“Very well, Your Honor.”

  Hamilton Burger turned to the witness.

  “You are now and for several years have been employed by the defendant?”

  “Yes.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “I am his confidential secretary.”

  “Are you acquainted with Mr. Morrison Brems, the manager of The Staylonger Motel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have a conversation with Morrison Brems on April sixth of this year?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Early in the evening.”

  “What was said at that conversation?”

  “Objected to as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial,” Mason said.

  “Just a moment, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger countered. “We propose to show that this witness was at the time of this conversation the agent of the defendant, that she went to the motel in accordance with instructions issued by the defendant.”

  “You had better show that first then,” Judge Strouse ruled.

  “But that, Your Honor, is where we are having trouble, that is one of the points where the witness is hostile.”

  “There are some other matters on which the witness is not a hostile witness?” Judge Strouse asked.

  “Yes.”

  “The Court has suggested that you proceed with those matters until the evidence which can be produced by this witness as a friendly witness is all before the Court. Then, if there are other matters on which the witness is hostile, and you request permission to deal with the witness as a hostile witness, the record will be straight as to what has been done and where, when and why it has been done.”

  “Very well, Your Honor.”

  Hamilton Burger turned again to the witness. “After this conversation did you return to The Staylonger Motel later on in the evening of April sixth?”

  “Actually it was, I believe, early on the morning of April seventh.”

  “Who sent you to The Staylonger Motel?”

  “Mr. Perry Mason.”

  “You mean that you received instructions from Mr. Mason while he was acting as attorney for Stewart G. Bedford, the defendant in this case?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did Mr. Mason instruct you to do?”

  “To get certain fingerprints from unit twelve, to take a fingerprint outfit and dust every place in the unit where I thought I could get a suitable latent fingerprint, to lift those fingerprints and then to obliterate every single remaining fingerprint which might be in unit twelve, after that to bring the lifted fingerprints to Mr. Mason.”

  “Did you understand the process of taking fingerprints and lifting them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you made some study of that process?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “I am a graduate of a correspondence school dealing with such matters.”

  “Where did you get the material necessary to lift latent fingerprints?”

  “Mr. Mason furnished it.”

  “And what did you do after Mr. Mason gave you those materials?”

  “I went to the motel and lifted certain fingerprints from unit twelve as I had been instructed.”

  “And then what?”

  “I took those fingerprints to Mr. Mason so that the fingerprints which were mine could be discarded, and thereby, through a process of elimination, leave only the fingerprints of any person who had been prowling the cabin during my absence.”

  “Do you know if this was done?”

  “It was done. I was so advised by Mr. Mason, who also told me that all the latent prints I had lifted were my prints, with the exception of those prints contained on four cards.”

  “Do you know what four cards these were?”

  “Yes. As I lifted prints I put them on cards and numbered the cards. The cards containing the significant prints were numbered fourteen, sixteen, nine, and twelve.

  “Fourteen and sixteen came from the glass doorknob of the closet door in the motel unit; nine and twelve came from the side of a mirror.”

  “Do you know where these four cards are now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “I have them.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “I snatched them from Perry Mason last night and ran to the police as Mr. Mason was trying to get them back.”

  “Did you give them to the police?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want anything to happen to them. You see by last night I knew whose prints they were. That is why I ran with them.”

  “Why did you feel that you had to run?” Burger asked.

  Judge Strouse glanced down at Perry Mason expectantly. When the lawyer made no effort to object, Judge Strouse said to the witness, “Just a minute before you answer that question. Does the defense wish to object to this question, Mr. Mason?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Perry Mason said. “I feel that I am being on trial here and that therefore I should let the full facts come out.”

  Judge Strouse frowned. “You may feel that you are on trial, Mr. Mason. That is a matter of dispute. There can be no dispute that your client is on trial, and your primary duty is to protect the interests of that client regardless of the effect on your own private affairs.”

  “I understand that, Your Honor.”

  “This question seems to me to be argumentative and calls for a conclusion of the witness.”

  “There is no objection, Your Honor.”

  Judge Strouse hesitated and said, “I would like to point out to you, Mr. Mason, that the Court will take a hand if it appears that your interests in the case become adverse to your client and no objection is made to questions which are detrimental to your client’s case.”

  “I think if the Court please,” Mason said, “the opposite may be the case here. I feel that the answer of the witness may be strongly opposed to my personal interests but very much in favor of the defendant’s case. You see that is the reason the witness is both a willing witness on some phases of the case and an unwilling witness on others. She feels that she should testify against me, but she is loyal to the interests of her employer.”

  “Very well,” Judge Strouse said. “If you don’t wish to object, the witness will answer the question.”

  “Answer the question,” Hamilton Burger said. “Why did you feel that you had to run?”

  “Because at that time I had identified those fingerprints.”

  “You had?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You said that you had studied fingerprinting?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were able at that time to identify these fingerprints?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You compared them with originals?”

  “Well, enough to know whose they were.”

  Hamilton Burger turned to the Court and said, “I confess, Your Honor, that on some of these matters I am feeling my way because of the peculiar situation which exists. The witness promised to give her testimony on the stand but would not tell me—”

  “There is no objection,” Judge Strouse interrupted. “There is, therefore, nothing before the Court. You will kindly refrain from making any argument or comments as to the testimony of this witness until it comes time to argue the matter to the jury. Simply proceed with your question and answer, Mr. District Attorney.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said.

  Judge Strouse looked down at Mason. His expression was thoughtfully dubious.

  “You yourself were able to identify those prints?” Hamilton Burger asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Whose prints did you think they were?”

  “Now just a minute,” Judge Strouse said. “Apparently counsel is not going to object that no proper foundation has been laid and that this calls for an opinion of the witness. Miss Griffin?”

  “Yes, Your Honor?”

  “You state that you studied fingerprinting?”

  “Yes, I did, Your Honor.”

  “How?”

  “By correspondence.”

  “Over what period of time?”

  “I took a complete course. I graduated. I learned to distinguish the different characteristics of fingerprints. I learned how to take fingerprints and compare them and how to classify them.”

  “Is there any objection from defense counsel?” Judge Strouse asked.

  “None whatever,” Mason said.

  “Very well, whose prints were they?” Burger asked.

  “Now just a minute,” Mason said. “If the Court please I feel that that question is improper.”

  “I feel the objection is in order,” Judge Strouse ruled.

  “However,” Mason went on, “I am not interposing the objection which perhaps Your Honor has in mind. I feel that this witness, while she may have qualified as an expert on fingerpinting, has qualified as a limited expert. She is what might be called an amateur expert. I feel that, therefore, the question should not be as to whose fingerprints these were, but in her opinion, for what it may be worth, what points of similarity there are between these prints and known standards.”

  Judge Strouse said, “The objection is sustained.”

  Hamilton Burger, his face darkening with annoyance, asked, “In your opinion, for what it may be worth, what points of similarity are there between these latents and the known prints of any person with which you may have made a comparison?”

  Elsa Griffin raised her head. Her defiant eyes glared at the defendant, then at Mason, and then turned to the jury. In a firm voice she said, “In my opinion, for what it may be worth, these prints have so many points of similarity I can say they were made by the fingers of Mrs. Stewart G. Bedford, the wife of the defendant in this case.”

  Hamilton Burger grinned. “Do you have those fingerprints with you?”

  “I do.”

  “And how do you identify them?”

  “The cards are numbered,” she said. “The numbers are fourteen, sixteen, nine, and twelve respectively. Also I signed my name on the backs of these cards at a late hour last night so that there could be no possibility of substitution or mistake. I did that at the suggestion of the district attorney. He wanted me to leave these cards with him. When I refused he asked me to sign my name so there could be no possibility of trickery.”

  Hamilton Burger was grinning. “And then what did I do, if anything?”

  “Then you signed your name beneath mine and put the date on the cards.”

  “I ask of the Court please that those prints be introduced in evidence,” Hamilton Burger said, “as People’s Exhibit under proper numbers.”

  “Now just a moment,” Mason said. “At this point, Your Honor, I feel that I have a right to a voir dire examination as to the authenticity of the exhibits.”

  “Go ahead,” Hamilton Burger said. “In fact, handle your cross-examination on this phase of the case if you want, because from here on the witness becomes an unwilling witness.”

  “Counsel may proceed,” Judge Strouse said.

  “You made this positive identification of the latent prints last night, Miss Griffin?”

  “Yes.”

  “In my office?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were rather excited at the time?”

  “Well… all right, I was a little excited, but I wasn’t too excited to compare fingerprints.”

  “You checked all four of these fingerprints?”

  “Yes.”

  “All four of them were the fingerprints of Mrs. Bedford?”

  “Yes.”

  Bedford tugged at Mason’s coat. “Look here, Mason,” he whispered. “Don’t let her—”

  Mason brushed his client’s hand to one side. “Keep quiet,” he ordered.”

  Mason arose and approached the witness stand. “You are, I believe, skilled in classifying fingerprints?”

  “I am.”

  “You know how to do it?”

  “Very well.”

  Mason said, “I am going to give you a magnifying glass to assist you in looking at these prints.”

  Mason took a powerful pocket magnifying glass from his pocket, turned to the clerk, and said, “May I have some of the fingerprints which have been introduced in evidence? I don’t care for the fingerprints of the defendant which were found in the car and in the motel, but I would like some of those other exhibits of the unidentified party, the ones that were found in the car and in the motel.”

  “Very well,” the clerk said, thumbing through the exhibits. He handed Mason several of the cards.

  “Now then,” Mason said, “I call your attention to People’s Exhibit number twenty-eight, which purports to be a lifted fingerprint. I will ask you to look at that and see if that fingerprint matches one on any of the cards numbered fourteen, sixteen, nine, and twelve, which you have produced.”

  The witness made a show of studying the print with the magnifying glass, shook her head and said, “No!” and then added, “It can’t. These prints are the prints of Mrs. Bedford. Those prints in the exhibits are the prints of an unidentified person.”

  “But isn’t it true that this unidentified person, as far as you know, might well have been Mrs. Bedford?” Mason asked.

  “No, that person was a blonde. I saw her.”

  “But you don’t know that it was the blonde who left the prints?”

  “No, I don’t know that.”

  “Then please examine this print closely.”

  Mason held the print out to Elsa Griffin, who looked at it with the magnifying glass in a perfunctory manner, then handed it back to Mason.

  “Now,” Mason said, “I call your attention to People’s Exhibit number thirty-four, and ask you to compare this.”

  Again the witness made a perfunctory study with the magnifying glass and said, “No. None of these prints match.”

  “None of them?” Mason asked.

  “None! I tell you, Mr. Mason, those are the prints of Mrs. Bedford, and you know it as well as I do.”

  Mason appeared to be somewhat rebuffed. He studied the prints, then looked at the cards in Elsa Griffin’s hand.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “you can tell me just how you go about examining a fingerprint. Take this one, for instance, on the card numbered sixteen. That is one, I believe, that you secured from the under side of a glass doorknob in the cabin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now what is the first characteristic of that print which you noticed?”

  “That is a tented arch.”

  “I see. A tented arch,” Mason said thoughtfully. “Now would you mind pointing out just where that tented arch is? Oh, I see. Now this fingerprint which I hand you which has been numbered People’s Exhibit number thirty-seven also has a tented arch, does it not?”

  She looked at the print and said, “Yes.”

  “Now, using this print number sixteen which you say you recovered from the closet doorknob, let us count from the tented arch through the ridges until we come to a branch in the ridges. There are, let’s see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight ridges, and then we come to a branch.”

  “That is right,” she said.

  “Well, now let’s see,” Mason said. “We take this print which has been introduced by the prosecution as number thirty-seven and we count—let’s see, why, yes, we count the same number of ridges and we come to the same peculiar branching, do we not?”

  “Let me see,” the witness said.

  She studied the print through the magnifying glass. “Well, yes,” she said, “that is what you would call one point of similarity. You need several to make a perfect identification.”

  “I see,” Mason said. “One point of similarity could of course be a coincidence.”

  “Don’t make any mistake, Mr. Mason,” she said icily. “That is a coincidence.”

  “Very well, now, let’s look at your print number sixteen again, the one which you got from underneath the closet doorknob, and see if you can find some other distinguishing mark.”

  “You have one here,” she said. “On the tenth ridge.”

  “The tenth,” Mason said. “Let me see … oh, yes.”

  “Well, now let’s look at thirty-seven again, and see if you can find the same point of similarity there.”

  “There’s no use looking,” she said. “There won’t be.”

  “Tut, tut!” Mason said. “Don’t jump at conclusions, Miss Griffin. You’re testifying as an expert, so let’s just take a look now if you please. Count up these ridges and—”

  The witness gasped.

  “Do you find such a point of similarity?” Mason asked, seemingly as much surprised as the witness.

  “I … I seem to. Somebody has been tampering with these fingerprints.”

  “Now, just a moment! Just a moment!” Hamilton Burger said. “This is a serious matter, Your Honor.”

  “Who’s going to tamper with the fingerprints?” Mason asked. “The fingerprints that the witness has been testifying to were in her possession. She said that she had them in her possession all night. She wouldn’t let them out of her possession for fear they might be tampered with. She signed her name on the back of each card. The district attorney signed his name and wrote the date. There are the signatures on the cards. These other cards are exhibits which the prosecution introduced in court. I have just taken those exhibits from the clerk. They bear the file number of the clerk and the exhibit number.”

  “Just the same,” Hamilton Burger shouted, “there’s some sort of a flimflam here. The witness knows it and I know it.”

  “Mr. Burger,” Judge Strouse stated, “you will not make any such charges in this courtroom. Not unless they can be substantiated. Apparently there is no possibility of any substitution. Miss Griffin?”

  “Yes, Your Honor?”

  “Kindly look at the card numbered sixteen.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “You got that card last night?”

  “I … I … yes, I must have.”

  “From the office of Perry Mason?”