He said, “I submit, if the Court please, that there’s some technical error, something that can be explained. Perhaps it’s a misprint. I object to counsel asking questions about this trip sheet of this witness on the ground that they are argumentative. The facts speak for themselves. We’ll try to get this situation unscrambled later, without having the witness become hopelessly confused trying to explain some typographical error.”

  Judge Hoyt said, “The objection to the question will be … well, just a moment. The Court will reserve ruling. The Court will ask the witness some questions, and the counsel for each side will refrain from interrupting.

  “Mr Keddie, do you understand this?” Judge Hoyt asked the witness.

  “Well, I don’t understand how that number got on the receipt.”

  “You understand your trip sheet?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is there a chance that your trip numbers on the trip sheet could have been in error?”

  “Well, now let’s see. If I had made a mistake in copying down the trip number from the record on the meter, the real trip number that I should have copied would have been … let’s see … nine-eighty-one, and that would have been my first trip to the Jonathan Club. Then nine-eighty-two … now, now wait a minute, it would have been nine-eighty-two, my trip to the Jonathan Club. Nine-eighty-three would have been my trip out to the country club, and nine-eighty-four would have been my trip with this woman here. Now, it doesn’t seem I could have made a mistake and copied down nine-eighty-two – I mean, it doesn’t seem as though I could have copied nine-sixty-nine when I was trying to write nine-eighty-two.”

  “Do you sometimes make mistakes?” Judge Hoyt asked.

  “Well, I suppose I do. I’ve made mistakes. Sometimes I get a number wrong and sometimes I’ll plumb forget to put down a trip, but that doesn’t happen very often. The records are all checked over by the main office about once a week. We get in and check these things over. They keep track of where we are … well, you know how it is, there’s always a temptation for a cabbie to knock down if he can do it, and they try to keep their records so they show what the cabs are doing and what the drivers are doing and … well, so nobody can knock down on ’em.”

  “Now let me see,” Judge Hoyt said. “If you had taken over at nine-sixty-nine, then you would have gone to the Jonathan Club on trip nine-seventy?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And this trip that you say you made with the defendant would then have been trip nine-seventy-one?”

  “Well, that’s the way it should be, but that receipt sure shows nine-eighty-four.”

  Hamilton Burger said, “Now just a minute, just a minute.”

  The judge said, “Don’t interrupt me. I’m trying to check these things. Let’s see, I’m going to count these trips on your trip sheet. This would have been trip nine-seventy-one … seventy-two … seventy-three … seventy-four … seventy-five …”

  Judge Hoyt counted down the trips, turned the page, adjusted his glasses, frowned at the sheet, looked over at Hamilton Burger, and said to the witness, “Well, Mr Keddie, I notice that what would have been trip number nine-eighty-four on your sheet if you had started out at trip number nine-sixty-nine, as you said you did, would have been a trip which you have marked ‘Looking at property’.”

  “Let me see,” Keddie said.

  He took the sheet of paper and frowned over it. “Well, now, just a minute,” he said. “Wait a minute. I can remember that trip. A couple of dames I picked up on North La Brea somewhere. They wanted to go look at some property. They told me to drive out and look at some property, and then they told me to drive down some street and all of a sudden one of ’em said, ‘Here it is. Stop right here.’ She started all at once yelling at me to stop. I stopped and they got out and paid off.”

  “Was one of those women this defendant?” Judge Hoyt asked.

  “Nope. I didn’t see her from the time I picked her up out there until I saw her in the lineup the next morning.”

  “Are you sure?” the judge asked. “Do you remember? You say there were two women?”

  “Well, now let’s see,” Keddie said. “One of those women was a little chunky and the other one … I can’t remember her very well, Judge. You pick up lots of people and–”

  “The point is, can you swear that she wasn’t the defendant?”

  “Well, I can’t remember her so clearly, but I never saw this defendant until the lineup the next morning – I mean, after that trip when I picked her up out there at that intersection.”

  “Are you positive you never saw the defendant from the time you picked her up out there at the point indicated on this map until you saw her in the lineup the next morning?”

  “Oh, if the Court please,” said Hamilton Burger, “I think now we are beginning to see the pattern of this–”

  “Just a minute,” Judge Hoyt said. “Just a minute. I don’t want counsel for either side to interrupt me. I want to finish this line of questioning in my own way.”

  “Yes, Your Honour,” Hamilton Burger said.

  “I, too, would like to ask a question,” Mason told the Court.

  “You may ask it when I finish,” Judge Hoyt snapped.

  “I submit,” Mason said, “that in a matter of this sort, counsel should not be precluded from cross-examining the witness. My rights have been somewhat curtailed, and I–”

  “The Court will do the questioning at this point,” Judge Hoyt said. “Counsel will be quiet.

  “Now, I want to have this definitely understood,” Judge Hoyt continued, turning to the witness. “Is there any reasonable chance that this receipt, which was apparently taken from the defendant’s purse, is the receipt for a trip made later in the evening, the trip that you have referred to as the pickup of two women at North La Brea?”

  The witness fidgeted a bit on the witness stand.

  “Yes or no?” Hoyt asked.

  “Yes, there is a chance,” the witness admitted.

  “How much of a chance?”

  “Well, if you’re going to put it that way, Judge, Your Honour, I suppose there’s a pretty good chance.”

  “That’s what I wanted to know,” Judge Hoyt snapped.

  “I want to ask a question,” Hamilton Burger said.

  “I beg your pardon,” Mason told him. “I think I was cross-examining the witness. I haven’t finished with my cross-examination.”

  “Well, I think I’m entitled to ask a question at this time, anyway, in order to get this thing straightened out for the Court,” Hamilton Burger said.

  “The Court is quite able to straighten things out for itself, if they can be straightened,” Judge Hoyt said. “The Court doesn’t need a guardian or an interpreter.”

  “Your Honour, I think the answer is obvious,” Hamilton Burger said. “This defendant undoubtedly knows one of the women who made that trip out from North La Brea and got this receipt from that woman. It’s very easy to see the way the thing was manipulated. The women cruised around without giving this taxi driver any definite directions. As soon as the meter had reached the amount of two dollars and ninety-five cents, these women got out, took the receipt and, undoubtedly, following the instructions of adroit counsel, delivered the receipt to the defendant so that it would be found in her purse, thereby laying a trap for the witness.

  “That, Your Honour, not only constitutes unprofessional conduct, but it’s the strongest declaration of guilt we could possibly have because it shows that even at that time, the defendant knew she was going to be questioned about this trip and participated in arrangements to trap the law enforcement officers.”

  “Do you have anything to say on that point, Mr Mason?” Judge Hoyt asked.

  “Why should I?” Mason asked. “That’s the district attorney’s theory. He isn’t under oath. He doesn’t know what happened. In the due course of time, at the proper time and place, I will show what happened. I will prove that this man has testified to certain things which simply aren’t so. He is the victim of his own mistaken recollection.”

  Judge Hoyt stroked the angle of his chin. “Well,” he said, “you go ahead, Mr Mason, and continue with your cross-examination. The Court will state, however, that this is a most unusual situation and one which the Court feels should be investigated.”

  “I’ll say so,” Hamilton Burger muttered disgustedly.

  Mason turned to the witness. “When you say that you picked up the defendant out there at the point you indicated on the map, around a quarter to five in the afternoon, did you pay particular attention to her clothes?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you pay particular attention to her face?”

  “I noticed it was pale.”

  “Did she have a hat, or was she bare headed?”

  “She … well, now, wait a minute … I–”

  “Don’t say unless you’re sure,” Mason said.

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”

  “Was she wearing earrings?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did she carry a handbag?”

  “Yes, she carried a handbag, I know, because she took the money out of it.”

  “Now, you noticed her face particularly?”

  “I noticed it was pale.”

  “And you say positively that it was this defendant?”

  “Well … I thought it was this defendant.”

  “But now that you think things over, there is a possibility that you have confused the face of that woman with the face of a woman who was in your cab later on in the evening, and when you saw the defendant in the lineup, you simply knew that her face was familiar and therefore picked her out.”

  The cab driver again shifted his position.

  “I don’t think that’s a fair question,” Hamilton Burger said.

  “What’s unfair about it?” Judge Hoyt asked.

  “He’s trying to trap the witness,” Burger said.

  “He has a right to,” Judge Hoyt snapped. “Objection overruled. The witness will answer the question.”

  The embarrassed taxi driver said, “Well, to tell you the truth, now you’ve got me confused and I don’t know just what did happen.”

  “You now think there is a possibility that your memory played a trick on you?” Mason asked.

  “It’s a possibility all right.”

  “And that the time that you saw this defendant was later on in the evening, and the person you picked up there at approximately quarter to five might have been someone other than the defendant?”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what happened,” the cab driver said. “I thought I did, but now I don’t.”

  “That’s all,” Mason said.

  Hamilton Burger pounced on the witness. “Now don’t let some smart lawyer mix you all up,” he said. “You know what you saw and what you didn’t see. Now, you saw the defendant on the third of this month.”

  The witness hesitated.

  “I saw her sometime on the third, all right, because I knew her on the fourth when I saw her in the lineup.”

  Hamilton Burger said, “From the time you first saw her on the third, did you ever see her again until you saw her in the lineup on the fourth?”

  “No,” the witness said. “I’m positive of that. I saw her once before I saw her in the lineup, but I never saw her twice.”

  “Only once,” Hamilton Burger said.

  “That’s right.”

  “And to the best of your recollection, the time you first saw her was out there at the point that you have indicated on the map at around four-forty-five in the evening.”

  “Well, that’s the way I did feel about it, but I’m kind of mixed up now. I’m sort of going around in circles. To tell you the truth, I don’t know when I saw her.”

  “All right,” Hamilton Burger said disgustedly, “if that’s the way you want it.”

  The district attorney walked back and dropped himself into his chair at the counsel table.

  “In other words,” Mason said suavely, his voice friendly and informal, “when you say you don’t know just when you saw her, you mean you don’t know what time on the third you saw her.”

  “That’s right, yes.”

  “You just know that you saw her some time on the third, and therefore when you saw her face in the lineup on the fourth, it was familiar to you and so you picked her out.”

  “I guess that’s what must have happened.”

  “That’s your best recollection at the present time?” Mason asked.

  “Now just a moment,” Hamilton Burger said. “That question is argumentative. A very apparent flimflam has been worked on this witness to get him confused and–”

  “Are you making an objection to the Court?” Mason asked, his voice cracking like a whiplash.

  “I am.”

  “Make it to the Court then,” Mason said.

  “I object, Your Honour. This is not proper cross-examination. It’s incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.”

  “Overruled,” Judge Hoyt snapped.

  “To tell you the truth, Judge,” the witness said, “the more I get to thinking of it, the more I feel that maybe she was one of those two women I picked up out there on La Brea. I’ve been sitting here watching her, the way she holds her head and … well, it could have been.”

  “But,” Mason said, “You are positive that you only saw her once on the third?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “But you think the time you saw her was on the third trip you made after starting out, don’t you?” Hamilton Burger said.

  “Objected to as leading and suggestive,” Mason said.

  “Oh, Your Honour, this is on redirect examination,” Hamilton Burger protested.

  “That doesn’t give you the right to put words into the mouth of your own witness. I don’t care what stage of the examination it is.”

  “Nevertheless,” Judge Hoyt said, “this is a peculiar situation. I’m going to overrule the objection. I want the witness to answer, and I think he’s entitled to answer.”

  “Well,” Keddie said, “to tell you the truth, I thought that she was this woman I picked up then. Now, I’m just not sure, and that’s all there is to it, but I do know that if she is the same woman I picked up out there by the country club, I’d have known her if I saw her a second time.”

  “Then she couldn’t have been one of the women you picked up on North La Brea?”

  “Not if she was the one I picked up by the country club.”

  “That’s all,” Hamilton Burger said.

  Mason, smiling affably, said, “Then as I understand it, if it turns out she was one of the women you picked up on La Brea, she couldn’t have been the woman you picked up out near the country club?”

  “That’s right. If I ever saw that woman again, I’d have known her … like I did when I saw her in that lineup … only maybe the time I saw her on La Brea – Now wait a minute. I just don’t know.”

  “You do know you saw this woman on the afternoon or evening of June third?” Mason asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you only saw her once on that day?”

  “That woman I picked up by the country club I only saw once on that day, that’s for sure.”

  “That’s all,” Mason said.

  “No questions,” Hamilton Burger said disgustedly.

  “Is there any more evidence, Mr Burger?” Judge Hoyt asked.

  Hamilton Burger said, “Well, Your Honour, I feel absolutely positive that the gun which has been introduced in evidence was purchased by the husband of this defendant, Mr Enright A Harlan. But, at the moment, I am not in a position to prove it.”

  “May I ask why?” Judge Hoyt asked.

  “Well, somebody signed the name Enright A Harlan to the purchase slip and the firearms register, but apparently that is not the handwriting of Mr Harlan. It would seem to be the handwriting of a woman.”

  “The defendant?” Judge Hoyt asked.

  “No, Your Honour, I am sorry to say that it is not the handwriting of the defendant. Apparently, some other woman signed the name of Enright A Harlan. The dealer, at the present time, has no independent recollection of the circumstances surrounding the purchase.”

  “Can you show possession of the gun?”

  “The only way I could show possession of the gun is by the testimony of the husband, and, of course, I would be met with the prompt objection that in an action of this sort a husband can’t testify against his wife without the wife’s consent.”

  “I see,” Judge Hoyt said, frowning thoughtfully.

  “I think it’s quite apparent what happened here,” Hamilton Burger said. “A scheme was cooked up for the purpose of confusing this witness. I feel that this is a matter which the Court should look into. I think it is a contempt of Court.”

  “I don’t see how you make a contempt of Court out of it,” Judge Hoyt said. “But it’s quite possible the Bar Association might be interested.”

  Judge Hoyt glowered at Perry Mason.

  “Why?” Perry Mason asked.

  Judge Hoyt’s face deepened into a frown. “You should know why,” he said. “If your knowledge of legal ethics is so sketchy that you can’t see why without my explanation, you had better study legal ethics.”

  “I’ve studied them,” Mason said. “I am entitled to cross-examine a witness. I am entitled to do anything that is legitimate for the purpose of testing the recollection of the witness. If this witness had been absolutely positive that the woman he picked up out there was the defendant, and if the defendant had again engaged this cab on the evening of the third, he would then have recognized her instantly and said, ‘Good evening, ma’am. I had you as a passenger earlier in the day.’”

  “But she didn’t engage the cab again,” Hamilton Burger said. “Counsel was afraid to take that chance. That’s the unfair part of it. He had some other women engage the cab and then give the receipt to this defendant.”

  “You’re making that as an accusation?” Mason asked.

  “Yes, I’m making it as an accusation.”

  “And you’re willing to state to this Court that the defendant was not in the cab on the evening of the third – we’re talking about legal ethics now, Mr District Attorney; you’re making a representation of fact to the Court.”