“I don’t give a damn what you meant,” Mason commented. “I’m talking about what was said. That’s all Gertrude Lade said. She said, ‘That’s him.’”
“Well, you know what you intended her words to mean.”
Mason sighed. “She said it was him. I still contend that it was him. Dammit, it is him! I’ll go into any court on any contempt proceedings, or otherwise, and insist that it’s him. Serle is Serle. That’s all she said — ‘It’s him.’”
Judge Knox’s face softened somewhat. The ghost of a twinkle appeared at the corner of his eyes.
Mason followed his advantage. “I have a right to ask anyone in the courtroom to stand up and then point that standing person out to a witness when I’m asking a question. Try and find some law which says I can’t.”
Judge Knox regarded Mason with thoughtful eyes. At length, he said, “Mason, your mind is certainly not geared to a conventional groove. However, as a matter of justice, I am inclined to agree with you, and I don’t know but what I am, as a matter of technical law.”
Mason said, “Why not? If we’d followed this case along conventional lines, Alden Leeds would have been bound over on that fingerprint evidence. He might have been convicted.”
“He had no right to lie about it,” Kittering said.
“He didn’t lie,” Mason observed. “He kept quiet.”
“Well, he should have told us.”