“Then what did you do?”
“I remembered the desk had a lock on it, so I had him put it in the desk and I suggested Merton Ostrander keep the key.”
“Was there any conversation about your niece having been a party to smuggling?”
“Certainly not.”
“You heard what Mr. Ostrander said, didn’t you?”
“That,” Linda Mae Carroll said with dignity, “is something else again. Robert Trenton was merely describing something that had happened to the automobile. It didn’t have anything to do with my niece.”
“Your recollection of the conversation is approximately the same as that of Mr. Ostrander? You have nothing to add to his testimony?”
“I guess that’s about it,” she said, “but don’t you think for a minute that Rob Trenton aimed that gun at this man, fired and hit him. He just pointed it in the man’s general direction and fired to frighten that man; and don’t you think for a minute that he’s a good enough shot to put two shots within a space no bigger than the size of your hand, at night... that’s absurd.”
“We are not asking you for your opinion, Madam,” the judge said sharply.
“Do you know where your niece, Linda Carroll, is?” the district attorney asked.
“I do not,” she snapped at him. “All I know is that she’s been hounded to death by policemen and newspapermen until she’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and she’s gone to some place to try and get a little privacy. I don’t know where it is, and if I did I wouldn’t tell you. She’ll show up at the proper time, don’t worry about that.”
“This is the proper time,” the district attorney said.
“That may be what you think, but I don’t need you to do my thinking for me. I’ll know when’s the proper time, and so will she.”
“You know, do you not, that we have made every effort to locate her?”
“I do not.”
“Well, I’m telling you that we have.”
Linda Mae eyed him with shrewd twinkling eyes. “Well, if it’s going to count as evidence, you’d better take the oath and trade places with me.”
Even the judge smiled as her sally rocked the courtroom with laughter.
“Well, you know police have been to your house searching for your niece,” the district attorney shouted.
“Of course I do,” Linda Mae said. “They trampled the flowers, wore out the doorbell and left cigar butts all over the lawn.”
“Well,” the district attorney countered, “they were officers, perhaps no better, but certainly no worse than the average, and, under my orders, they were searching for your niece, Linda Carroll, and they failed to find her.”
Linda Mae nodded pertly. “It takes a better than average cop to find someone at a place where they ain’t.”
Again laughter swept the courtroom before the judge could pound it to order.
“Cross-examine,” the district attorney said with a wry smile.
“Miss Carroll,” Staunton Irvine said, “what happened after the weapon, People’s exhibit number three, was locked in the desk?”
“We talked for a while and then we went to bed.”
“And was there some discussion about an automobile... that is, an automobile other than the one that had been loaned to Mr. Trenton by your niece?”
“There was. Mr. Trenton had an automobile that he’d picked up and in which he made his escape. We parked it at a place where the police would find it eventually.”
“Why didn’t you notify the police?”
“Well, at the time I didn’t see that any good could come of it.”
“Now then,” Irvine said, “who had the key to the desk?”
“I believe Mr. Ostrander took the key and put it somewhere, or maybe he kept it. He said that we should take great pains to see that the gun was kept so it could be turned over to the police... that is, that nothing happened to it. Of course, at that time no one, not a single one of us, had any idea a man had been killed. We thought it was just another smuggling gang.”
“That’s all.”
The district attorney called Sam Joyner to the stand, then abruptly changed his mind and said, “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.”
He turned to the judge and said, “Your Honor, I think we have made out a prima facie case; one which is more than amply sufficient to bind the defendant over. The victim was killed by two bullets fired from an automatic weapon which was concededly in the hands of the defendant and which the defendant admitted firing when it was pointed towards the deceased. Any question of premeditation or any difference between manslaughter, second-degree murder or first-degree murder will be threshed out at the trial. At the present time it would seem that there is only one course open to Your Honor, and that’s to bind the defendant over on a charge of first-degree murder and let the higher court decide the legal aspects of the situation.”
The judge nodded.
“Therefore,” the district attorney said, “the prosecution rests.”
“Well, I guess there’s reasonable cause here to connect the defendant with the crime,” the judge said, “I...”
“Call our witness, quick,” Rob whispered to his lawyer.
Irvine shook his head.
“Just a moment, Your Honor,” Rob Trenton said in a sudden burst of desperation, surprising even himself by his daring. “I wish to confer for a moment with counsel concerning my case.”
The judge frowned, waited briefly.
Irvine said in angry whisper, “He’s made up his mind to bind you over. There’s nothing else he can do. Now sit still and let me handle this.”
“You mean you won’t call Dr. Dixon?”
“Exactly. We can’t afford to waste our valuable ammunition at this time aiming at an impossible target. The judge has his mind all made up.”
The judge rapped with his gavel. “There certainly seems no alternative to the Court at this time but to find the defendant...”
“Just a moment,” Rob Trenton interrupted, “I want to call one witness to the stand.”
Staunton Irvine whispered frantically in his ear, “Don’t do it, you fool. He’s going to bind you over anyway, and you’ll simply be tipping your hand. Your witness will go on the stand and the district attorney will cross-examine him up one side and down the other, then when the case is on trial in the higher court, the district attorney will have a record to confuse him with, asking him if he didn’t say this, or fail to say that, and...”
“Nevertheless,” Trenton said, “I want to call him.”
“Who’s your witness?” the judge asked irritably.
“Dr. Herbert Dixon,” Trenton said.
The district attorney smiled. “No objection. Your Honor, no objection. Let the defence call him, by all means.”
“All right,” the judge said, “if you want to call a witness that’s a right that you have. If Dr. Dixon is still in the courtroom he’ll come forward and be sworn.”
Dr. Dixon came forward and was sworn.
Acting with manifest reluctance, Staunton Irvine qualified him as an expert, then took the written list of questions which Rob Trenton handed him.
“Doctor, did you have occasion to examine the body of Harvey Richmond?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“On the afternoon of the twenty-first.”
“Did you make a post-mortem examination?”
“I made the best post-mortem examination I could. I was unable to make a complete examination.”
“Why?”
“Because an earlier post-mortem had been made. The body had been cut open in order to extract two bullets. However, the skull had not been opened and there were other parts of the burned body which remained undisturbed.”