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“She flattened herself against the wall, and from then on she’s telling the truth as to what happened.

“Don’t underestimate the intelligence of a jury. It really was one of her fingerprints that was on the lip of the receptacle.”

Tragg shook his head. “We couldn’t get enough points of identification to get a conviction.”

Mason grinned. “We got enough points of similarity to raise a reasonable doubt. But there were other unidentified latents. Try Paulita Marchwell.”

Tragg thought things over, suddenly got to his feet.

“You’ve got a point,” he said. “I think I’ll go to Las Vegas.”

Tragg left the office.

Morley Eden looked at Vivian.

“You see,” Vivian said, “I knew we should have confided in Mr. Mason at the start.”

Eden took out a checkbook. “I think,” he said, “twenty-five thousand dollars would be about right as a fee in the case, Mason, and I’m going to penalize myself another twenty-five thousand for holding out on my attorney and forcing you to go at it blind.”

Della Street cleared off a place on the desk for Eden’s checkbook.

The three watched him as Eden wrote out a check: Pay to the order of Perry Mason — Fifty thousand dollars.