“No inducements of any sort. I simply told her that if she was innocent she had nothing to fear, and that if she wanted to make a statement that would convince us of her innocence, the matter wouldn’t go any farther. We’d let her step out of the car and go back to keep her appointment.”

  “Very well. Will you tell the Court and the jury what she said?”

  “Do you wish to cross-examine on the voir dire?” Judge Seymour asked Mason.

  “No, Your Honor. If the defendant said anything, let’s hear what she said.”

  “Proceed,” Ruskin said to the witness.

  “Well, she said that her employer, Mr. Theilman, had told her not to open any letters which came from A. B. Vidal; that an envelope came from Vidal; that she didn’t open it, but that later on she saw that Mr. Theilman had torn this letter up and put it in the wastebasket; that she had seen it there; that she was curious; that she had put the pieces together; that the letter contained a message telling Theilman to have the blackmail money on pain of death.

  “She said that Theilman had then sent her out to buy a suitcase; that when she returned with the suitcase she retained one key and gave Theilman the suitcase with the other key. She said that Theilman apparently never thought about the missing key and didn’t ask her for it; that he took the suitcase, was in his private office for a few minutes, then brought out the suitcase; that at that time it was quite heavy; that it must have weighed twenty-five or thirty pounds; that the suitcase was locked. He told her to take the suitcase and go to the Union Depot and put the suitcase in locker number FO82. She was to take the key to the locker and mail it to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery, Los Angeles. In the event locker FO82 was already occupied, she was to take any one of the other four adjacent lockers in the same tier on the left.”

  “And did she tell you what she did?”

  “She said she took the suitcase, that she took a cab and went at once to the office of Perry Mason; that she told Mr. Mason she suspected her employer was being blackmailed; that she produced her extra key to the suitcase; that Mr. Mason opened it in her presence and in the presence of Miss Street; that the suitcase was filled with twenty-dollar bills; that they spent several minutes reading numbers from the twenty-dollar bills.

  “She said that they read these numbers into a dictating machine and also into a tape recorder; that they then closed and locked the suitcase and Mr. Mason retained the key; that the defendant and Della Street went to the Union Depot, put the suitcase in a locker, and that Della Street was the one who mailed the locker key to A. B. Vidal; that thereafter the witness returned to the office; and that shortly after her return and immediately after lunch, Mr. Theilman stated that he was going home. A short time later he phoned to say he wouldn’t be back in the office.

  “The defendant further stated that she didn’t see Mr. Theilman after that, that was the last time she saw him alive; that at about eight-forty on the morning of the fourth she talked with Mr. Mason on the phone, telling him that police had been at the office asking questions about Mr. Theilman; that his wife had reported him missing; that Mason told her not to lie to the police but not to be too available, and not to tell them things unless she was specifically asked about those things.

  “She said that almost immediately after she had finished talking with Mr. Mason, Mr. Theilman called her on the telephone.”

  “Now, just a moment. Let’s not have any misunderstanding about this,” Ruskin said. “She said that Mr. Theilman called her on the telephone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And at what time?”

  “Immediately after she had finished talking with Perry Mason. She placed the time of her call to Perry Mason at about twenty minutes before nine o’clock in the morning, and placed Mr. Theilman’s call at being perhaps two or three minutes after she had finished talking with Mr. Mason.”

  “And what did she say Mr. Theilman told her?”

  “Mr. Theilman instructed her to go to the safe, to take two hundred and fifty dollars out of the petty cash drawer, to get a ticket to Las Vegas on an evening plane that night and to meet the Union Pacific Domeliner, The City of Los Angeles, when it came through at eleven-twenty that evening; he told her that his first wife, Carlotta Theilman, would be on that train; that the defendant was to meet her and take her to a hotel Mrs. Theilman would designate.

  “According to her story, after they were located in this hotel in Las Vegas, she was to go to the Western Union Telegraph office and send a telegram to Theilman, care of Western Union at Las Vegas, telling him where they were registered; that thereafter the defendant was to remain in the company of Carlotta Theilman until she received different instructions.

  “The witness further stated that Theilman told her he was trying to consummate a stock deal with his former wife by which he would either get possession of the stock or be given the exclusive voting privileges on that stock.”

  “That was all?”

  “That was substantially all,” the witness said.

  “Cross-examine,” Ruskin snapped.

  Mason glanced at the clock, seemed tremendously bored, said, “I have no questions.”

  “Very well,” Ruskin said. “Now, I don’t want to embarrass counsel by putting him on the stand as a witness in a case in which he is representing a defense client. I will, therefore, offer to stipulate with counsel that he and his secretary did make tape recordings and records of certain numbers on the twenty-dollar bills which were in the suitcase that was taken to his office by the defendant; that Mr. Mason and his secretary, Della Street, were subpoenaed on the fifth with subpoenas duces tecum ordering them to appear forthwith before the grand jury, bringing those records with them; that in response to those subpoenas Mr. Mason and his secretary did so appear and produced certain records in the form of tape recordings and the disc from a dictating machine.

  “I will further stipulate that I have here a list of numbers of twenty-dollar bills which were taken from the tape recording and the disc. They are arranged for purposes of easy reference. I will assure counsel that these are an accurate transcription of the records which they surrendered to the grand jury and I will ask counsel to stipulate that they may be received in evidence as such, in order to avoid the embarrassment of having counsel or his secretary called as a witness.”

  “We appreciate the situation,” Mason said, “and thank counsel for his courtesy. If the prosecutor will assure me that to his knowledge these represent an accurate transcription of the records which we turned over to the grand jury, we will so stipulate.”

  “I make such representation and statement,” Ruskin said.

  “Very well,” Mason said. “We will stipulate these lists may be received in evidence.”

  Judge Seymour said, “It is so ordered. They will be received in evidence as People’s Exhibit, appropriate number. Call your next witness, Mr. Prosecutor.”

  With an air of evident triumph, Ruskin said, “Call Dudley Roberts.”

  Roberts came forward and was sworn.

  “Where do you reside?” Ruskin asked.

  “Las Vegas, Nevada.”

  “Are you familiar with Perry Mason?”

  “I am.”

  “And his secretary, Della Street? I will ask Della Street to stand up, please.”

  Della Street stood up.

  “Yes, I know them both,” Roberts said.

  “When did you first see them?”

  “On the evening of Wednesday, the fourth.”

  “Where?”

  “In Las Vegas. They rented my cab.”

  “Now then,” Ruskin said triumphantly, “I will show you a twenty-dollar bill, number G78342831A, and ask you if you have ever seen that currency before?”

  “I have. It has my initials in the corner.”

  “And where did you get that bill?”

  “It was given me by Perry Mason in payment of cab fare,” Roberts said.

  “Cross-examine,” Ruskin snapped.

  Mason got up and walked over to stand in front of the witness. For a long moment he studied the witness carefully.

  “Mr. Roberts,” he said, “how many times did I ride with you on the evening of the fourth after Miss Street and I started for the airport?”

  “You and Miss Street rode with me from the Double Take Casino down to the police station. First you started to the airport; then you changed your mind and decided to go to the police station.”

  “Exactly,” Mason said, “and when did you next have me as a passenger?”

  “We waited at the police station and then you picked up a woman there at the police station and took off down the street. The police tried to stop you, but you told me to step on it.”

  “And where did we go?”

  “You told me to go to the first motel which had a vacancy sign and you stopped there.”

  “And told you to wait?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you waited?”

  “Well, I telephoned.”

  “To whom did you telephone?”

  “I telephoned the police station and told them that the man they had tried to stop had had me drive him to this motel and that you were inside. I have to live in Las Vegas and I’m not going to quarrel with the Las Vegas police.”

  “So you deemed it necessary to tell them where I was.”

  “I thought it advisable.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Well, a police car came and the police car took you and the young woman with you down to the airport.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I took this woman who had been with you, the older woman, back to the Double Take Casino.”

  “Now then, I paid you for the trip, did I not?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Don’t you remember that I paid you in silver dollars? Don’t you remember that we had a conversation in which I asked you if you objected to being paid in silver dollars and you said the only thing you objected to being paid in was in I.O.U.’s or promissory notes?”

  “That’s right. That, however, was the time you rode with me to the police station. You paid me this twenty-dollar bill when I took you from the airport to the railroad depot at Las Vegas.”

  “And when did you first know that I had paid you this twenty-dollar bill?”

  “Well, the police asked me the next day to look through my take of the night before and sure enough, I had this twenty-dollar bill—the one they wanted.”

  “It was identified by the number?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you didn’t look at the number when I gave you the bill, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know that was the same twenty-dollar bill that I gave you?”

  “It had to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it was that twenty-dollar bill.”

  “What is there distinctive about it that you remember?”

  “I remember I got it from you.”

  “But how do you differentiate that twenty-dollar bill from any other twenty dollars?”

  “It was the only one I had the next morning.”

  “You mean I am the only one who gave you a twenty-dollar bill that night?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Think carefully,” Mason said, “didn’t anyone else give you a twenty-dollar bill?”

  “No. This was the only one.”

  “Now, let’s get this straight,” Mason said. “When I paid you that twenty-dollar bill, you didn’t pay any particular attention to it.”

  “The deuce I didn’t,” the witness said. “It was a twenty-dollar bill and you told me to keep the change. Whenever a fare tells me to keep the change from a twenty-dollar bill, I remember it.”

  “No, no,” Mason said, “what I am getting at is you didn’t look at the number when I gave you the bill.”

  “No, I didn’t look at the number. I put it in my pocket.”

  “Then how do you know this is the same twenty-dollar bill that I gave you?”

  “Because it’s the only twenty-dollar bill I had in my pocket the next morning when the police asked me to check.”

  “Now the second time,” Mason said, “I paid you in silver dollars.”

  “That’s right. There’s no question about that. You went down to the police station. You started for the airport, then changed your mind and had me go to the police station. You gave me some silver dollars. You had me wait there.

  “Then this woman came out of the police station, this older woman. You hustled her into the cab. She thought the cab was empty when she saw me coming.

  “You got her in the cab and told me to step on it. The police ran to the door and tried to stop you when they saw that it wasn’t a vacant cab, but you told me to just keep right on going down the street.”

  “So what did you do?” Mason asked.

  “So I went on down the street until you told me to stop at a motel that had a sign of a vacancy on it. You folks went in there and started talking, and I went to a phone and called the police station and told them where you were.”

  “And that phone call resulted in a police car coming out there to the motel?”

  “I presume it did. The police came out and picked you up and told you they were going to take you down to the airport personally and see that you got out of town.”

  “So this twenty dollars that I gave you had to be the first twenty dollars; that is, it had to be in payment of the first trip.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”

  “That was the only twenty dollars you had in your pocket the next morning?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Now think carefully,” Mason said. “Didn’t you spend something during the evening of the fourth?”

  The witness shook his head.

  “Think,” Mason said.

  “No, I … well, now wait a minute … “

  “Yes, go on,” Mason said, as the witness hesitated.

  “I … I bought myself a good dinner. I’d had a good evening and I thought I was entitled to a steak. I bought a steak. I think I paid for that with a ten-dollar bill.”

  “It could have been a twenty?”

  “No, I think it was a ten.”

  “Now, after I went to the airport, what did you do?”

  “I was there at this motel and the little lady that you’d picked up at the police station was there at the motel.”

  “And what happened?”

  “She wanted me to take her to the Double Take Casino, and I took her there.”

  “She paid you?”

  “Of course she paid me. I was running a taxicab.”

  “And how did she pay you?”

  “In money,” the cabdriver said angrily.

  “What I am trying to get at,” Mason said, “is whether she paid you the exact amount, or whether she gave you a bill and you had to make change.”

  “She gave me—I don’t remember. She may have had the exact change. I think she gave me some one-dollar bills. I’m not sure.”

  “Couldn’t she have given you this twenty-dollar bill?”

  “I tell you,” the witness said, “I only had the one twenty-dollar bill in my pocket. I remember you gave me a twenty-dollar bill and told me to keep it. The next morning the police asked me to look through my pockets for twenty-dollar bills and to give them the numbers of the bills. I had this one bill in my pocket and I gave them the number and they had me write my initials on it and took the bill and gave me two tens in place of it.”

  “Now, if this woman who was at the motel, whose name, by the way, is Mrs. Theilman, had given you a twenty-dollar bill when you took her to the casino and you had given her change for that bill, and then when you had a steak that night you had paid for it with one of the twenty-dollar bills you had in your pocket, it is possible that this bill could have been given you by Mrs. Theilman. Isn’t that right?”

  The witness said, “Sure, that’s right. And if John D. Rockefeller had given me a million dollars, I’d have been a millionaire.”

  The courtroom broke into laughter.

  Judge Seymour tapped his pencil. “There is no occasion for levity,” he said. “If the Court please,” Mason said, “I ask the indulgence of the Court in connection with this cross-examination. I feel that as a matter of ethics an attorney should not take the stand, and if he is forced to take the stand, he should then not argue the case to the jury. Because I wish to avoid taking the stand myself, I am trying to clear this matter up by a detailed cross-examination.”

  Judge Seymour nodded, said, “You may proceed, Mr. Mason. The Court appreciates your position and I think there is no reason to make any further explanation in the presence of the jury. Proceed with your cross-examination.”

  “I would like an answer to my question,” Mason said.

  “If your fare to the casino had given you a twenty-dollar bill, isn’t it possible that you could have spent the twenty-dollar bill I gave you when you got your steak dinner?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Will you say it’s impossible?”

  “All right,” the witness said, “I’ll say it’s impossible. She didn’t give me any twenty-dollar bill. That was the only twenty-dollar bill I had the next morning.”

  “It may have been the only twenty-dollar bill you had the next morning,” Mason said, “but you can’t swear you didn’t spend twenty dollars when you paid for your steak dinner, can you?”

  “I don’t think I did.”

  “Can you swear that you didn’t?”

  “Well, I can’t swear absolutely, positively that I didn’t, no. I don’t think I did, though. In fact, I’m positive I didn’t.”

  “That’s all,” Mason said.

  Ruskin said suavely, “Well, if you’re positive you didn’t, you can now swear that you didn’t, isn’t that right, Mr. Roberts?”

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

  “It is leading and suggestive,” Judge Seymour said. “But this is on redirect examination.”

  “That doesn’t make any difference. You can’t put words into the mouth of the witness. He’s your witness.”