"The Witness for the Prosecution" is a famous short story by Agatha Christie (15 September 1890 ? 12 January 1976), initially published as Traitor Hands in Flynn's Weekly edition of January 31, 1925. In 1933 the story was published for the first time in the collection The Hound of Death that appeared only in the United Kingdom. The American audience had to wait until 1948 when it was included in the collection The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories.

The original story ended abruptly with the major twist, Mrs. Vole's revelation that her husband was indeed guilty. Over time, Agatha Christie grew dissatisfied with this ending (one of the few Christie endings in which a murderer escapes punishment), and, in her subsequent rewriting of the story as a play, added a mistress for Leonard, who appears at the end of the play. The mistress and Leonard are about to leave Romaine to be arrested for perjury, when Romaine grabs a knife[1] and kills Leonard.

Witness for the Prosecution was adapted into a play which opened in London on October 28, 1953 at the Winter Garden Theatre (although the first performance had actually been in Nottingham on September 28). It was produced by Peter Saunders.