"You are now." Judge Winters said, frowning, "arguing against your client in the murder case."

Perry Mason's voice remained urbane.

"I am now, your Honor, patiently trying to make the explanation which you requested of me, the explanation of my position in refusing to allow this young woman to answer questions."

"But you are violating legal ethics in turning against the client whom you are representing in the murder case."

"I don't need this Court," Perry Mason said, "to instruct me as to the ethics of my profession or my duties to my client."

"Very well," Judge Winters remarked, his face turning several shades darker, "go ahead with your explanation, and be brief. Unless it is satisfactory, you will be held in contempt."

"Unfortunately," Mason said, "the explanation must be complete in order to be any explanation at all. I am calling the Court's attention to several significant details. One of these is that, had the man planned to leave by the outer office after the murder had been committed, he would have prepared his mask in advance. The crime shows premeditation. The escape does not. The mask was hastily constructed. It was constructed from materials which lay at his hand after the murder had been committed.

"Now then, your Honor, it is my contention that this whole plan of escape, this plan of exhibiting a masked face with one eye socket, was hatched in the brain of the murderer after the murder had been committed, for the simple reason that after the murder had been committed he recognized the potential significance of the glass eye which the victim was holding in his hand.

"It is obviously impossible that this glass eye should have dropped accidentally from the murderer's eye socket, or that it could have been grabbed by Basset during a struggle. A glass eye must be deliberately removed if it is a wellfitted glass eye. This was a wellfitted glass eye. Therefore, why should the murderer have deliberately removed his glass eye and deliberately exhibited the empty eye socket to a witness? There is only one reason, your Honor, and that is that the murderer felt certain no one knew about his artificial eye, but that he knew one of the suspects who would be questioned by the police did have an artificial eye, and probably suspected that the glass eye which the dead man held in his hand was the property of this suspect."

"All of this," Judge Winters said impatiently, "is merely argumentative. It is the type of argument you would make to the Court to keep your clients from being bound over. Although, I may say, Counselor, that your comments about deliberation and premeditation on the part of the murderer go far toward influencing this Court in favor of the prosecution, you are not confining yourself to the explanation which you were called upon to make. You are merely arguing."

Perry Mason bowed slightly and said, "I was about to state that when this young woman, who was the only one who could identify this man, arose from her couch, she staggered against a door and flung up her hands to brace herself. Her hands pressed against a piece of plate glass in the doorway. It occurred to me that this young woman had, therefore, left a set of fingerprints. Acting under my instructions, detectives developed those latent fingerprints, and they were classified.

"A classification of those fingerprints showed that the young woman in question is very much wanted by the police as a female Bluebeard. She's been in the habit of marrying husbands, and the husbands have developed a habit of dying within a few weeks or a few months after the marriage. In every such instance the woman has inherited property and has gone on to another marriage."

Judge Winters stared at Perry Mason in shocked, incredulous silence. Burger, the district attorney, slowly sat down, took a few deep breaths, then as slowly got to his feet. His eyes were wide with astonishment.

"We find," Perry Mason went on urbanely, "that the police have developed several cases to a point where they can virtually prove murder. This young woman secretly married Richard Basset. That marriage was bigamous. She had one husband living—that is, she had at least one husband living, probably others. The reason this particular husband was left alive was that he had lied to her about his property when he married her, and had refused to take out any insurance in her favor. Therefore, he wasn't worth killing.

"I have the proof of all of these matters. I have in this envelope a complete set of documents giving the criminal record of the young lady in question. It gives me great pleasure to hand these documents, together with photographic copies of the fingerprints left on the plate glass of the doorway, to the Prosecutor in this action.

"Now, then, your Honor, I defy even the Prosecutor in this case to intimate that in advising this woman not to answer questions upon the ground that the answers will tend to incriminate her, I have not exercised my rights as an attorney."

Burger took the envelope which Perry Mason handed him. His fingers were awkward, so great was his surprise.

Judge Winters stroked his chin for a moment, then said slowly, "Counselor, this Court has never heard such an astounding statement coming from the lips of an attorney, betraying the interest of a client whom he is supposed to represent. The Court simply cannot understand such a statement. The Court appreciates of course, that some of your remarks consist of facts which you have learned and which probably it is your duty to communicate to the officers, but the manner in which this statement has been made, the phraseology in which it has been couched, and the time at which it was made, all tend to militate against this young woman's interests. And yet you are appearing as her attorney."

Perry Mason nodded, and said, almost casually, "Naturally, your Honor, I didn't want to make the statement, and wouldn't have done it unless the Court had forced me to do so, but you insisted that I was advising this young woman not to answer questions upon the ground that the answers would incriminate her, merely because I wanted to protect myself instead of her. I think your Honor will now see that I knew what I was doing."

Judge Winters started to say something, but he was interrupted by Burger, who lunged to his feet, holding in his right hand a photograph of a woman's full face and profile, below which appeared a printed description and a set of fingerprints.

He held in his other hand a photographic print of a set of fingerprints. He shook both papers at Perry Mason.

"Are these," he demanded of Perry Mason, "the fingerprints that were left on that doorway?"

"That is a photograph of the fingerprints, yes."

"And, do they correspond identically with the fingerprints appearing on this document which I hold in my right hand?"

"They do," Mason said.

"Then," shouted Burger, shaking the paper at Perry Mason, "some hocuspocus has been practiced here, because the photograph of this female Bluebeard isn't the photograph of this young woman at all!"

Perry Mason smiled serenely at him.

"That," he said, "is something you can tell the Grand Jury."

Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom.