Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Reluctant Model

“Oh, if the Court please,” Dexter said, “that question has been answered several times.”

“And in several different ways,” Judge Madison said. “The witness may answer the question.”

“All right!” she said angrily. “I don’t know why I was standing there. It was just a natural gesture. I was... well, I was there, and it doesn’t make any difference why I was there. I was there and I saw this defendant emerge from her apartment carrying that caged canary.”

“When your man friend emerged from the elevator, did you run toward him?”

“No.”

“Did you walk toward him?”

“No.”

“You just stood there and let him walk all the way?”

“Well, I moved a few steps.”

“Walking, or running?”

“Walking.”

“Then you did walk to meet him?”

“Well, not all the way.”

“Part of the way?”

“Yes.”

“And during that time you had your back turned to the defendant?”

“She had gone before that. She opened the stair door and just shot through it.”

“Before your man friend emerged from the elevator?”

“At just about the same time.”

“What were the lighting conditions in the hallway of the apartment house, Mrs. Newton? The lighting was rather dim, I take it?”

“Well, you take it wrong,” she said. “I had been complaining about the lighting and so had some of the other tenants and beginning with the first of the year the management had put in a whole new series of lights — and it was high time they did it. The way things had been it was just as dark as a pocket. A body could have got herself hurt there.”

“So the lighting conditions were good?”

“They were.”

Mason hesitated a moment. “Do you have a driving license, Mrs. Newton?”

“Of course I do.”

“May I see it?”

“Well, I certainly don’t see what that has to do with it,” the witness said.

“Nor do I,” Dexter announced, getting to his feet. “If the Court please, I think it is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.”

Judge Madison shook his head. “This is cross-examination,” he said. “This witness has testified to a recognition of the defendant under circumstances which could be very vital to the defense, and I have no intention of limiting the cross-examination of defense counsel as long as the examination is within reasonable limits. Moreover, the Court thinks it knows what counsel is after and it is certainly pertinent.”

The witness reluctantly opened her purse, produced her driving license. “This gives the date of my birth,” she said, “and I certainly don’t want to have my age published in the newspapers. I just don’t think it’s anyone’s business.”

“I wasn’t interested in the date of your birth,” Mason said, taking the driving license. “I was interested in whether there were any restrictions — ah yes, I see that your driving license says that you must wear corrective glasses.”

“Well, what about it?” snapped the witness.

“You don’t seem to have any glasses on now,” Mason said.

“Well, I’m not driving a car now.”

“And you weren’t driving a car on the night of the thirteenth when you saw a figure that you thought you could recognize as that of the defendant.”

“I didn’t see a figure I thought I could recognize as that of the defendant. I saw the defendant. She was walking out of that apartment carrying her bird cage, and I just said to myself, I said to myself—”

“Never mind what you said to yourself,” Mason interrupted with a smile, “that would be hearsay. Let me ask you, Mrs. Newton, can you see the headline on this newspaper I’m holding up?”

“Certainly I can see it. And I can read it. And I can read the smaller headlines. I can read those headlines over in the right-hand corner: president contemplates: balanced budget for next fiscal year.”

Mason frowned thoughtfully, said abruptly, “Are you wearing contact lenses, Mrs. Newton?”

“Yes!”

“When did you first wear contact lenses?”

“I got them on the afternoon of the twelfth.”

“And discarded your other glasses?”

“Not all at once. I alternated — I still do.”

“So on the thirteenth you hadn’t as yet become fully accustomed to your contact lenses?”

“Well, I could see with them all right.”

“But you were wearing them only a short time each day?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have them on when you emerged from your apartment and saw the figure you take to be that of the defendant in the corridor?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, let’s see if we can refresh your memory,” Mason said. “When did you put them in on the thirteenth, in the morning?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You recognized the figure you now say was that of the defendant, by the clothes?”

“I’d know that tweed coat of hers anywhere.”

“It wasn’t form-fitting?”

“I’ve told you it wasn’t. It was a baggy, tweed coat.”

Mason said, “Then you couldn’t see the face, you couldn’t see the figure. All you could see was the coat and the caged canary.”

“What more do you want?”

“ I don’t want anything,” Mason said smiling, “except to have you tell the truth. Now, you couldn’t recognize the defendant by her form, could you, because you couldn’t see her form.”

“That question is argumentative, if the Court please,” Dexter said.

“I’m going to allow it anyway,” Judge Madison said. “I think the situation is quite obvious here and if counsel wants to develop it for the record I’m going to permit him to do so.”

“I couldn’t see her figure; she had her clothes on.”

“By clothes you mean this baggy, tweed coat?”

“She had other clothes on.”

“But you couldn’t see them.”

“I can’t see through a coat. I don’t have X-ray eyes.”

“So all you could see was a figure wearing a tweed coat”

“Well, I guess I know the coat when I see it.”

“And carrying a bird in a cage.”

“A caged canary.”

“Could you see the bird?”

“I saw the bird well enough to know it was a canary.”

“And in view of the fact that you didn’t intend to drive your car,” Mason said, “the probabilities are that you didn’t have your glasses on. Is that correct?”

“All right,” the witness snapped. “I didn’t have my glasses on, but I’m not blind, Mr. Mason.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That’s all!”

“No redirect,” Dexter said.

“Call your next witness,” Judge Madison directed.

“That’s our case, Your Honor,” Dexter said. “The People rest.”

“Well,” Judge Madison said, “of course the testimony has some gaps, as Mr. Mason has so dramatically pointed out. The defendant was seen near this locker. However, she was not seen opening the locker, or putting anything in it.

“Of course, however, it is her gun and, while Mr. Mason’s dramatic cross-examination of the last witness indicates that there may be weak links in the evidence, there seems to be no alternative for this Court but to bind the defendant over and...”

Mason rose.

“And since it is a murder case,” Judge Madison went on, “the defendant will not be admitted to bail.”

“May I make a statement, if the Court please?” Mason asked.

“Certainly,” Judge Madison said.

“The defendant wishes to put on a case.”

Judge Madison frowned, hesitated a moment, then spoke cautiously, weighing his words. “The Court had no intention of precluding the defendant from putting on a case. The Court had naturally assumed that there would be no defense, since this is merely a preliminary hearing.