“I guess so, right around there.”
“And you had picked up your cab at what time?”
“Well, my partner who ran the cab before I did was a little early getting in, about ten minutes early — we like to have them right in on time, but of course you can’t help it sometimes when you’re out on a call. You have to learn to take things like that; if they’re not over ten or fifteen minutes late, nobody ever says anything. But we try to be on time or perhaps a little early. Of course, each driver wants to get as much use out of the cab as he can. I have to have it back in the lot there at twelve o’clock midnight. I want to get as much out of the bus as I can in the line of trips and tips, but I also want to give the next driver a break. If a man is over fifteen minutes late or if he makes a habit of being late, why then, you sometimes make trouble, but this time the man before me came in a little early.”
“So you started out a little before four. You had one fare, which took you to the Jonathan Club. Then where did you go?”
“Well, then I went down and got in line at the Biltmore Hotel. At that hour of the afternoon you can pick up a fare there without waiting very long. I waited there for about... oh, I don’t know... I guess for four or five minutes and then soon as I got in position the doorman gave me this fare with the big bag of golf clubs. I knew that was going to be a good trip as soon as I saw the golf clubs.”
“So,” Mason said, “the trip which you made with the woman that you think is the defendant would then have been the third trip of the day.”
“That’s right.”
“Now then,” Mason said, “I notice that when you took over this cab your sheet shows that you took it on at trip number nine-sixty-nine.”
“Well, that’s right if that’s what it shows.”
“And what would that mean?”
“That would mean that the man who’d checked out before me had had up to and including trip nine-sixty-eight. My first trip would be nine-sixty-nine.”
“That would mean the trip to the Jonathan Club.”
“That’s right.”
“Then your trip to the country club would have been trip nine-seventy.”
“That’s right.”
“And your trip with the defendant would have been nine-seventy-one.”
“I guess so. You’ve got the sheet. I haven’t.”
“Well, look at it, please,” Mason paid, walking over to the witness and showing him the sheet.
“Okay, I’m looking at it.”
“And that was correct? That was trip nine-seventy-one?”
“That’s correct. Trip nine-seventy-one she is.”
Mason said, “How does it happen, then, that this receipt you have identified as being the receipt you gave the defendant at the Union Station shows that it is for trip nine-eighty-four?”
“What?”
“Just a moment, just a moment,” Hamilton Burger shouted. “Just a moment. Let’s get this straight. Before the witness answers that question, I want to inspect the paper. I object to this method of interrogation. I object to the question as assuming facts not in evidence. I object to it as not being proper cross-examination.”
“It’s proper cross-examination,” Judge Hoyt said, “but the witness will refrain from answering until the Court and counsel have had an opportunity to examine those papers.”
Hamilton Burger strode angrily up to stand beside Perry Mason, his thick, powerful fingers all but snatched the paper from the hand of the witness, and he said to the clerk, “Where’s that taxi receipt? Let me take a look at that.”
“Just a moment,” the judge said, “the Court wants to look at those papers, too, Mr. Prosecutor.”
“Yes, Your Honor, of course, certainly.”
“Pass them up here, please.”
Hamilton Burger passed up the trip sheet and the taxicab receipt.
He said, “I submit, if the Court please, that there’s some technical error, something that can be explained. Perhaps it’s a misprint. I object to counsel asking questions about this trip sheet of this witness on the ground that they are argumentative. The facts speak for themselves. We’ll try to get this situation unscrambled later, without having the witness become hopelessly confused trying to explain some typographical error.”
Judge Hoyt said, “The objection to the question will be... well, just a moment. The Court will reserve ruling. The Court will ask the witness some questions, and the counsel for each side will refrain from interrupting.
“Mr. Keddie, do you understand this?” Judge Hoyt asked the witness.
“Well, I don’t understand how that number got on the receipt.”
“You understand your trip sheet?”
“Yes.”
“And is there a chance that your trip numbers on the trip sheet could have been in error?”
“Well, now let’s see. If I had made a mistake in copying down the trip number from the record on the meter, the real trip number that I should have copied would have been... let’s see... nine-eighty-one, and that would have been my first trip to the Jonathan Club. Then nine-eighty-two... now, now wait a minute, it would have been nine-eighty-two, my trip to the Jonathan Club. Nine-eighty-three would have been my trip out to the country club, and nine-eighty-four would have been my trip with this woman here. Now, it doesn’t seem I could have made a mistake and copied down nine-eighty-two — I mean, it doesn’t seem as though I could have copied nine-sixty-nine when I was trying to write nine-eighty-two.”
“Do you sometimes make mistakes?” Judge Hoyt asked.
“Well, I suppose I do. I’ve made mistakes. Sometimes I get a number wrong and sometimes I’ll plumb forget to put down a trip, but that doesn’t happen very often. The records are all checked over by the main office about once a week. We get in and check these things over. They keep track of where we are... well, you know how it is, there’s always a temptation for a cabbie to knock down if he can do it, and they try to keep their records so they show what the cabs are doing and what the drivers are doing and... well, so nobody can knock down on ’em.”
“Now let me see,” Judge Hoyt said. “If you had taken over at nine-sixty-nine, then you would have gone to the Jonathan Club on trip nine-seventy?”
“That’s right.”
“And this trip that you say you made with the defendant would then have been trip nine-seventy-one?”
“Well, that’s the way it should be, but that receipt sure shows nine-eighty-four.”
Hamilton Burger said, “Now just a minute, just a minute.”
The judge said, “Don’t interrupt me. I’m trying to check these things. Let’s see, I’m going to count these trips on your trip sheet. This would have been trip nine-seventy-one... seventy-two... seventy-three... seventy-four... seventy-five...”
Judge Hoyt counted down the trips, turned the page, adjusted his glasses, frowned at the sheet, looked over at Hamilton Burger, and said to the witness, “Well, Mr. Keddie, I notice that what would have been trip number nine-eighty-four on your sheet if you had started out at trip number nine-sixty-nine, as you said you did, would have been a trip which you have marked ‘Looking at property’.”
“Let me see,” Keddie said.
He took the sheet of paper and frowned over it. “Well, now, just a minute,” he said. “Wait a minute. I can remember that trip. A couple of dames I picked up on North La Brea somewhere. They wanted to go look at some property. They told me to drive out and look at some property, and then they told me to drive down some street and all of a sudden one of ’em said, ‘Here it is. Stop right here.’ She started all at once yelling at me to stop. I stopped and they got out and paid off.”
“Was one of those women this defendant?” Judge Hoyt asked.
“Nope. I didn’t see her from the time I picked her up out there until I saw her in the lineup the next morning.”