“Well, it was about — I’m sorry to say I didn’t notice the exact time, but it was around eleven or eleven-thirty — somewhere along there on the morning of the seventeenth that the door opened abruptly and Mr. Mason came in.”
“Now you’re referring to sometime around eleven o’clock on the morning of October seventeenth?”
“Yes.”
“And Mr. Mason entered the room?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, we had some conversation. He asked me to identify myself as working for Drake, and then he asked if I’d looked the room over, and I said I had generally. And he asked if I had a flashlight in my bag.”
“And did you have such a flashlight?”
“Yes.”
“And then what happened?”
“Mr. Mason looked all around the room carefully with the flashlight, and then he asked me to help him take the sheets and blankets off the bed.”
“You did that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then he raised the mattress and found a bullet hole in the underside of the mattress.”
There was an audible, collective gasp from spectators in the courtroom.
Judge DeWitt leaned forward. “A bullet hole?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“How do you know it was a bullet hole?” Judge DeWitt asked sharply.
“Because working together, we got the bullet out of the hole.”
“How did you get it out?” Hamilton Burger asked.
“We cut a wire coat hanger to pieces and made an instrument that would get the bullet out. First we probed and found there was a bullet in there, and then we got the bullet out.”
“And what happened to that bullet?”
“I kept it in my possession.”
“Did you mark the bullet so you could identify it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“At whose suggestion?”
“At Mr. Mason’s suggestion.”
“I show you a bullet and ask you if that was the bullet which you extracted from the mattress?”
The witness looked at the bullet and said, “It is.”
“Do you know how Mr. Mason knew that bullet hole was in the mattress?” Hamilton Burger asked.
“No, sir.”
“But he did suggest to you that there might well be something in the mattress?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And asked you to help him remove the blankets and sheets?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then he turned up the mattress?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And indicated this bullet hole with his flashlight?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hamilton Burger smiled triumphantly. “That’s all.”
“No questions on cross-examination,” Mason said.
Hamilton Burger seemed somewhat nonplussed by Mason’s attitude.
“Call Alexander Redfield,” Burger said.
Alexander Redfield came forward.
“I show you the bullet which has been identified by the witness Inskip,” Hamilton Burger said. “Do you know what gun discharged that bullet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What gun?”
“A Smith & Wesson gun, numbered C 48809.”
“A gun which has previously been introduced in evidence here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The gun which the defendant Conway admitted he had in his possession?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now then,” Hamilton Burger said, “there are two bullets in this case, and two guns.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There is a Colt, numbered 7408 8?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And a bullet was fired from that gun?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what bullet was that?”
“That was the fatal bullet.”
“That was the bullet that was given you by the autopsy surgeon as having been the bullet which caused the death of Rose Calvert?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that bullet was fired from that Colt revolver?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And this bullet which you have now identified is a bullet which was fired from the Smith & Wesson, the one which is received in evidence and which bears the number C 48809. This is the same gun which the evidence shows Mr. Conway, the defendant in this case, produced and handed to the authorities as being the gun which he claimed had been pointed at him in Room 729 and which he had taken away from this mysterious woman whom he had described in such detail?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s all,” Hamilton Burger said.
“No cross-examination,” Mason said.
Judge DeWitt frowned at Mason.
“I’m going to recall Robert King,” Hamilton Burger said.
King came forward and took the witness stand.
“You have already been sworn,” the district attorney said. “I am going to ask you what the hotel records show in regard to Room 728.”
“It was rented to a Ruth Culver.”
“And what happened to Ruth Culver?”
“She checked out of the hotel at about six-fifty on the evening of October sixteenth.”
“When did she rent the room?”
“Around ten o’clock in the morning of October sixteenth.”
“Who checked her out?”
“I presented her with the bill, which she paid in cash.”
“And then what?”
“It was early enough to have the room made up so we could rerent it again if we needed to that night,”
“Cross-examine,” Hamilton Burger said.
Mason said, “You didn’t see Ruth Culver when she checked in, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“You weren’t on duty at that time?”
“No, sir.”
“So for all you know, the woman who checked out of Room 728 may not have been the same woman who registered in there?”
“I know she was the woman who checked out of 728.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she paid the bill, and the bellboy went up and brought the baggage down.”
“Quite right. You know some woman checked out of Room 728 but you don’t know it was the same woman who checked in, do you?”
“Well, I didn’t see her when she checked in. I wasn’t on duty.”
“For all you know of your own knowledge,” Mason said, “the woman who rented 728 could well have been Rose Calvert, whose body was found in Room 729.”
“Oh, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said, “I object to this question. It is argumentative. It is completely incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and it shows the straws at which counsel is clutching.”
“The question is argumentative,” Judge DeWitt said.
“If the Court please,” Mason said, “it is a logical question. The initials of Ruth Culver and Rose Calvert are the same. The baggage which was taken down from 728 and the initials ‘R.C.’ and—”
“Your Honor, Your Honor!” Hamilton Burger shouted. “I object to this statement. I assign the making of it as misconduct. I point out to the court that the whole specious, fabricated nature of this defense is now coming into court in its true light.
“The defendant in this case admittedly had the Smith & Wesson revolver in his possession from around six-thirty-five on the evening of the sixteenth until it was surrendered to the officers on the morning of the seventeenth.
“The defendant had consulted Perry Mason as his attorney, and presumably had turned the gun over to him. At least he had the opportunity to do so.
“Mr. Mason, finding out that there had been a check-out on the seventh floor of the hotel during the evening, had ample opportunity to get to that room to fire a shot in the mattress, then instruct a detective to go to that room and be there so that Mr. Mason could make a grandstand of discovering the bullet hole in the mattress the next morning.
“This is evidence of unprofessional conduct on the part of counsel. It makes him an accessory after the fact—”