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.”