The Case of the Mischievous Doll

“I didn’t say that. I said she didn’t tell me what instructions to give my operative.”

Parma looked at Judge Flint somewhat helplessly.

“All right,” Judge Flint said, “take your ruling. Ask leading questions.”

“I’ll put it this way,” Parma said. “Didn’t Henrietta Hull, acting on behalf of the defendant in this case, advise you in general terms to arrange an elaborate setup for interviewing applicants, but that their qualifications had nothing whatsoever to do with their ultimate selection, that you were to wait until a young woman came in who resembled a photograph which she gave you. That you were to hire the person who had the closest resemblance to that photo.”

The witness hesitated for a long time.

“Answer the question,” Judge Flint said.

“Well... yes.”

“Didn’t you hire a young woman named Dorrie Ambler, and didn’t she telephone you each day at an unlisted number in order to get instructions as to what she was to do?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t you report to Henrietta Hull that you had been able to hire not only an applicant who looked like the young woman in the photograph, but had hired the person shown in the photograph?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t Henrietta Hull say that was impossible and didn’t you tell her to see for herself, that you’d have this woman walk across a certain intersection at a fixed time and that Henrietta Hull could make surreptitious observations so as to convince herself?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t Henrietta Hull then tell you to start looking up this young woman’s background?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t you, in pursuance of instructions given by Henrietta Hull, get this woman to walk back and forth, up and down Hollywood Boulevard in the vicinity of the Western Avenue intersection to see if a witness, Mrs. Ella Granby, wouldn’t identify her as the person driving the car involved in a hit-and-run accident on September sixth?”

“Well, no, not exactly.”

“What do you mean, not exactly?”

“I didn’t tell her all that.”

“But you did tell her to walk up and down Hollywood Boulevard near the intersection of Western?”

“Well... yes.”

“And to report to you anything that happened?”

“Yes.”

“And she did report that a woman had made an identification?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t you then advise her that she could take the next day off and didn’t need to do anything?”

“I can’t remember my detailed instructions but something of that sort probably happened.”

“And all of that was under instructions from Henrietta Hull?”

“Yes.”

“You were reporting to Henrietta Hull regularly?”

“Yes.”

“Cross-examine,” Parma snapped.

Mason said, “How did you know Henrietta Hull was the representative of the defendant?”

“She told me so.”

“In a conversation?”

“Yes.”

“In person or over the telephone?”

“Over the telephone.”

“Then you have never seen Henrietta Hull. Is that correct?”

“That is correct. I talked with her over the telephone.”

“You received compensation for your work?”

“Yes.”

“Did you bill the defendant for that?”

“No, I did not.”

“Why?”

“I was paid in advance.”

“Who paid you?”

“I received the money from Henrietta Hull.”

“In the form of a check?”

“In the form of cash.”

“But if you have never met Henrietta Hull, she couldn’t have given you the cash.”

“She sent it to me.”

“How?”

“By messenger.”

“How much?”

“Thirty-five hundred dollars.”

“Did you see Dorrie Ambler personally?”

“Yes.”

“And you have seen the defendant?”

“More recently, yes. I am, of course, looking at her now.”

“Was there a striking physical resemblance between Dorrie Ambler and the defendant?”

“A very striking resemblance.”

Mason held his eyes on the witness. “For all you know, Mr. Compton,” he said, “you were hired, not by the defendant, but by Dorrie Ambler.”

“What?” the witness asked, startled.

“Dorrie Ambler,” Mason said, “wanted to establish a claim to the Harper Minden estate. She wanted a certain amount of notoriety in order to launch her campaign. She needed newspaper publicity. So she rang you up and told you she was Henrietta Hull and—”

“Just a minute, just a minute,” Parma shouted, jumping to his feet. “All this assumes facts not in evidence. It consists of a statement by counsel and I object to it on—”

“I withdraw the question,” Mason said, smiling, “and ask it this way. Mr. Compton, if Dorrie Ambler had wanted to attract attention to her remarkable similarity to the defendant in this case, and if she had called you up, told you she was Henrietta Hull and had asked you to put that ad in the paper and to hire Dorrie Ambler when she showed up to apply for the job, was there anything in the facts of the case as you know them and as covered by your testimony which would have negatived such an assumption?”

“Objected to,” Parma said, “as being argumentative and calling for a conclusion of the witness; as being not proper cross-examination and assuming facts not in evidence.”

“Sustained,” Judge Flint said.

Mason, having made his point so that the jurors could get it, smiled at the witness. “You don’t know that the person you were talking with on the telephone was Henrietta Hull, do you?”

“No, sir.”