“That blow did not cause death, Doctor?”

  “I would say that death occurred from the bullet wound, although the blow may have caused unconsciousness.”

  “But in the event the decedent had fallen and struck his head on a rope, you would then have found certain indentations caused by the strands of the rope?”

  “Well … not necessarily.”

  “But you would have expected to?”

  “The rope might have been covered, wrapped, or serviced as it is called in yachting circles.”

  “In other words,” Mason said, “you are doing everything in your power to minimize the importance of this blow on the head.”

  “I am not,” the doctor snapped testily.

  “That’s objected to as argumentative and is not proper cross-examination. It’s incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial,” the district attorney said.

  Mason smiled, “It goes to the bias of the witness and it has already been answered.”

  “The question has been answered, gentlemen,” the judge said. “Proceed with your examination, Mr. Mason.”

  Mason said, “Because of the absence of powder stains, you would say that the person who fired the shot was more than three feet distant from the victim?”

  “Well, two or three feet.”

  “Which?”

  “Well, more than two.”

  “Now in firing a revolver, the revolver is held in the hand. Is it not?”

  “Naturally,” the witness said sarcastically. “It is difficult to fire a revolver with one’s teeth.”

  The courtroom burst into laughter which the judge promptly silenced.

  “Exactly,” Mason said. “So, a revolver is held in the hand. Will you please hold your hand in the position of a person firing a revolver?”

  The witness promptly extended his hand.

  “Now hold it right there,” Mason said, “until I can measure the distance.”

  Mason produced a tape measure from his pocket.

  The witness, suddenly realizing what Mason was after, dropped his elbow slightly, moving the hand a little closer to his body.

  “No, no,” Mason said, “you’re moving your hand. Now put it back where it was.”

  “Well, I ah … am just getting my hand in the position that a person would hold a revolver,” the witness said, moving his hand around and managing to get it a few inches closer to his body.

  Mason smiled. “In other words, as soon as you realize what I’m after, you start moving your hand in. Is that right?”

  “Not at all,” the witness said indignantly. “I’m merely trying to answer your question, that’s all. You asked me to hold my hand in the position of a person shooting a revolver.”

  “And you extended it out to about here, did you not?” Mason said, straightening the arm almost out to its full length.

  “Well, if you were taking a sight, you would hold your hand more extended than if you were shooting blind.”

  “And do you think you could hit a person in the neck without taking a sight?”

  “The murderer probably was aiming at the man where he was thickest and the bullet went wild and hit him in the neck.”

  “Now, you’re qualifying as a mind reader,” Mason said, “and putting yourself in the position of the murderer.”

  “Murderess,” the man snapped.

  “I thought you said ‘murderer’ the first time.”

  “Well, it was a murderess.”

  “How do you know?”

  The witness became sullenly silent.

  Mason smiled. “Obviously you’re quite prejudiced in the case, but then, that’s only to be expected. Just put your hand back, if you will, in the position of a man shooting and taking aim.”

  Reluctantly the witness extended his hand.

  “Could you aim from that position?” Mason asked.

  “I think I could.”

  Mason said, “Let’s take this gun that’s been introduced as an exhibit and put it in your hand. Now aim.”

  The witness lowered his head.

  “Isn’t it easier to raise your hand than to lower your head?”

  The witness raised his hand, reluctantly yielding each inch.

  Mason laughed, said, “All right. That will do, hold it!”

  He snapped up the tape measure and measured the distance. “Twenty-eight and three-quarter inches from the tip of the gun to the point of your nose,” he said.

  The witness said, “Well, that’s not exactly fair, because you’re measuring to the tip of the gun.”

  “But when you say that the powder stains would appear if the distance had been closer than two feet, you mean from the tip of the gun, don’t you?”

  “Well … well, yes, I guess so.”

  “Your nose doesn’t leave powder burns, does it?” Laughter rocked the courtroom. The judge silenced the laughter. District Attorney Burger said, “Your Honor, I consider that sarcastic comment was uncalled for.”

  “That was no sarcastic comment,” Mason said. “It’s a question. The witness has said it’s difficult to fire a gun with your teeth. If that wasn’t sarcasm then I’m entitled to know if a nose can leave powder burns. If it was sarcasm, I’m entitled to give tit for tat. Right now, I want to know where powder burns come from.”

  The judge smiled. “Proceed, gentlemen,” he said good naturedly.

  “So that the person who pulled the trigger on that gun, must have been more than four feet from the neck of the victim?” Mason asked.

  “Well, perhaps … Perhaps an inch or two, either way.”

  “At least four feet, four and three-quarter inches. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s the least,” Mason said.

  The witness was silent.

  “Now then,” Mason went on, “is it your contention that the blow which you discovered on the head of the decedent could have been hit with a club four feet long?”

  “It could have been hit with a club twenty feet long.”

  “Exactly. It would have been rather awkward to have handled such a club, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a murderer. I’m talking about the conditions which I discovered.”

  “And you don’t know whether the blow was struck first or the shot was fired first?”

  “No, I don’t. The blow may have been at about the same time. It probably was.”

  “The blow could have been struck with a hard object, such as a baseball bat?”

  “Provided it … Yes, it could. Any object that was round and didn’t have any sharp corners. If a baseball bat, it might have been wrapped with something or padded with something.”

  “It was about that shape of object? Something about that size? About that diameter?”

  “Perhaps … Perhaps just a little smaller.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said, “that is all.”

  The court adjourned for its noon recess and Mason picked up Della Street and Paul Drake from the crowd which debouched from the courtroom. “Come on over and have lunch,” he invited. “I want to talk things over.”

  Drake said, “That’s something new, Perry. About the blow.”

  “Uh huh,” Mason said, “but let’s not talk it over until we get where we can have some privacy. What have you found out, Paul? Anything?”

  “Not a darn thing,” Drake said, “except that I’ve been tipped off. They’re going to put Ellen Cushing on the stand to prove motive.”

  “To prove motive?” Mason said, frowning.

  “Uh huh, they are going to introduce the oil lease through her.—Get the sketch, Perry? You’ll have to take a lot from her or else bring out the fact that she’s the plaintiff in a suit for defamation of character against us.”

  “I get it,” Mason said. “All right. We’ll handle it just any old way they want to handle it, if that’s the way they feel about it. Let’s go eat.”

  Chapter 19

  When court reconvened at two o’clock, Hamilton Burger, in the manner of a lawyer calling his star witness, said, “Mr. Robert P. Noxie, will you please take the stand.”

  Mr. Noxie took the stand and qualified himself as an expert on ballistics with a wealth of descriptive detail which showed only too well the manner in which the man enjoyed an opportunity to discuss his technical qualifications in front of an audience.

  When some twenty minutes had been consumed in relating the experience and studies of the witness, Hamilton Burger got down to the meat of the situation.

  “I hand you herewith a piece of lead, shaped as a bullet, bearing certain identifying marks and ask you if you have ever seen that piece of lead before?”

  “I have. Yes, sir.”

  “Was that in your possession?”

  “It was. Yes, sir.”

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “Dr. Stirling.”

  “And where were you when that was given to you?”

  “At the morgue in the autopsy room. Dr. Stirling handed it to me almost as soon as it was taken from the body of Scott Shelby.”

  “Just what is that piece of lead, Mr. Noxie?”

  “That is a thirty-eight caliber bullet. It has a weight of one hundred and fifty grains. It will leave the muzzle at approximately six hundred and ninety-five feet per second and will penetrate four seven-eighth inch pine boards.”

  The witness glanced at the court reporter to make certain his testimony was being taken down and smiled triumphantly at Perry Mason, as much as to say, “Go ahead, see if you can trap me!”

  “Now then,” Hamilton Burger said, “I will ask you whether it is possible to tell from what particular weapon this bullet was fired.”

  “It is. Yes, sir.”

  “Now by that I do not mean, what particular type of weapon but I mean what individual weapon.”

  “Yes, sir. This bullet was fired from a Colt Police Positive revolver Number 14581.”

  The district attorney said, “I hand you a Colt Police Positive revolver which has been heretofore introduced in evidence and ask you if that is the weapon referred to in your testimony.”

  “It is.”

  “I will now ask you how you know that this bullet was fired from that gun.”

  “You want me to explain that to the jury?”

  “If you will, please, yes, sir.”

  “That answer will take some little time.”

  “Go ahead,” Hamilton Burger said with a wave of his hand, “we have all afternoon.”

  “In the first place,” the witness said, “it must be borne in mind that there are certain lands in the rifle barrel. These serve to guide the bullet, imparting to it a rotary motion when the bullet is discharged. Now these lands naturally have certain microscopic variations. And, in the course of time, a barrel will become pitted or rusted so that there will be certain scratches, certain little projections, various little things which will leave marks or scratches upon the bullet as the bullet tears on past. In fact, every weapon imparts a distinctive marking to each bullet which is fired through its barrel. These markings are invariably sufficiently identical to make possible a definite identification.

  “Now, when I first received this revolver in question, I proceeded to fire a series of test bullets through the weapon. I fired those bullets into a cylinder of water, taking care to fire the bullets straight down into the water so that there would be no distortion of the tip.”

  The witness turned and looked to the jurors and, quite evidently flattered by the interest he was arousing, said, “I then set up a microscope and photographed those various bullets. I have here a series of twelve photographs showing certain distinctive markings upon these six bullets, each photo showing two sides of each bullet.”

  The witness opened a brief case, produced a dozen eight by ten photographs, then said, “These photographs are micro-photographs, that is, they were taken through a microscope. They show the appearance of the bullet just as it was seen through the microscope with a relatively low power of magnification and a large field.

  “I have arranged these photographs so that certain distinctive markings upon the bullets are in evidence. Each one of these first six photographs which I now hand you, Mr. Burger, is a photograph of a different bullet fired from the same weapon but taken at such an angle that it is possible to see identical surface scratches upon each bullet.

  “And I now hand you a composite photograph which is a photograph composed of strips, taken from each bullet, and placed one immediately above the other so that the scratches or blemishes on the sides of these bullets form a continuous line upon the photographs.”

  Hamilton Burger said, “I ask that each of these photographs be properly identified and admitted in evidence.”

  “No objection,” Mason said.

  There followed a short interval during which each photograph was identified, introduced in evidence, and marked by the clerk of the court as an appropriate exhibit.

  “Now then,” Hamilton Burger said, “returning to my question as to how you know this fatal bullet was fired from this particular gun, I will ask that you resume your testimony to the jury, Mr. Noxie.”

  “Yes, sir. Having identified the individual markings of the gun barrel as they appear on the surface of the test bullets, so that I was acquainted with what one might term the idiosyncrasies of the weapon in question, I then turned my attention to the fatal bullet. There are, of course, some slight distortions about the head of the bullet, but these are very slight indeed when one considers that it penetrated bone. The bullet is, in fact, in remarkably good condition. It is in unusually good condition. I took this bullet, placed it under the microscope in my laboratory and proceeded to rotate it while I carefully photographed it. I then used a comparison microscope which fuses two objects into a single image. By placing the fatal bullet on one table of the microscope, and a test bullet on the other, I was able to match up the grooves and scratches in the manner such as you see them in this photograph.”

  Hamilton Burger said, “Just a moment, was this photograph which you now produce taken through the comparison microscope?”

  “No, sir. This is a photograph which shows two bullets, the fatal bullet on the left hand and the test bullet on the right. The lighting is absolutely identical in each case and the photograph is taken so as to show the similarity in the grooves and scratches. You can very plainly see them but in order to make that more evident, I have prepared herewith a composite photograph of the two bullets. The lower half is the photograph of a test bullet, and above this line of demarcation shown on the photograph, the bullet is the fatal bullet. It will be noted that the scratches and grooves combine in such a way that it precludes any possibility of coincidence and proves, in fact it demonstrates absolutely, that this bullet was fired from this particular weapon.”

  Hamilton Burger, showing that he was very much impressed by the testimony of the witness, said, “Your Honor, I want this photograph to be introduced in evidence, and then I would like to have the jury inspect it.”

  The witness said glibly, “I have already arranged for that, Mr. Burger. I have had twelve duplicate prints of this photograph made. Each print is made from the same cut film negative and the prints are all absolutely identical.”

  “Under the circumstances, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said, “I ask that each one of the jurors be given one of these prints and an opportunity to examine it carefully.”

  The witness dove down into his voluminous brief case, came up with twelve magnifying glasses. “I have some visual aids for the jurors,” he said.

  The district attorney gratefully accepted the magnifying glasses, passed a photograph and a magnifying glass to each of the jurors.

  Mason watched the jurors keenly.

  Some of them made a rather detailed examination. Some of them looked at the photograph for only a few moments, then raised their eyes to study the defendant, an infallible sign that they had made up their minds.

  “Do you wish to cross-examine this witness, Mr. Mason?” Burger asked.

  “Yes, certainly,” Mason said, giving no external evidence of the shock he had received from Noxie’s testimony.

  “Then I suggest the jurors retain their photographs and magnifying glasses during the period of cross-examination so that in case there is any necessity to refer to these photographs they will have them handy.”

  “Is there any objection?” the judge asked Mason.

  “None whatever, Your Honor.”

  “Very well, it will be so ordered.”

  Noxie turned to Perry Mason with a confident, somewhat patronizing smile. “Go right ahead with your questions,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Mason retorted with exaggerated politeness. “Now as I understand it, Mr. Noxie, when a fatal bullet penetrates tissues and scrapes against bone, it has not only the scratches and markings of the rifle barrel which were etched into the lead as the bullet left the barrel, but it also has the flattening effect of impact and such other scratches as may have been received by penetrating bony tissue.”

  “That is, in the main, correct.”

  “Now, take for instance in the present bullet. There were certain scratches upon the fatal bullet which were not left by the barrel of the weapon.”

  “Well, there could have been, but this bullet is in very good condition.”

  “I believe you said unusually good condition.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then this bullet is not what you would consider a usual fatal bullet.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said the bullet was in unusually good condition.”

  “What is unusual about it?”

  “Well, it shows very little flattening.”

  “What does that indicate?”

  “Merely that we are particularly fortunate in having a bullet where it is possible to identify the distinguishing marks on small portions of it. Quite frequently, when a bullet is flattened or distorted, there will be one side that is almost valueless. But, in this case, there is only a very little flattening.”

  “The bullet penetrated bony substance?”

  “So I understand.”

  “You were present at the postmortem?”