“Do you mean that I substitute evidence?” Mason asked angrily.
“I mean that you juggle evidence.”
“That will do,” Judge Kent ruled. “There will be no repartee between counsel. The Court will do the talking. The objection is overruled. The question will stand and the expert will be asked to make tests on the cartridge case presented to him by Mr. Perry Mason as counsel for the defense.
“And since the matter has come up, the Court will take this opportunity of stating that this is a perfectly legitimate question, regardless of where this cartridge case came from. This is an attempt to cross-examine the witness by testing his qualifications as an expert. If the witness has stated that one cartridge case came from a given weapon, it is certainly within the province of the defense to give him another cartridge case and ask him if that cartridge case also came from that same weapon.
“The Court is inclined to agree with Mr. Mason that in a case involving the life or liberty of a citizen, counsel representing the defendant should have the greatest latitude in cross-examination and that it is not the purpose or intent of the law to have the cross-examination confined to a conventional type of attack. If counsel has the ingenuity and the wit to bring in a collateral line of attack, which is still pertinent but somewhat unconventional, counsel should be accorded that privilege.
“The Court may further state that the Court has heard criticism of Perry Mason’s somewhat unorthodox methods of cross-examination before. That criticism is usually voiced by prosecutors.
“As far as this Court is concerned, the primary function of cross-examination is to test the recollection, the skill and the accuracy of witnesses. Any method, regardless of how unconventional or dramatic that method may be, which tends to bring about the desired object is going to be perfectly permissible in this court. It is far better to resort to the unorthodox and the dramatic than it is to have an innocent defendant convicted of crime.
“Since there is no jury present and this is a proceeding addressed to the sound discretion of the Court, the Court is also going to state that the Court itself is very anxious to have this question cleared up. Why in the name of sense should any person use a weapon in order to commit a murder, then return that weapon to a position where it is certain to be found and connected with the defendant, but first go to all the bother of mutilating the barrel so that the weapon cannot be identified?”
“May I answer that question?” Marshall asked Judge Kent.
“I’d be glad to have you try to do so,” Judge Kent said.
“The answer is simply this,” Marshall said. “The defendant perhaps did not deliberately intend to commit premeditated murder. She went to meet Mervin Selkirk, she possessed herself of a weapon. We don’t know what happened at that meeting; that is for the defendant to tell us if she chooses to take the stand. But she did press the trigger of that gun and released the bullet which killed Mervin Selkirk. Then she returned to the room where she had been sleeping and, because she didn’t know that the identity of the weapon could be checked by microscopic comparison of the impression made by the firing pin on the rim of the cartridge, she thought she would cover her back trail by mutilating the barrel of the weapon so that the weapon which fired the fatal bullet could never be identified.”
“And then left the weapon under her pillow?” Judge Kent asked.
“Yes, Your Honor, we know she must have done that. The evidence shows she did.”
Judge Kent shook his head indicating utter disbelief.
“The reason she did that,” Marshall went on, “as we shall presently show, is that the weapon had been left on a table in the front hall. Under ordinary circumstances the weapon would have been returned to the bureau drawer in the front bedroom, which was the place it was usually kept. However that night the defendant was occupying the bedroom. So the gun was left in plain sight on the table.
“The defendant left her bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs. It is a fair inference that Mervin Selkirk either had an appointment with her or had found some way of communicating with her. She went downstairs, saw the gun, decided to take it with her, and fired one shot from it.
“Then when she returned to the house she had the gun with her. She went back to her room to decide what to do. She was worried for fear the fatal gun could be identified by ballistics experts so she roughed up the barrel.”
“And then conveniently left it under her pillow?” Judge Kent asked skeptically.
“Yes, Your Honor, she was afraid she had left fingerprints on the gun and thought it would be better to say she had taken it from the hall table to her room. She didn’t realize a ballistics expert could tell the barrel had been tampered with or that this tampering had been done after the last shell had been fired in the gun.”
Judge Kent thought that over, then said dryly, “I take it that you have further evidence which you intend to introduce and which you hope and believe will support this position.”
“We do.”
“Very well,” Judge Kent said, “the Court will keep an open mind. At the present time the Court is very frank to state that it considers the theory farfetched.”
“The Court will bear in mind the imprint of the defendant’s finger on the printing press which was found at the scene of the crime,” Marshall said somewhat irritably.
“The Court will keep all of the evidence in mind,” Judge Kent said, “and the Court will listen to you when you are ready to argue that evidence. I take it you are not ready to close your case and start the argument now?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Go ahead then and put on your other evidence,” Judge Kent said. “In the meantime, the witness Redfield will be asked by the Court to check this cartridge case handed him by Mr. Mason.
“I take it, Mr. Mason, that you have some particular reason for making this suggestion, and that this particular cartridge case is of importance to your theory of the case?”
“It is, Your Honor.”
“Very well. The witness Redfield will make that check and return to court with his report this afternoon,” Judge Kent said.
Marshall said, “We’ll call Miss Frances Delano to the stand.”
Frances Delano, wearing the uniform of an airline hostess, came forward, was sworn and seated herself on the witness chair.
Judge Kent looked at the trim young woman approvingly.
Marshall said, “What is your occupation, Miss Delano?”
“I am employed as a stewardess on United Airlines.”
“Where is your run?”
“Between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
“On the night of the seventeenth were you a stewardess on a plane flying between San Francisco and Los Angeles?”
“I was.”
“What was your schedule?”
“We left San Francisco at eight fifteen.”
“I ask you to look at the defendant and ask you to tell us if you have ever seen her before.”
“Yes, I have seen her. She was a passenger on my plane.”
“There’s no question about that,” Perry Mason said. “That’s stipulated, Your Honor. There’s no need to call a witness to prove that.”
“I am getting at something else,” Marshall said.
He turned to the witness. “Now, Miss Delano, will you explain to us what happens with tickets which are purchased?”
“They’re on a form,” she said, “a folder. There are carbon copies made and at various control points the ticket part is torn off. There is a final carbon copy on the cover which is left in the possession of the passenger.”
“I now show you a document and ask you if you can tell us what that is.”
“May I see it?” Mason asked.