Dexter tilted back in his swivel chair at the counsel table, smiling across at Mason, knowing from long experience the predicament in which the lawyer found himself.
“That witness,” Mason said, “is booby-trapped. I hardly dare open up any new gambit, and yet I have to cross-examine her.”
The lawyer looked up to see Judge Madison regarding him with a somewhat quizzical smile.
Mason returned to questioning the witness.
“Your apartment is on the same floor as that on which the defendant’s apartment is located, Mrs. Newton?”
“That’s right.”
“And you were in your apartment at the time you saw the defendant?”
“I was not.”
“You were then perhaps walking down the corridor toward the elevator?”
“I was not.”
Mason hesitated a moment wondering whether he dared to quit or would have to go on and, catching a glimpse of Dexter’s countenance, knew that he was walking into a trap.
“Were you,” Mason asked, “standing still in the corridor, Mrs. Newton?”
“I was standing still in the corridor,” she said. “A friend of mine was coming up in the elevator and I was standing just outside the doorway of my apartment.”
“So your friend could find the apartment without difficulty?” Mason asked.
“Yes!”
“Was this friend a man or a woman?”
“Objected to as not proper cross-examination, incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial,” Dexter said.
“The objection is overruled,” Judge Madison said. “The Court wasn’t born yesterday, Mr. Dexter, and the Court recognizes the technique you have used with your direct examination on this witness. I’ll state one thing: The defense is going to have every latitude in the way of cross-examination. Proceed, Mr. Mason, and the witness will answer the question.”
“It was a man,” Mrs. Newton snapped.
“And this man had phoned that he was coming up in the elevator?”
“Yes.”
“And just how do you fix the time as being exactly two minutes of eight?” Mason asked.
Dexter’s smile broadened into a grin.
“Because he was going to watch a certain television program with me. He was late and I was afraid that the television program would start before he arrived. So when he telephoned I looked at the clock and it was just a few minutes before eight o’clock, so I went to the apartment door and held it open for him.”
“Now let’s get the location of your apartment,” Mason said. “You’re on the same floor as the apartment occupied by the defendant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you say that when the defendant left her apartment she went to the stairs instead of the elevator?”
“That’s right.”
“And the stairs are located near the elevator?”
“They are not! They are located at the opposite end of the corridor.”
“And the defendant’s apartment is between you and the elevator?”
“Between my apartment and the stairs,” she said.
“Oh, I see,” Mason said. “Then you were standing in the corridor by the door of your apartment eagerly awaiting the visit of your boy friend.”
“I didn’t say he was my boy friend, and I didn’t have to be eager about it!” the witness snapped.
“Let me put it this way,” Mason said. “You were anticipating the visit of a man who was coming to call on you; you were alone in your apartment at the time?”
“Yes.”
“He was going to watch a television program with you?”
“Yes — among other things.”
“I see,” Mason repeated, with a slightly mocking smile, “among other things, I believe you said?”
“That’s what I said!”
“And you were waiting by the door of your apartment so that this friend of yours, this masculine friend, if you object to the term ‘boy friend,’ Mrs. Newton, wouldn’t miss the apartment?”
“Well, I was showing him the apartment.”
“Then this was the first time he had been up there?” Mason said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, I’m asking you that. Was it the first time he had been up there?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Mason raised his eyebrows. “Well, was the young man intoxicated, Mrs. Newton?”
“Certainly not!”
“He was in full possession of his mental faculties, as far as you know?”
“Of course.”
“Then why was it necessary for you to stand at the door of your apartment in order to show him the location of the apartment, if he already knew where it was?”
“Well, I was being hospitable.”
“But that isn’t what you said in your earlier testimony. You stated that you were standing there to show him the apartment.”
“Well, I was.”
“But he already knew the location of the apartment.”
“Well, I wanted to make certain he didn’t forget.”
“How many times had he been to your apartment prior to this visit?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, Your Honor,” Dexter said, “this is getting entirely out of hand. This is becoming a cross-examination of this witness as to her social life and an attempt is being made to hold her up to public ridicule simply because she was doing something that was perfectly naturaclass="underline" standing in the door of her apartment to welcome a visitor.”
“With open arms?” Mason asked.
Judge Madison smiled.
Dexter turned angrily to Mason and said, “It was a thoroughly natural gesture, and you know it, and this examination is for the purpose of embarrassing the witness.”
“Not at all,” Mason said. “I am simply trying to ascertain how it could be that if she was standing in the doorway watching the elevator for the purpose of seeing her friend as soon as he left the elevator in order to guide him to her apartment, she was also able to see behind her and notice the defendant leaving her apartment and walking in the opposite direction. I take it there is no claim she has eyes in the back of her head.”
Judge Madison said, “Gentlemen, let’s have no more personalities. Please address your remarks to the Court. This is quite plainly a case where a witness has been given a very perfunctory direct examination and counsel expects opposing counsel to develop the circumstances. Cross-examination of such a witness is, well, to use a popular expression, it’s loaded with dynamite. The defense attorney is forced to cross-examine, and he’s proceeding in the dark, realizing, of course, the danger which exists.
“The Court is watching the development of the situation with a great deal of interest, just as the prosecutor is watching it with a great deal of amusement. The Court certainly doesn’t intend to interfere as long as the cross-examination is within anything like reasonable limits, and the Court will confess that it has been puzzled as to how the witness could see the defendant emerge from her apartment, which was opposite to the direction in which the witness was looking, and follow her all the way to the stairs, while at the same time she was watching the elevator.”
“Well,” Mrs. Newton snapped, “I didn’t have to stare at the elevator. I was conscious of other things that were taking place. I didn’t keep my eyes riveted on the elevator.”
“Don’t argue with me,” Judge Madison said to the witness, “and don’t volunteer information. Mr. Mason will doubtless cover this point by questioning, and you may answer his questions.”
The grin had faded from Dexter’s face. He now seemed slightly concerned.
Mason said, “Now you have fixed the time as being two minutes of eight, Mrs. Newton?”
“I have.”
“And you approximated that time because of—”