of the newspapers.” “Why?” “Because if the newspapers state you don’t recollect things just as the other witnesses do, or that your testimony is at sharp variance with theirs, it means that the person who actually committed the murder, and whom the police are after, is encouraged. It means that when that person is arrested, the lawyer he retains will know immediately where to go to find a witness who will contradict the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses.” - Empty Tin
[[Mr Karr to Mason]] Perhaps you can solve it by this afternoon. That’ll give me a chance to do what I have to do. Personally, I don’t see why the devil this man What’s-his-name couldn’t have picked a more opportune time to get himself killed. Damned inconsiderate, I call it.” - Empty Tin
Gow Loong became merely a part of the scenery. [[Same sentence in Day of the Jackal]] - Empty Tin
Perry Mason had the rare ability so seldom found in professional men to derive enjoyment from his work. After a certain period, the doctor who has run the gamut of experiences with human illnesses acquires a certain impersonal efficiency. He regards the patients not so much as person as depositories of various symptoms or anatomical structures which are to be coaxed or carved back to health. The lawyer, having acquired a sufficient background of experience, is apt to become imbued with the mechanics of procedure. But Perry Mason had a mind which was only content when it was detouring the technicalities · of legal red tape. He not only regarded each case as a venture studded with excitement, but became impatient with the delays of routine procedure. More and more, as his practice developed, he became interested in personalities. More and more, his ! methods became dazzlingly brilliant, increasingly dangerous, and highly unorthodox. - Careless Kitten
Perry was staring at her and automatically Della looked at herself through his eyes. - Care“Delta,” Mason sighed, “sometimes I think you are getting blase.” “Yes?” she drawled ominously. “Do tell me about it.”“You’re getting conservative, mercenary, cautious. You’re more interested in periods than you are in question marks.” - Careless Kitten
[[Mason to Della and Gerald Shore]] Think he’s something of a gambler himself, does work largely for promoters, and takes fees partially in cash and partially in stocks in the companies he organizes.”“Any money in it?” Della Street asked. “Don’t be so damned mercenary,” Mason said, grinning. “I think he makes more out of it than money.” “How do you mean?”“He’s always chasing mirages. Our realistic philosophers hold that as being poor economy. Simply because a mirage has no definite substance, they overlook the fact that it’s such a lovely object to chase. They also lose sight of the fact that the mirage chaser is getting great joy out of life. He’s always interested in what he’s chasing, which is more than you can say of many men who struggle toward more practical goals. Interest in life is the very best form of wealth.” - Careless Kitten
[[George Shore to Mason]] "I’ll wait here in the automobile, but the minute you meet my brother, I want you to tell him I’m here and that I simply must see him before he talks with anyone. Do you understand? Before he talks with anyone.”Mason regarded the man quizzically. “Before he talks with me?”“With anyone.”
Mason shook his head. “If you want any such message delivered, deliver it yourself. The man has sent for me. He probably wants to consult me professionally.” - Careless Kitten
[[Mason to Shore]] “Never mind the excuses,” Mason said somewhat sharply. “Don’t underestimate Tragg. When he works on a case, he works fast. I want facts. You can fill in reasons and excuses later. And get this straight. All that you’ve told me before this is what I had already deduced. All you’ve done so far has been to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. The thing you’re coming to now—if you tell me the truth—is going to be the determining factor in whether I represent you.” - Careless Kitten[[Seems to resonate with https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2019/02/idmi-and-itbc.html]]
Shore [[To Mason]] went on after a few seconds, “Take Helen, for instance. She was a girl of fourteen, standing, to use a trite expression, on the threshold of life. She had always looked up to me and respected me. She was approaching a time in life when moral values were about to become more significant to her. If something happened, if she had discovered that—well, Mr. Mason, from that time on, I changed my entire goal in life. I got a completely different set of objectives. I began to try and pattern my life so that those who looked up to me wouldn’t—Oh, what’s the use?”
“There’s a great deal of use,” Mason said, his voice kindly. - Careless Kitten
Helen Kendal looked up at him pleadingly as they reached the elevator. “Aren’t you more interested in that bullet, Lieutenant? That’s awfully important. You know doctors are sometimes careless. He might throw it away or lose it—or something—unless you went right up.” Tragg burst out laughing. “All right, you win. Go in and see him alone. - Careless Kitten
[[Dr Macon about his patient Millicent to Mason]] "She had devoted too much attention to her career, to the serious things in life. That overemphasis on work left her with a secret hunger to be the center of attraction with some particular person—not a platonic attraction, but a sex attraction. For that reason she didn’t question, even in her own mind, the motives of Jack Hardisty when he began rushing her off her feet in a whirlwind, impetuous courtship. Even if she had questioned his motives, I doubt if a realization of his duplicity would have stopped her. She was too thrilled with the novelty of having some man woo her, making of his courting not an intellectual pastime but a violent emotional activity." - Buried Clock
Mason said. “Strague is something of a weakling, an introvert—the type that is emotional. He won’t be a hard nut to crack. - Buried Clock
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