The Case of the Negligent Nymph

Chapter 18

GLOSTER, ON HIS FEET, JAW THRUST FORWARD, SAID BELligerently, “My next witness is Oscar Linden. Oscar Linden, take the stand.”

Linden, a tall, loose-jointed, middle-aged man with a tattooed star plainly visible on the back of his left hand, took the witness stand and, after the usual preliminaries, Gloster started a barrage of quick, pounding questions.

“What’s your occupation, Mr. Linden?”

“I operate the boathouse at the Yacht Club.”

“And were you doing that on the first of August of this year? That was a Saturday, you’ll remember.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you have occasion on that date, or very shortly afterwards, to look over the canoes you had rented during the evening?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How many canoes had you rented that night?”

“Twelve.”

“How many of them were back at the hour of ten o’clock?”

“Eight.”

“That left four out at that time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, of those canoes—those four canoes, was there anything distinctive about any one of them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What?”

“As a special deluxe service I have carpets which I put on the bottom of the canoes.”

“Did you notice anything peculiar about any of these canoes when it was returned?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What?”

“There was considerable water on the top of the carpet and in the bottom of one of the canoes. It was one numbered 0961. The number was painted on it in green paint.”

“What did you do with reference to thatF”

“Nothing at the time, but shortly after Alder’s murder I was in touch with the authorities. They wanted to go over my stock of canoes.”

“Now then, within the next two or three days did you make any further investigation?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What?”

‘ I turned this canoe over to a fingerprint expert at the request of the sheriff.”

“And do you keep a name list of the people who rent the canoes?”

“No, sir, I do not. There are numbers on the canoes and I keep a record of the numbers on those canoes. We charge either by the hour, by the evening, or by the half day.”

“How was this particular canoe in question rented?”

“By the evening. The person who rented it was entitled to stay out until one-thirty in the morning.”

“After you rented that canoe when did you next see it?”

“When I found it tied up to my dock next morning.”

“Up to the time that you tinned that canoe over to the fingerprint expert and after it had been rented that evening, had anyone eke been in the canoe?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Had it been rented?” “No”

“Now then, would you know the person who rented that canoe from you again, if you saw him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you see that person?”

The boatman promptly pointed his finger at Perry Mason, and said, “Mr. Mason, the attorney there.”

“Cross-examine,” Gloster said.

“No questions,” Mason said, smiling affably, to the puzzlement of the jury and spectators. “There can be no question but what I rented a canoe from this gentleman.”

Glcster said, “Call Sam Durham to the stand.”

Sam Durham took the stand and qualified himself as an expert on fingerprints.

“Now then,” Gloster said, “did you have occasion sometime after the third of August to examine a canoe marked with the numerals 0961 in green paint on the bow and stern in a search for fingerprints?”

“I did, yes, sir.”

“What did you find?”

“I found numerous latent fingerprints which I photographed.”

“Subsequently did you identify any of those fingerprints?”

“I did, yes, sir”

“What ones did you identify?”

“I identified certain latents which I have here in photographs numbered one, four, six and eight.”

“Whose fingerprints were they?”

“The fingerprints of the defendant.”

“Did you subsequently identify any of the other fingerprints?”

“At the time I was unable to do so, but later I identified fingerprints two, three, five and seven as shown in these photographs.”

“And when did you make that identification?”

“Last night.”

“And whose fingerprints are they?”

There was a dramatic silence in the courtroom as the witness turned to face Perry Mason- “Those are the fingerprints of Perry Mason, the attorney for the defendant”

Judge Garey pounded with his gavel, trying in vain to subdue the clamor in the courtroom. Finally he declared a fifteen-minute recess as newspaper reporters, disregarding the admonition of the Court, streaked through the crowd and out of the doors searching for telephones from which they could rush the news to their papers.

One of the newspaper reporters who had hurriedly left the courtroom for a telephone, came pushing his way back, bringing a photographer with him.

“How about a statement. Mr. Mason?” he asked.

The photographer raised the camera and the glare of a flashbulb etched the scene into momentary brilliance.

Mason’s grin was completely carefree. “What sort of a statement?” he asked.

“What’s the effect of this evidence?”

“You mean the fingerprint evidence?”

“Of course.”

Mason grinned, and said, “I rented a canoe. I left my fingerprints on that canoe. There’s no question about that, rd have stipulated it if the district attorney hadn’t wanted to make such a grandstand.”

“But how about the fingerprints of the defendant?”

“Quite apparently,” Mason said, affably, “the fingerprints of the defendant are on that canoe also.”

“Then do you admit that you picked up the defendant after she tried to steal… ?”

“Come, come,” Mason said, “let’s be fair about the thing. In the first place there’s no proof the defendant tried to steal anything, and in the second place, ask the district attorney how he intends to prove that the fingerprints were made at the same time.

“You might stick around for the next fifteen minutes,” Mason said, grinning broadly, “and learn something about fingerprint testimony.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” the reporter said. “Is that all the statement you have to make?”

“That’s it,” Mason said. “What more do you want?”

The reporter thought over Mason’s statement. “But the witness said the canoe hadn’t been rented since you took it out.”

“Exactly,” Mason smiled, as though enjoying some joke which would soon be apparent to the reporter.