Erle Gardner - The Case of the Rolling Bones

“We’ll not try to connect it up for the present,” Kittering said, scowling across at Perry Mason.

“Very well, the objection is well taken and is sustained.”

“Did you go back for the dishes?” Kittering asked.

“Yes, that’s right. I went back about quarter of an hour before I was scheduled to go off duty.”

“That would be ten-forty-five.”

“Just about. They hadn’t called, so I went back.”

“And what did you find?”

“The door was slightly open. I don’t know who was in the bedroom. The door was closed. My dishes were empty and stacked on the tray. There was nothing for me to hesitate over. I’d had my tip, and, gosh, I don’t know... I had an idea maybe there was a jane in there. Well, you know what I mean — well, anyway, that he didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Do you know whether anyone was in the bedroom?”

“I think so, yeah. I think I heard someone in there. There was a jane’s handkerchief — I mean a woman’s handkerchief on the side of the table right by the napkin.”

“How do you know it was a woman’s handkerchief?” Kittering asked.

“I smelled it,” Baker announced, and once more a ripple of merriment ran across the courtroom.

“So what did you do?”

“I took the tray with the dishes, and beat it.”

“Did you lock the door behind you?”

“I pulled it shut. I think the spring lock was caught back so that the door didn’t lock, but I ain’t absolutely certain about that. I know I closed the door. If they didn’t want it locked, that was their business. If they did, they could lock it.”

“Now, are you certain as to the time?”

“Absolutely. We’ve got an electric clock down there, and I figured Conway — Milicant — might get sore if I didn’t get the grub up to him in time. So I noticed particularly the time when the order came in, and kept hurrying the cook up to get it out. You know, in a joint like that — I mean in a restaurant of that size — a waiter can’t take food out until he catches a slack time. We really ain’t equipped to handle much room service like that. The cook gets the stuff going, and then, in case you’re rushed, he keeps it in the hot oven until you get a chance to break away. That keeps the dishes hot, and the food hot. And you’d be surprised how much difference a hot dish makes, particularly when you cover it with a napkin and tablecloth.”

“And what time did you return for the dishes?”

“Almost exactly quarter ‘til eleven. I’d waited for a slack time — maybe sort of put it off. Then I almost forgot ’em. It was fifteen minutes before my quitting time, so I beat it up there fast.”

“And you are positive as to the time you delivered the food?”

“Absolutely. I left right around eight minutes past eight. I got up there at eight-ten on the dot. I’ll bet that doesn’t miss it ten seconds either way.”

“And this was an electric clock in the restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“Cross-examine.” Kittering tossed the remark across to Perry Mason as though daring him to try to rattle this witness.

“Those electric clocks are always right?” Mason asked.

“Sure, that’s why they put them in.”

“Except when the power is temporarily interrupted?”

“Well, that sometimes happens,” the young man admitted.

“In this instance, how do you know that there hadn’t been a temporary interruption in power?”

“There’s a place on the clock that shows a signal when that happens.”

“And did you notice that place particularly?”

“Well, not particularly, but... Shucks, if it had been anything to notice, I’d have noticed it. I always go by that in telling the time.”

“But nevertheless you may have been mistaken?”

“Not one chance in ten thousand.”

“Then there is one chance in ten thousand that you were mistaken?” Mason asked.

“Well, if you want to play a ten thousand to one shot,” Baker said, “you’re welcome to. I don’t. Twenty to one is my limit.”

Again the courtroom stirred with a comment of whisper and suppressed laughter.

“Now when you returned to get these dishes, no one said anything to you?”

“No, sir.”

“You gathered the impression there were people in the bedroom?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you think one of those persons was Serle?”

“That handkerchief didn’t smell like it.”

“And you say the dishes were empty?”

“That’s right.”

“Nothing left?”

“Clean as a bone.”

“The men must have been hungry then?”

“Well, in taking a dinner out that way, you can’t carry too much. You can’t carry soup, and water, and all that stuff. You’re luck to pile the grub on the dishes, and get it there while it’s still warm. People don’t eat as much in a restaurant as they think they do. That’s because we bring them crackers and butter and go off and leave them for a while, and they munch on crackers. Then after a while, we bring them soup, and then we leave them alone, then bring them bread and butter. They don’t start eating the main order until anywhere from ten to twenty minutes after they sit down, sometimes half an hour. It depends on the crowd?”

“You mean you can’t wait on them as rapidly when there’s a crowd?”

“No,” the witness said, “that’s when we do wait on them. When there’s a crowd, it means the restaurant is losing money every time anyone finds the joint filled and goes away. So we always try to shovel the grub into the customers so we can clear out the tables. When business is slack, restaurants figure it’s a poor ad to look barren and deserted with just one or two people eating. So then we stall the customers along, and hold them just as long as we dare. That way people coming along the streets look in through the windows, and see a pretty fair crowd, and figure it’s a good place to eat.”

“In other words,” Mason said with a grin, “regardless of our own convenience, we customers are held as living advertisements when we enter a restaurant during the slack time.”

“Well, customers make swell window dressing if that’s what you mean,” Baker said.

“That’s what I mean,” Mason told him affably. “Thank you.”

“The next witness,” Kittering announced, “will be William Bitner.”

Bitner proved to be a handwriting and fingerprint expert who qualified himself as an expert in his profession, and started the long routine of introducing exhibits, photographs of latent fingerprints found upon doorknobs, bureau drawers, table tops, glassware.

Time droned on endlessly while the tedious process of identifying each photograph went on. Then when the photograph had been introduced, handed to counsel for inspection, and received as an exhibit, it was necessary to wait while the court made the necessary identification; and then the process went on again. Kittering, with a mind which reveled in detail, paused to make sure that the exhibits were properly numbered in numerical order.

When he had finished with some forty-two exhibits, he started exploding his bombshell, a bombshell which was legally powerful, yet which lacked dramatic force because of the long, drawn-out manner in which the details had been dragged through the record. “I show you a card containing ten fingerprints, and ask you who took the imprint of those fingerprints,” Kittering said.

“I did,” the witness answered.

“When did you take them?”

“Three days ago.”

“Where did you take them?”

“In the county jail.”

“And what are they?”

“Those are ink impressions made from the ten fingers of the defendant in this case. Those fingerprints are grouped into pairs in accordance with the accepted practice, and reduced to a fraction. That is, a number, representing certain figures used for classification, appears in the numerator, and another number, similarly taken, in the denominator.”