“We wanted to make a search of the garage. We didn’t want to be interrupted and we didn’t want to have anyone interfering with us.”

  Mason smiled frostily. “You have just said, Mr. Judson, that you wanted to make a search of the garage.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that? We had a warrant, didn’t we?”

  “You said of the garage.”

  “I meant of the whole place—the house—the whole business.”

  “You didn’t say that. You said you wanted to search the garage.”

  “Well, we had a warrant for it.”

  “Isn’t it true,” Mason asked, “that the only place you really wanted to search was the garage, and you only wanted to search that because you had been given a tip that the gun would be found in the garage?”

  “We were looking for the gun, all right.”

  “Isn’t it a fact that you had a tip before you went out there that the gun would be found in the garage?”

  “Objected to as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, not proper cross-examination,” Hamilton Burger said.

  Judge Strouse thought for a moment “The objection is overruled… if the witness knows.”

  “I don’t know about any tip.”

  “Isn’t it a fact you intended primarily to search the garage?”

  “We searched there first”

  “Was there some reason you searched there first?”

  “That’s where we started. We thought we might find a gun there.”

  “And what made you think that was where the gun was?”

  “That was as good a place to hide it as any.”

  “You mean the police didn’t have some anonymous telephone tip to guide you?”

  “I mean we searched the garage, looking for a gun, and we found the gun in the garage. I don’t know what tip the others had. I was told to go look for a gun.”

  “In the garage?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said. “That’s all.”

  Arthur Merriam took the stand and testified to experiments he had performed with the gun which he had received from the last witness and which was introduced in evidence. He stated that he had fired test bullets from the gun, had examined them through a comparison microscope, comparing the test bullets with the fatal bullet He had prepared photographs which showed the identity of striation marks on the two bullets while one was superimposed over the other. These photographs were introduced in evidence.

  “You may cross-examine,” Hamilton Burger said.

  Mason seemed a little bored with the entire proceeding. “No questions,” he said.

  Hamilton Burger’s next witness was a man who had charge of the sporting goods section of one of the large downtown department stores. This man produced records showing the gun in question had been sold to Stewart G. Bedford some five years earlier and that Bedford had signed the register of sales. The book of sales was offered in evidence; then, as a photostatic copy of the original was produced, the Court ordered that the original record might be withdrawn.

  “Cross-examine,” Hamilton Burger said.

  “No questions,” Mason announced, suppressing a yawn.

  Judge Strouse looked at the clock, said, “It is now time for the afternoon adjournment. The Court admonishes the jurors not to discuss this case among yourselves, nor to permit anyone else to discuss it in your presence. You are not to form or express any opinion until the case is finally submitted to you.

  “Court will take a recess until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

  Bedford gripped Mason’s arm. “Mason,” he said, “someone planted that gun in my garage.”

  “Did you put it there?” Mason asked.

  “Don’t be silly! I tell you I never saw the gun after I went to sleep. That liquor was drugged and someone took the gun out of my brief case, killed Binney Den-ham, and then subsequently planted the gun in my garage.”

  “And,” Mason pointed out, “telephoned a tip to the police so that the officers would be sure to find it there.”

  “Well, what does that mean?”

  “It means that someone was very anxious that the officers would have plenty of evidence to connect you with the murder.”

  “And that gets back to this mysterious prowler who was in that motel where Elsa—”

  “Just a minute,” Mason cautioned. “No names.”

  “Well, that woman who was in there,” Bedford said. “Hang it, Mason! I keep telling you she’s important. She’s the key to the whole business. Yet you don’t seem to get the least bit excited about her, or try to find her.”

  “How am I going to go about finding her?” Mason asked impatiently. “You tell me there’s a needle in a haystack and the needle is important. So what?”

  The officer motioned for Bedford to accompany him.

  “Hire fifty detectives,” Bedford said, holding back momentarily. “Hire a hundred detectives. But find that woman!”

  “See you tomorrow,” Mason told him as the officer led Bedford through the passageway to the jail elevator.

  19

  Perry Mason and Della Street had dinner at their favorite restaurant, returned for a couple hours’ work at the office, and found Elsa Griffin waiting for them in the foyer of the building.

  “Hello,” Mason said. “Do you want to see me?”

  She nodded.

  “Been here long?”

  “About twenty minutes. I heard you were out to dinner but expected to return to the office this evening, so I waited.”

  Mason flashed a glance at Della Street “Something important?”

  “I think so.”

  “Come on up,” Mason invited.

  The three of them rode up in the elevator and walked down the corridor. Mason opened the door of the private office, went in and switched on the lights.

  “Take off your coat and hat,” Della Street said. “Sit down in that chair over there.”

  Elsa Griffin moved quietly, efficiently, as a woman moves who has a fixed purpose and has steeled herself to carry out her objectives in a series of definite steps.

  “I had a chance to talk for a few minutes with Mr. Bedford,” she said.

  Mason nodded.

  “A few words of private conversation.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason told her.

  She said, “Mr. Bedford feels that with all of the resources that he has placed at your command, you could do more about finding that woman who was in my unit there at the motel. Of course, when you come right down to it, she could have kept those two units, fifteen and sixteen, under surveillance from my cabin and then gone over and … well, at the proper moment she could have simply opened the door of sixteen and fired one shot and then made her escape.”

  “Yes,” Mason said drily, “fired one shot with Bedford’s gun.”

  “Yes,” Elsa Griffin said thoughtfully, “I suppose she would have had to get into that other cabin and get possession of the gun first … But she could have done that, Mr. Mason. She could have gone into the cabin after that blonde went out, and there she found Mr. Bedford asleep. She took the gun from his brief case.”

  Mason studied her carefully.

  Abruptly she said, “Mr. Mason, don’t you think it’s bad publicity for Mrs. Bedford to wear those horribly heavy dark glasses and keep in the back of the courtroom? Shouldn’t she be right up there in front, giving her husband moral support, and not looking as though—as though she were afraid to have people find out who she is?”

  “Everyone knows who she is,” Mason said. “From the time they started picking the jury, the newspaper people have been interviewing her.”

  “I know, but she’ll never take off those horrid dark glasses. And they make her look terrible. They’re great big lensed glasses that completely alter her appearance. She looks just like … well, not like herself at all.”

  “So what would you suggest that I do?” Mason asked.

  “Couldn’t you tell her to be more natural? Tell her to take her glasses off, to come up and sit as close to her husband as she can to give him a word of encouragement now and then.”

  “That’s what Mr. Bedford wants?”

  “I’m satisfied he does. I think that his wife’s conduct has hurt him. He acts very differently from the way he normally does. He’s … well, he’s sort of crushed.”

  “I see,” Mason said.

  Elsa Griffin was silent for a few minutes, then said, “What have you been able to do with those fingerprints I got for you from the cabin, Mr. Mason?”

  “Not very much, I’m afraid. You see, it’s very difficult to identify a person unless you have a complete set of ten fingerprints, but as one who studied to be a detective, you know all about that.”

  ‘“Yes, I suppose so,” she said dubiously. “I thought Mr. Brems gave a very good description of that prowler who was in my cabin.”

  Mason nodded.

  “There’s something about the way he describes her, something about her walk. I almost feel that I know her. It’s the most peculiar feeling. It’s like seeing a face that you can’t place, yet which is very familiar to you. You know it as well as you know your own, and yet somehow you can’t get it fixed with the name. You just can’t get the right connection. There’s one link in the chain that’s missing.”

  Again Mason nodded.

  “I have a feeling that if I could only think of that, I’d have it. I feel that there’s a solution to the whole business just almost at our finger tips, and yet it keeps eluding us like … like a Halloween apple.”

  Mason sat silent.

  “Well,” she said, getting to her feet, “I must be going. I wanted to tell you Mr. Bedford would like very much indeed to have you concentrate all of the resources at your command on finding that woman. Also, I’m satisfied he would like it a lot better if his wife wouldn’t act as though she were afraid of being recognized. You know, really, she’s a very beautiful woman and she has a wonderful carriage—”

  Abruptly Elsa Griffin ceased speaking and looked at Mason with eyes that slowly widened with startled, incredulous surprise.

  “What’s the matter?” Mason asked. “What is it?”

  “My God!” she exclaimed. “It couldn’t be!”

  “Come on,” Mason said. “What is it?”

  “Are you ill?” Della Street asked.

  She kept looking at him with round, startled eyes.

  “Good heavens, Mr. Mason! It’s just hit me like a ton of bricks. Let me sit down.”

  She dropped down into a chair, moved her head slowly from side to side, looking around the office as though some mental shock had left her completely disoriented.

  “Well,” Mason asked, “what is it?”

  “I was just mentioning Mrs. Bedford and thinking about her carriage and the way she walks and … Mr. Mason, it’s just come to me. If’s a terrible thing. It’s just as though something had crashed into my mind.”

  “What is it?” Mason asked.

  “Don’t you see, Mr. Mason? That prowler who was in my unit at the motel. The description Mr. Brems gave fits her perfectly. Why, you couldn’t ask for a better description of Mrs. Bedford than the one that Morrison Brems gave.”

  Mason sat silent, his eyes steadily studying Elsa Griffin’s face. Abruptly she snapped her fingers.

  “I have it, Mr. Mason! I have it! You’ve got her photograph on that police card—her photograph and her fingerprints. You could compare the latents I took there in my unit in the motel with her fingerprints on there, and … and then we’d know!”

  Mason nodded to Della Street. “Get the card with Mrs. Bedford’s fingerprints, Della. Also, get the envelope with the unidentified latent prints. You’ll remember we discarded Elsa Griffin’s prints. We have four unidentified latents numbered fourteen, sixteen, nine, and twelve. I’d like to have those prints, please.”

  Della Street regarded Mason’s expressionless face for a moment, then went to the locked filing case in which the lawyer kept matters to which he was referring in cases under trial, and returned with the articles Mason had requested.

  Elsa Griffin eagerly reached for the envelope with the lifted fingerprints, took the cards from the envelope, examined them carefully, then grabbed the card containing Ann Roann Bedford’s criminal record.

  She swiftly compared the lifted latent prints with those on the card, looking intently from one to the other. Gradually her excitement became evident, then mounted to a fever pitch.

  “Mr. Mason, these prints are hers!”

  Mason took the card with Mrs. Bedford’s criminal record. Elsa Griffin held onto the cards numbered fourteen, sixteen, nine, and twelve.

  “They’re hers, Mr. Mason! You can take my word for it I’ve studied fingerpinting.”

  Mason said, “Let’s hope you’re mistaken. That would really put the fat in the fire. We simply couldn’t have that.”

  Elsa Griffin picked up the envelope containing the lifted latents. “Mr. Mason,” she said sternly, “you’re representing Stewart G. Bedford. You have to represent his interests regardless of who gets hurt.”

  Mason held out his hand for the latent prints. She drew back slightly. “You can’t be a traitor to his cause in order to protect … to protect the person who got him into all this trouble in the first place.”

  Mason said, “A lawyer has to protect his client’s best interests. That doesn’t mean he necessarily has to do what the client wants or what the client’s friends may want. He must do what is best for the client.”

  “You mean you aren’t going to tell Mr. Bedford that it was his own wife who, goaded to desperation by this blackmailer, finally decided to—”

  “No,” Mason interrupted, “I’m not going to tell him, and I don’t want you to tell him.”

  She suddenly jumped from her chair, and raced for the exit door of the office.

  “Come back here,” Della Street cried, making a grab and missing Elsa Griffin’s flying skirt by a matter of inches.

  Before Della Street could get to the door, Elsa Griffin had wrenched it open.

  Sergeant Holcomb was standing on the outer threshold. “Well, well, good evening, folks,” he said, slipping an arm around Elsa Griffin’s shoulders. “I gather there has been a little commotion in here. What’s going on?”

  “This young woman is trying to take some personal property which doesn’t belong to her,” Mason said.

  “Well, well, well, isn’t that interesting? Stealing from you, eh? Could you describe the property, Mason? Perhaps you’d like to go down to headquarters and swear out a complaint, charging her with larceny. What’s your side of the story, Miss Griffin?”

  Elsa Griffin pushed the lifted latents inside the front of her dress. “Will you,” she asked Sergeant Holcomb, “kindly escort me home and then see that I am subpoenaed as a witness for the prosecution? I think it’s time someone showed Mr. Perry Mason, the great criminal lawyer, that it’s against the law to condone murder and conceal evidence from the police.”

  Sergeant Holcomb’s face was wreathed in smiles. “Sister,” he said, “you’ve made a great little speech. You just come along with me.”

  20

  Hamilton Burger, his face plainly indicating his feelings, rose to his feet when court was called to order the next morning and said, “Your Honor, I would like to call the Court’s attention to Section 135 of the penal code, which reads as follows: ‘Every person who, knowing that any book, paper, record, instrument in writing, or other matter or thing, is about to be produced in evidence upon any trial, inquiry, or investigation whatever, authorized by law, willfully destroys or conceals the same, with intent thereby to prevent it from being produced is guilty of a misdemeanor.’”

  Judge Strouse, plainly puzzled, said, “The Court is, I think, familiar with the law, Mr. Burger.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said. “I merely wished to call the section to Your Honor’s attention. I know Your Honor is familiar with the law. I feel that perhaps some other persons are not, and now, Your Honor, I wish to call Miss Elsa Griffin to the stand.”

  Stewart Bedford looked at Mason with alarm. “What the devil’s this?” he whispered. “I thought we were going to keep her out of the public view. We can’t afford to have Brems recognize her as the one who was in unit twelve.”

  “She didn’t like the way I was handling things,” Mason said. “She decided to become a witness.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Late last night.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  The outer door opened, and Elsa Griffin, her chin high, came marching into the courtroom. She raised her right hand, was sworn, and took the witness stand.

  “What is your name?” Hamilton Burger asked.

  “Elsa Griffin.”

  “Are you acquainted with the defendant in this case?”

  “I am employed by him.”

  “Where were you on the sixth day of April of this year?”

  “I was at The Staylonger Motel.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I was there at the request of a certain person.”

  “Now then, if the Court please,” Hamilton Burger said, addressing Judge Strouse, “a most unusual situation is about to develop. I may state that this witness, while wishing the authorities to take certain action, did nevertheless conspire with another person, whom I shall presently name, to conceal and suppress certain evidence which we consider highly pertinent.

  “I had this witness placed under subpoena. She is here as an unwilling witness. That is, she is not only willing but anxious to testify to certain phases of the case. However, she is quite unwilling to testify as to other matters. As to these matters she has refused to make any statement, and I have no knowledge of how much or how little she knows as to this part of the case. She simply will not talk with me except upon one point.

  “It is, therefore, necessary for me to approach this witness upon certain matters as a hostile witness.”

  “Perhaps,” Judge Strouse said, “you had better first examine the witness upon the matters as to which she is willing to give her testimony, and then elicit information from her on the other points as a hostile witness, and under the rules pertaining to the examination of hostile witnesses.”