“Your Honor, I object. This is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.”
“It is on a motion only, your Honor, addressed to the discretion of this Court,” Scudder said, “and this is preliminary. I intend to connect it up.”
“Overruled,” Judge Romley said.
Borge took a silk handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his perspiring forehead and the back of his neck and said in a bored voice, “Yes, he has a criminal record.”
“What is it?”
“Twice to San Quentin for burglary. Once to Folsom for assault with a deadly weapon. He’s been arrested three or four times and was tried for murder in—”
Mason jumped to his feet and said, “Your Honor, I object. Any man may be arrested—”
“Sustained,” Judge Romley said.
“Did you,” Scudder went on, “take this man’s fingerprints, Mr. Borge?”
“Yes.”