By the time Mason and Della Street had returned from breakfast, Sid Carson, Paul Drake’s fingerprint expert, had finished with the lifted fingerprints that had been left him by Elsa Griffin and was in Mason’s office, waiting to make a report.
“Nearly all of the prints,” he said, “are those of Elsa Griffin, but there are four lifted latents here that aren’t hers.”
“Which are the four?” Mason asked.
“I have them in this envelope. Numbers fourteen, sixteen, nine, and twelve.”
“Okay,” Mason said, “I’ll save them for future reference. The others are all Miss Griffin’s?”
“That’s right. She left a set of her fingerprints and we’ve matched them up. You can discard all of them except these four.”
“Any ideas about these four?”
“Not much. They could have been left by some prior occupant of the motel. A little depends on climatic conditions and what sort of cleaning the place had, how long since it’s been occupied and things of that sort. Moisture in the air has a great deal to do with the time a latent fingerprint will be preserved.”
“How are these latents?” Mason asked. “Pretty good?”
“They’re darn good. Very good indeed.”
“Any notes about where they were found?”
“Yes, she did a good job. She lifted the prints, transferred them to cards, then wrote on the back of the cards where they were from. Two of these prints were from a mirror; two of them came from a glass knob on a closet door. She even made a little diagram of the knob, one of the sort of knobs that have a lot of facets so you can get hold of it and get a good grip for turning.”
Mason nodded, said, “Thanks, Carson. I’ll call on you again if we get any leads.”
“Okay,” Carson said and went out.
Mason contemplated the fingerprints under the cellophane tape.
“Well?” Della Street asked.
Mason said, “Della, I’m no fingerprint expert, but—” He adjusted a magnifying glass so as to get a clearer view.
“Well?” she asked.
“Hang it!” Mason said. “I’ve seen this fingerprint before.”
“What do you mean, you’ve seen it before?”
“There’s a peculiar effect here—” Mason’s voice trailed away into silence.
Della Street came to look over his shoulder.
“Della!” Mason said. His voice was explosive.
She jumped at his tone. “What?”
“That card Bedford left with us, the card showing his wife and her fingerprints—get that card from the file, Della.”
Della Street hurried to the filing case, came back with the card which Bedford had left with Mason, the card which the blackmailers had given him in order to show the authenticity of their information.
“Good heavens!” Della Street said. “Mrs. Bedford wouldn’t have been there.”
“How do you know?” Mason asked. “Remember what Bedford told us about getting the telephone call from Binney at his house while he was entertaining guests, that he wanted to talk in privacy, so he said he went up to his study and told the butler to hang up the phone as soon as he answered? Suppose Mrs. Bedford became suspicious. Suppose she sent the butler on an errand, telling him that she’d take over and hang up the phone. Suppose she listened in on the conversation and knew—”
“You mean … found out about—”
“Let’s be realistic about this thing,” Mason said. “When was this crime of defrauding the insurance company committed?”
“Several years ago, before her first marriage,” Della Street said.
“Exactly,” Mason told her. “Then she married, her husband committed suicide, she came into some money from insurance policies; then it was a couple of years before she married Bedford and a couple of years after the marriage before the blackmailers started to put the bite on Bedford.
“Yet, when the police went to Binney Denham’s place, they found the floor carpeted with crisp new hundred dollar bills.”
“You mean they’d been blackmailing her and—”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Mason said. “Let’s take a look at these fingerprints. If she knew Binney was starting to put the bite on her husband … a woman in that situation could become very, very desperate.”
“But Mr. Bedford said they took such great precautions to see that they weren’t followed. You remember what he told us about how the girl had him drive around and around and Binney followed in his car, and then Bedford picked the motel?”
“I know,” Mason said, “but let’s just take a look. I’ve seen this fingerprint before.”
Mason took a magnifying glass, started examining the fingerprints on the card, then compared the two lifted fingerprints with the prints on the card.
He gave a low whistle.
“Struck pay dirt?” Della Street asked.
“Look here,” Mason said.
“Heavens!” Della Street said, “I couldn’t read a fingerprint in a year.”
“You can read these two,” Mason said. “For instance, look at this fingerprint on the card. Now compare it with the fingerprint here. See that tented arch? Count the number of lines to that first distinctive branching, then look up here at this place where the lines make a—”
“Good heavens!” Della Street said. “They’re identical!”
Mason nodded.
“Then Mrs. Stewart G. Bedford was following—”
“Following whom?” Mason asked.
“Her husband and a blonde.”
Mason shook his head. “Not with the precautions that were taken by the girl in the rented car. Moreover, if she’d been following her husband and the girl, she’d have known the units of the motel where they were staying and she would have gone in there.”
“Then who was she following?”
“Perhaps,” Mason said, “she was following Binney Denham.”
“You mean Denham went to the motel to collect the money?”
Mason nodded. “Possibly.”
“Then why would she have gone into Elsa Griffin’s motel? How would she have known Elsa Griffin was there?”
“That,” Mason told her, “remains to be seen. Get Paul Drake’s office for me, Della. Let’s put a shadow on Mrs. Stewart G. Bedford and see where she goes this morning.”
“And then?” Della Street asked.
Mason gave the matter a moment of frowning concentration. “If I’m going to talk with her, Della. I’d better do it before the police start asking questions of her husband.”