Erle Gardner - The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe

Diggers waited patiently until Mason had finished. Then he turned to the jury, just as Sampson had instructed him to do.

“She wasn’t holding the bag when she had her hands up, Mr. Mason,” he said. “She dropped the bag just before she put her hands up, and the bag was lying on the road, right where she had dropped it.”

“That bag was lying just about where the blue sedan had been parked, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the blue sedan had been there until just a moment before the defendant stepped out from the curb, is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then, how do you know that the bag which you picked up hadn’t been dropped by the occupants of the blue sedan?”

“Because,” Diggers explained patiently, “I saw the defendant carrying the bag in her hand. The minute I saw her, I saw the bag. If that bag had been dropped by the occupants of that blue sedan, Mr. Mason, the defendant must have dived under the blue sedan, picked up the bag, run back to the sidewalk, and then turned to run out in front of my headlights.”

“Now, where was the gun when you first saw it — this thirty-eight caliber revolver you have just described to the jury?”

“Practically protruding from the handbag.”

“It wasn’t lying on the pavement near the handbag?”

“No, sir.”

Mason sat down. “That is all,” he said.

“The witness is excused,” Sampson announced, and a note of triumph was apparent in his voice.

Sampson next called one of the ambulance attendants to identify the bag and its contents. Mason offered no cross-examination.

Sampson heaved a sigh of relief. Well, he’d got past that hurdle Very nicely. Mason had been forced to surrender the point. He consulted his list of witnesses.

“Call Carl Ernest Hogan,” he said, and, with Hogan on the stand, quickly ran through his occupation ballistics expert for the police force. Once more, Mason stipulated to the qualifications of the Witness, subject to the right of cross-examination. And Hogan, testifying with the close-clipped efficiency of an expert who is as much at home on the witness stand as in his own living room, identified the test bullet which had been discharged from the gun found in the bag, identified the bullet which had been handed him by Sergeant Holcomb as the fatal bullet, and then introduced a greatly enlarged micro-photograph showing the marks of the rifling on the two bullets. The photograph was offered in evidence, and admitted without objection. The jury needed only to look at it to tell that the two bullets had unquestionably been fired from the same gun. An attempt had been made to trace the ownership of the gun from the numbers. The attempt had been unsuccessful because the records of a merchant, going back over a period of years, had been lost or destroyed. The numbers on the gun, however, had not been tampered with. “Cross-examine,” Sampson said triumphantly.

Sampson sat back in his chair, breathing easily while the cross-examination droned on. No, the witness couldn’t, of his own knowledge, testify as to the fact that this gun had been found in the bag. It was a gun which had been given him by Sergeant Holcomb of the homicide squad. The witness had, however, checked the numbers, and, as Mr. Mason could observe, the numbers tallied with those which had been written down by Harry Diggers at the time of the accident.

No, the witness couldn’t, of his own knowledge, testify that this bullet was the fatal bullet. That bullet, as he understood it, had been taken by the autopsy surgeon from the body of Austin Cullens, given to Sergeant Holcomb, and by Sergeant Holcomb handed to the witness.

Larry Sampson, thinking that perhaps some of the jurors might be misled, took occasion to interpolate a comment to the court. “We’re not asking to introduce this fatal bullet in evidence at the present time, Your Honor. It’s only been marked for identification. The last link in the chain will be forged by the testimony of Sergeant Holcomb, and then we’ll have to have the bullet introduced.” Judge Barnes nodded.

Mason said casually, “By the way, Mr. Hogan, you were testing two guns at the same time, were you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Both thirty-eight caliber revolvers?”

“Yes, sir, but they were of different makes.”

“I understand that,” Mason said. “I’m simply trying to get the circumstances under which the test was conducted before the jurors. I believe one of the guns was one which had been used in the murder of George Trent, was it not?”

The witness smiled. “I’m sure I can’t tell you about that, Mr. Mason,” he said. “I know what Sergeant Holcomb told me when he handed me the guns. But it is only my province to test guns by firing projectiles from them and comparing them with fatal bullets.”

Judge Barnes smiled. Larry Sampson grinned. If Mason thought he could get anywhere cross-examining an expert like Hogan, he had another guess coming. Hogan was deadly as a rattlesnake on cross-examination. Try to crowd him, and he’d strike back in a hurry.

“By the way,” Mason said, “do you remember whether you first compared a bullet from the gun which Sergeant Holcomb told you had been used in the Trent case, or the one which Sergeant Holcomb told you had been found in the bag of the defendant in this case?”

Hogan frowned meditatively and said, “As nearly as I remember, Mr. Mason, I first discharged a test bullet from this gun. Then I discharged a test bullet from the gun which Sergeant Holcomb told me had been used in the Trent case.”

“And in checking the bullets, what order did you follow?” Mason asked.

“Sergeant Holcomb handed me a bullet which I first compared with a bullet fired from this gun,” Hogan said. “I believe I mentioned to Sergeant Holcomb that it wasn’t fired from this gun...”

“Oh, it wasn’t ,” Mason said.

Hogan said acidly, “If you’ll permit me to finish my statement, Mr. Mason.”

“I wasn’t aware that I’d interrupted you,” Mason said. “I thought you had finished.”

“Well, I hadn’t finished,” Hogan said. “I was about to remark that I advised Sergeant Holcomb that the bullet hadn’t been fired from this gun, and Sergeant Holcomb told me of course it hadn’t that the bullet he had handed me was the one which had been taken from the body of George Trent. Thereupon, I compared that bullet With the test bullet fired from the revolver which Sergeant Holcomb had told me figured in the Trent case, and found that the bullets Were identical. I then compared the bullet which he gave me and which he told me had been taken from the body of Austin Cullens, and found that it was identical with the test bullet fired from this gun.”

Mason said wearily, “That’s all.”

“Call William Golding,” Sampson said.

Golding came forward to the witness stand and was sworn. His face was the face of a professional gambler, cold, expressionless, and observing, completely divorced from that which was taking place in his mind.

Golding stated his name and address. “Your occupation?” Sampson asked.

“I run a restaurant known as The Golden Platter.”

“Are you acquainted with the defendant, Sarah Breel?”

“Yes.”

“Were you acquainted with Austin Cullens, the decedent?”

“Yes.”

“When did you last see Austin Cullens?”

“On the evening of the day he was murdered.”

“Where did you see him?”

“At The Golden Platter — my place of business — at around seven o’clock in the evening.”

“And did you have occasion, later on, on that same day, to go to the residence of Austin Cullens?”