“It would be better in many ways,” Mason said, “but there’s one thing against it.”

  “What?”

  “The longer interval of time that elapses, the less likelihood there is that she’ll change her testimony. By the time the case comes to trial in the superior court, she might even be so firmly convinced of her identification that she’ll swear it was the defendant and that she had never seen Della Street in her life.

  “No, I’m going to have to do it now in order to get the most good out of it. Even if she doesn’t back up, the prosecutor will know that I wouldn’t make a move of that sort unless it was true. They’ll start hammering away at her between now and the time Mildred Crest goes to trial in the superior court. Then, by the time Irma Karnes gets on the stand in front of a jury, her entire attitude will be that of a woman who is very much on the defensive.

  “However, the big thing is that, because of this fluke of identification, they must have the wrong murder weapon. Once the case gets to that point, there are infinite possibilities.”

  Drake said, “I’m going to be holding onto my chair watching what happens this afternoon.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Della Street asked.

  “Keep out of sight,” Mason said. “Irma Karnes probably saw you this morning, but I don’t want her to see you any more until I call you to confront her. You can stay in one of the witness rooms and be available when I call you.

  “When I do, that will show that you were the one who bought the new ice picks and then we’ve got the case on ice.”

  “But what will they say about the ethics of putting that ice pick in Harrod’s apartment?”

  “What can they say?” Mason asked. “We simply took an ice pick up to Harrod’s apartment so I could ask Harrod if the ice pick with which he had been stabbed was identical to the one we had. Inadvertently, that ice pick was left in Harrod’s apartment.”

  “But I can’t swear to that,” Della Street said.

  “Bless your soul!” Mason told her. “We don’t swear to anything except the truth. Your testimony is simply going to be that you bought three ice picks; that you took one of them up to Harrod’s apartment, and that you left it there; that you were acting under my instructions.”

  “Will you then get on the stand?” Della Street asked apprehensively.

  Mason shook his head. “I’ll say to the Court that it’s up to the prosecution to prove every step of its case. Everyone will know that I set a trap for Carl Harrod, and that the police walked into it. My justification will be that at the time I set the trap I thought I was dealing with a civil suit for damages. I had no idea of confusing the evidence in a murder case. … The main point is that the prosecution’s entire case will turn out to be founded on incorrect evidence, an erroneous identification of the defendant, and the wrong ice pick as a murder weapon. That will leave the police and the deputy district attorney with very red faces.”

  “Well,” Drake said, “it sounds all right the way you tell it, but somehow I have an idea that you’re going to be walking on a tightrope over a very deep precipice.”

  Mason merely nodded.

  “Well,” Drake said, “you’d better be getting on up there. Then we’ll see what’s going to happen.”

  “On our way,” Mason told him, glancing at his wrist watch. “This is where I’m going to have to ask just exactly the right questions in just exactly the right way. It’s also a darned good lesson in the value of personal identification testimony. Here we have a case that’s brought right home to us. And the worst of it is, Della, that mistaken identification could just as well have involved you in a murder if the circumstances had been different.”

  “How do you know it’s not going to involve her in a murder the way it is?” Drake asked quietly.

  Mason thought that over, then said, “Come on, Della. Let’s go before Paul talks you into being guilty of killing Harrod.”

  “I wish I could sit in court this afternoon,” Della Street ventured.

  “Absolutely not,” Mason told her firmly.

  “Not even if I sat in the back row?”

  “No, you might spring the trap too soon. I’ve got to play this exactly right.”

  “You can say that again,” Paul Drake announced lugubriously.

  “And in the meantime, Paul,” Mason said, “I want to know where Fern Driscoll’s car is.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to search it for evidence. Call your office and start your bloodhounds baying.”

  “Okay,” Drake said. “We’ll get busy.”

  Chapter 13

  Judge Bolton said, “Let the record show the defendant is in court; that counsel for both sides are in attendance. I believe the witness, Irma Karnes, was on the stand and the direct examination had been concluded. Cross-examination on behalf of the defense was about to begin.

  “Take the stand, Miss Karnes.”

  Irma Karnes walked to the stand with her long-legged stiff-backed gait and looked at Perry Mason, blinking her eyes behind the thick-lensed glasses.

  Mason said affably and casually, “I take it you wear those glasses all the time, Miss Karnes?”

  “No, sir,” she said.

  “No?” Mason asked.

  “No.”

  “When can you dispense with them?”

  “When I’m asleep.”

  Laughter rippled through the courtroom. Irma Karnes held her face completely without expression so that it was impossible to tell whether she had deliberately set the stage for her remark or whether she was a literal-minded person who carefully took every statement at its face value.

  “Do you,” Mason asked, “know who the first young woman was who purchased three of the ice picks?”

  “I do now. I didn’t then.”

  “You know now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Miss Katherine Baylor.”

  “And when did you learn that it was Miss Katherine Baylor?”

  Calvert said, “Just a moment. Your Honor, I object on the ground that this is not proper cross-examination; that it is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.”

  Judge Bolton shook his head. “The witness mentioned the first purchase. In fact, the witness made it an important part of her testimony. Therefore, counsel is entitled to go into it. Answer the question.”

  “It was … I don’t know, rather recently.”

  “Who told you it was Katherine Baylor?”

  “The police.”

  “The police told you Katherine Baylor was the young woman who purchased those first three ice picks?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then the only knowledge that you have on this point is what the police told you?”

  “No, sir. That’s not right.”

  “Well, what is right?”

  “They told me who it was, but they said they wanted me to take a look at her so I could be sure.”

  “In other words, they gave you the information, and then told you they wanted you to look so you could make an identification?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You knew you were expected to make the identification before you saw Miss Baylor?”

  “Oh, Your Honor,” Calvert said, “this is consuming the time of the Court and making a mountain out of a molehill. If counsel is at all concerned about the matter, I’ll state that Katherine Baylor not only doesn’t deny purchasing those first three ice picks, but presently I’m going to put her on the witness stand and she’s going to testify to it.”

  “The fact remains, if the Court please,” Mason said, “I am entitled to cross-examine this witness in my own way.”

  Judge Bolton nodded. “I think I see the point counsel is leading up to. Go right ahead.”

  “Isn’t that a fact?” Mason asked the witness. “You knew that you were expected to make an identification of Miss Baylor as soon as you saw her?”

  “I don’t know what the police expected. I’m not a mind reader.”

  Mason said, “I’m not asking you what the police expected you to do. I’m asking you whether you knew what you were expected to do.”

  “I can’t say.”

  “They told you that you were going to see Miss Baylor?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they told you that she was the young woman who had made the first purchase of the three ice picks. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So when you saw her, you knew that the police expected you to make the identification.”

  “Objected to as calling for a conclusion of the witness,” Calvert said. “She can’t testify as to what the police expected.”

  “The objection is sustained.” Judge Bolton ruled.

  “Well, the police told you that they expected you to make the identification, didn’t they?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “At least by their actions and they also intimated that, didn’t they?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Now then,” Mason said, “when did you first know that it was Mildred Crest who made the second purchase of ice picks that night?”

  “Just a short time after her arrest.”

  “What do you mean by the expression, a short time?”

  “I mean it was only a short time.”

  “Two or three days?”

  “Sooner.”

  “And did the police follow the same procedure in that instance? Did they tell you that Mildred Crest was the person who had purchased the second lot of three ice picks?”

  “It was my understanding that she had.”

  “And did they tell you they expected you to make an identification?”

  “Well, I knew that the police were certain she had made the purchase. Then when I saw her, I knew that she was the one who had made the purchase.”

  “You identified her to the police?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you meet her face to face?”

  “I saw her clearly.”

  “Did you talk with her?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear her voice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did this identification take place?”

  “It was in a room—an interrogation room. There’s a big mirror at one end of the room. That is, it’s a mirror which shows a reflection to any person on the inside looking out, but it’s a window to anyone who is in the adjoining room looking in. You see very distinctly, but the person in the other room can’t see you at all.”

  “So you sat in this observation room and the defendant was ushered into the interrogation room and you looked at her through the one-way mirror, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And was there an officer with you at that time?”

  “Yes.”

  “More than one?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “Three.”

  “And did those officers make comments?”

  “They were talking.”

  “To you?”

  “Yes, and among themselves.”

  “And the gist of their conversation was that the defendant, Mildred Crest, was the girl who had purchased the ice picks, isn’t that true?”

  “They mentioned something to that effect. They were also discussing other things.”

  “Things which were calculated to prejudice you against the defendant, discussing the fact that she was supposed to have murdered Fern Driscoll?”

  “They said something like that.”

  “Just what did they say?”

  “I can’t remember their exact words, but they said she had murdered Fern Driscoll, had stolen her money and, when Harrod found out about it, had stabbed him with an ice pick she bought from the store where I work.”

  “So after they said all that, you made the identification, did you?”

  “Well, when I saw the defendant, I knew she was the one.”

  “Right away, the minute you saw her?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long were you in the observation room?”

  “About ten minutes, I guess.”

  “And how long were you in the observation room after the defendant was led into the interrogation room?”

  “She was brought in within just a few seconds of the time I entered the observation room.”

  “And she was in the interrogation room all of the time you were in the observation room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which was a period of at least ten minutes?”

  “I would say so.”

  “It could have been more?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But it couldn’t have been less?”

  “I think it was at least ten minutes.”

  “And during all of that time the officers were asking you to look the defendant over carefully?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now then,” Mason said, “if you made the identification as soon as the defendant walked in the room, what was the reason for the officers to keep you there for ten minutes, asking you to look the defendant over carefully?”

  “Well, they said they wanted me to be sure.”

  “Weren’t you sure?”

  “I was, yes.”

  “You were sure when you left the room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you sure before that?”

  “I thought I was.”

  “Yet you kept looking at the defendant during all that ten-minute period?”

  “Yes.”

  “Studying her features?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, the officers suggested—Am I at liberty to tell what they said?”

  Calvert grinned. “Go right ahead. What did the officers say?”

  “Well, they said that Mr. Mason was going to be representing the defendant, that he was noted for being tricky and that he might arrange to have some other young woman brought in and try to trick me that way. They said that I should study the defendant carefully so that Mr. Mason couldn’t—Well, the way they expressed it was ‘run in a ringer.’”

  “And was that the reason you made such a careful study of the defendant?” Mason asked.

  “Yes.”

  “For a period of ten minutes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now going back to the night of the second,” Mason said, “what were your duties there at the Arcade Novelty Company?”

  “Well, I acted as cashier.”

  “What were your duties as cashier?”

  “To make change, giving out nickels, pennies and dimes as they were required.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I sort of kept an eye on the various people to see what they were doing and see that everything was running in an orderly manner.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. That’s about all.”

  “But you were also acting as saleslady?”

  “Oh yes. I sold merchandise whenever anybody came in and wanted something.”

  “And wrapped the merchandise for them?”

  “Usually I just dropped it in a paper bag.”

  “That took quite a bit of your time?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Didn’t quite a few people come in?”

  “Well, it’s a self-service place. That is, the people pick out what they want and bring it up to the cashier to be paid for and wrapped. About all I have to do is to ring up the money in the cash register and drop the articles in a paper bag. We keep an assortment of paper bags on a shelf right beneath the cash register.”

  “Then a big percentage of your time is put in making change for customers and watching what is going on in the Arcade?”

  “Yes. Mostly watching, keeping an eye on things.”

  “You have quite a few customers?”

  “Quite a few.”

  “And you try to keep an eye on what they’re doing?”

  “Yes. I have to make certain that things are run in an orderly manner; that the young men don’t annoy the women who don’t want to be annoyed.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, of course, if young women are sociably inclined and don’t resent attention, why that’s all right, but, if some young men become obnoxious or try to force their attentions on customers, then we do something about it.”

  “So you keep a sharp eye on what is going on?”

  “Yes.”

  “I take it then that you’re trained to see things that go on.”

  “Indeed I am, Mr. Mason. You have to have an eagle eye to run a place like that. You get so you’re trained to see the faintest suspicion of a false motion.”

  “That is, you know what to look for?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you keep looking?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your spectacles have rather heavy correction?”

  “I’m blind as a bat without my spectacles, but with them I see very well.”

  “Directly in front of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your vision to the side is somewhat impaired?”

  “Yes, but I can see all tight. That’s my job, to see what’s going on.”

  “You’re also making change at the cash register?” Mason asked.

  “Yes. I said I was. I told you that.”

  “And ringing up purchases?”

  “Yes.”

  “Suppose there would be a shortage at the cash register?”

  “There never is. Not when I’m on duty.”

  “You don’t make mistakes?”

  “No.”

  “How does it happen you have such a perfect record?”

  “Concentration largely.”

  “By that I take it you mean that, when you’re making change, you think about making change and nothing else.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you don’t make mistakes?”

  “I never have. My cash has always balanced out to the penny.”

  “When you’re ringing up a sale,” Mason said, “you concentrate on making the correct change?”

  “Yes.”

  “And putting the proper amount of money in the proper compartment in the cash register?”

  “Yes.”

  “During that time your eyes necessarily are averted from what is going on in the Arcade, are they not?”

  “That is true, Mr. Mason. But you learn to make the interval as brief as possible. And even during that interval you’re sort of keeping an eye on things with an occasional quick glance.”