Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

“Well, of course, I can’t identify an automobile absolutely when I just see it at night on...”

“Just answer the question,” Mason said. “Did you or did you not at the time you were with me think that was the car you had seen?”

“Yes, sir, I did,” the witness blurted.

“And now,” Mason said, “at this time, when the occasion is not as fresh in your mind as it was then, do you want this jury to feel that you have changed your mind?”

“Well, I realize now that I couldn’t identify any car positively and absolutely.”

“Specifically,” Mason said, “what has occurred between the occasion when you identified that car with me, two days after the time you had seen it, and the present time to make you change your mind?”

“I didn’t say I’d changed my mind.”

“You have changed it, haven’t you?” Mason snapped.

“Well, I don’t know that I have.”

“In other words,” Mason said, “you still think that the car you saw two days later with License Number 45S530 was the car you saw there at twelve-fifty in the morning of September twenty-second, don’t you, Mr. Irving?”

“Well,” Irving admitted, “I’ve been led to realize how impossible it would have been to have made an identification at the time I first saw the car parked there.”

“Who led you to realize the impossibility of making such an identification?”

“I just kept thinking the matter over and...”

Mason said, “You specifically stated, Mr. Irving, that you had been led to appreciate the impossibility of making such an identification. Now who led you?”

“Well, I don’t know. It could have been just the way I thought things over.”

“Someone led you,” Mason said. “Who was it?”

“I didn’t say that anyone led me.”

“You said you had been led. Who led you?”

“I... well, I had several talks with Mr. Covington, the district attorney.”

“In other words, Mr. Covington led you to believe that you couldn’t make a positive identification of the car you saw there that night. Is that right?”

“Well, I don’t know that I’d express it that way.”

“I’m expressing it that way,” Mason said. “Answer the question. Did or did not Mr. Covington lead you to the belief that you couldn’t identify that car under those circumstances?”

“Oh, Your Honor, I object. After all, this cross-examination is...”

“Overruled!” Judge Minden snapped.

Irving hesitated.

“Answer the question,” Mason said.

“Well, I guess he did.”

“That’s all,” Mason said smiling.

“Call Harold Otis,” Covington said.

Otis, a young, well-knit individual, took the witness stand, gave his name and address to the court reporter, and in response to questions by Covington, testified that he was employed in a service station in Oceanside, that he had worked on the twenty-first of September from the hour of four o’clock in the afternoon until midnight; that sometime before midnight, as nearly as he could place it, at about half an hour before he had left work, he had seen the defendant, Edward Garvin; that the defendant had driven up to his service station in a convertible automobile; that the witness had taken the license number of the automobile; that he had noticed it particularly; that he had filled the automobile tank with gasoline at the request of Mr. Garvin and had washed the windshield; that while lie was servicing the car Garvin had been exceedingly nervous and restless; that he had gone over to stand by the curb where he could watch the automobiles which were traveling south on the highway.

Covington produced a photograph of Edward Garvin’s car and the witness identified it as being the car Garvin had driven on the night in question. He identified the license number; identified the make, model and year of the car.

“Cross-examine!” Covington said triumphantly to Perry Mason, and strode back to his seat beside Samuel Jarvis at the prosecution’s counsel table.

“After you serviced the car, what did the driver do?” Mason asked.

“He drove away.”

“In which direction?”

“North.”

“Toward Los Angeles?”

“Yes.”

Mason smiled enigmatically as though this information was destined to wreck Covington’s case. “And you didn’t see him drive back, did you?”

“There are hundreds of cars an hour pass that service station. I don’t try to check up on all of the cars that are using the road.”

“Certainly not,” Mason said. “But you didn’t see this automobile come back down that road, did you?”

“No, sir, I didn’t, but...”

“Never mind the reasons,” Mason said. “I’m simply asking you whether you did or did not see that automobile returning?”

“No, sir.”

“And,” Mason announced triumphantly, arising and pointing a finger at the witness, “you went off duty at midnight that night, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So that in the event that car had returned after midnight, considerably after midnight, perhaps as late as three o’clock in the morning, you wouldn’t have been there to see it, would you?”

“Certainly not, but I wouldn’t have seen it anyway. I wouldn’t have noticed cars going along the highway. That’s not my business.”

“Do you mean to say,” Mason said, “that you never notice automobiles going along the highway?”

“Well, I don’t look at them particularly.”

“Exactly,” Mason said, “but you do notice automobiles from time to time going along the highway, don’t you?”

“Well, I guess so, yes.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “your attention had been attracted to this automobile because you thought the driver was unduly nervous and restless. Is that right?”

“Well, he looked as though he was looking for...”

“Never mind drawing any conclusions,” Mason said. “Simply answer the question. Your attention was attracted to this particular automobile because the driver was nervous and restless. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you looked the automobile over pretty carefully?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And so you could remember the license number?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Therefore, having remembered what this car looked like, if you had seen it again you would have noticed it, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, perhaps I would.”

“And if that car had been driven from your service station into Los Angeles, and hadn’t returned until three o’clock in the morning, so that the defendant couldn’t possibly have been anywhere near the scene of this murder at the time the crime was perpetrated, you wouldn’t have known it, would you?”

“Well...”

“Yes or no!” Mason thundered at the witness.

“Well, no.”

“That,” Mason announced triumphantly, “is all.”

Covington regarded Mason with a puzzled frown, then he slowly got to his feet. He was trying in vain to conceal the fact that Mason’s hint of a Los Angeles alibi for Garvin had him worried. “Your Honor,” he said, “I had intended to wind up my case very shortly with the records of the telephone company on that long distance call to Ethel Garvin from Tijuana, but I would like to have an opportunity to perhaps call one more witness who is not at the moment immediately available. If it would be possible for me to have an adjournment until tomorrow morning...”

Judge Minden shook his head. “I feel that would be an unreasonable request, unless, of course, the defendant should consent to it.”

Mason said, “No, Your Honor, we want this case to proceed as rapidly as possible.”

“But Your Honor,” Covington persisted, “there is at stake a matter of some considerable importance which I am not now at liberty to explain.”