“Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. I just tested her. I said, ‘Well, where is that man? I didn’t notice him,’ and she made a point of looking all around and said, ‘Well, I guess he must have got off at Bakersfield.’ Got off at Bakersfield!” Mrs. Maynard snorted. “He wasn’t on the bus. I guess I know. I was on the bus all the way from Los Angeles, and there wasn’t any man that was intoxicated like that, and she wasn’t on the bus herself.”

  “Are you positive of that?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Now what else happened on the trip?”

  “Well, we sat next to each other all the way then from Fresno to Stockton and then she left the bus and two men got on. One of those men tried to get me to swear that she’d been on the bus all the way from Los Angeles. I knew right away there was something fishy and …”

  “Now never mind your conclusions,” Hamilton Burger said, “and we don’t want any conversation that took place without the presence of the defendant. Never mind about those men at the moment. We may ask you about that later, but I want to know now how long you occupied the seat on that bus next to the defendant.”

  “All the way to Stockton. Of course, we got off at the stations, sometimes there’d be a long stop and sometimes a short stop, but while the bus was traveling I was seated next to her all the way up from Fresno, and we talked along quite a bit of the time.”

  “Did you notice how she was dressed?” Burger asked.

  “I noticed everything about that woman,” Mrs. Maynard said with the finality of one who is absolutely certain of herself.

  “How was she dressed?”

  “Quietly, the same as I was, in fact I think I commented that our clothes looked very much alike and she said yes, she liked to dress quietly when she traveled, but in good taste, and she made some compliment about my clothes. I don’t remember what it was except that they were in good taste, only she did mention something about my being an older woman and I didn’t like that I might be a year or two older but not a great deal older and I’ve been told that I don’t look my age, I …”

  “I’m quite certain you don’t,” Hamilton Burger said, and then, turning to Mason with a sardonic little bow, said, “Now would you care to cross-examine, Mr. Mason?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” Mason said, arising from his chair at the counsel table and smiling affably as he walked around the table to stand within some ten feet of the witness. “Indeed you don’t look your age, Mrs. Maynard,” he said.

  “How do you know?” she snapped. “I haven’t told you yet how old I am.”

  “Exactly,” Mason said, smiling. “Whatever it is, you don’t look it.”

  “I don’t think I care for that,” Mrs. Maynard said. “That has all the elements of being a nasty dig.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Mason said. “I notice you are having trouble with one eye, Mrs. Maynard.”

  “Yes, sir, I have an infection in that eye. I injured it and the eye became infected. I have to keep it tightly bandaged.”

  “Why tightly?” Mason asked.

  “So I can keep my glasses on,” she said. “If it were a bulky bandage I couldn’t get my spectacles on over it But by fastening it tightly with adhesive tape I am able to wear my spectacles.”

  “Oh,” Mason said, “so you have to wear spectacles.”

  “I don’t have to. I want to.”

  “But you do wear them?”

  “I do. Yes, sir.”

  “How long have you worn them?”

  “For some ten years, I guess.”

  “Do you always wear them?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “When do you take them off?”

  “When I go to sleep and when I wash my face.”

  There was laughter from the courtroom.

  Mason waited for the laughter to subside. “You find that wearing glasses improves your vision?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t wear them to try and keep my nose in line!” she said.

  The Judge rapped with his gavel. “The witness will try to answer questions,” he said, “and avoid being facetious.”

  “Then let him ask questions that make sense, Your Honor,” the witness snapped angrily at the Judge.

  “Proceed, Mr. Mason,” the Judge said, smiling slightly.

  “You can see quite well with your glasses on, Mrs. Maynard?”

  “Certainly.”

  “How about when you have your glasses off?”

  “Naturally I don’t see so well.”

  “How much trouble do you have with your eyes?”

  “I don’t have any trouble. I just don’t get along well without glasses.”

  “Now that clock, for instance,” Mason said, “the clock at the rear of the courtroom, you can tell the time?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Now take your glasses off and see if you can tell the time.”

  “Oh, just a moment,” Hamilton Burger said. “Your Honor, I think I can see what Counsel is trying to lead up to, but there seems to be no foundation whatever for this line of questioning. If he is going to make any such showing as he apparently is trying to make there should first be a preliminary proof that the witness did not have her glasses on at the time concerning which she is testifying.”

  “Well, I did have my glasses on,” Mrs. Maynard said. “I had them on every blessed minute of the time and …”

  Mason said, “If the Court please, I think I’m entitled to have the witness answer the question. I think it is important to ascertain the extent of her vision with her glasses off.”

  The Judge hesitated, then said, “Mrs. Maynard, do you have any objection to removing your glasses temporarily?”

  “Not at all.”

  She took her glasses off and, holding them in her hand, looked up at the Judge.

  “Now then,” Mason said, “can you tell what time it is by the clock in the back of the courtroom?”

  She blinked her unbandaged eye. “Very well, if you want to know, I’m just as blind as a bat without my glasses. Now wait a minute, I’m under oath. I don’t mean that I’m blind either, I just mean that I can’t see good enough to do very much good for myself, but I just want you to understand that I had my glasses on every minute of the time I was on that bus. I had my glasses on all the time I was riding from Los Angeles to Sacramento.”

  “I understand,” Mason said. “Put your glasses back on, Mrs. Maynard. Since you are quite dependent on your glasses I take it that you have more than one pair?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You carry a spare pair with you in the bag that you’re holding on your lap, so that in the event one pair should break …”

  “What’s going to break my glasses?” she said. “Certainly not A pair of glasses isn’t like an automobile tire. They don’t puncture on you so that you have to carry a spare all the time.”

  “You mean you have only the one pair of glasses?”

  “That’s all. That’s enough, isn’t it? You can’t see any better with two pair than with one. Not as well, I guess.”

  “But occasionally you do break glasses or injure them, do you not, Mrs. Maynard?”

  “No.”

  “And your glasses were in good condition on this twenty-second day of September?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are those the same glasses that you have on now that you wore then?”

  The witness hesitated.

  “Are they?”

  “Is there any reason why they shouldn’t be?”

  “I don’t know,” Mason said. “I’m asking you, Mrs. Maynard. Are those the same glasses?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then,” Mason said casually, “how does it happen that you went to Dr. Carlton B. Radcliff to have the lenses in those glasses replaced about the twentieth of September?”

  For a moment it seemed as though the witness couldn’t have been any more disconcerted if Mason had suddenly hit her.

  “Go on,” Mason said. “Answer the question.”

  The witness looked around her as though seeking some physical means of escape from the witness stand. She moistened her lips with her tongue, then said, “I didn’t take in these glasses.”

  “Well, then,” Mason said, “since you don’t have any spare glasses what glasses did you take to him, Mrs. Maynard?”

  “Just a moment, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger interposed hastily, trying to give the witness time to collect herself. “I think this is not proper cross-examination. After all, there was nothing said about her glasses and …”

  “Objection overruled,” the Judge interrupted, his eyes on the face of the witness, and at the same time motioning the District Attorney to his seat. “Let’s see what this witness has to say in answer to that question without a lot of interruptions. Can you answer that question, Mrs. Maynard?”

  “Why, of course, I can answer that question.”

  “Well, please do so then.”

  “Well, I—I guess I don’t have to account for everything I do.”

  “The question was,” Judge Keith said, “what glasses did you take to this doctor, in the event you don’t have any extra glasses of your own?”

  “They were glasses that belonged to a friend.”

  “What friend?” Mason asked.

  “I—I—that’s none of your business.”

  “Are you going to answer the question?” Mason asked.

  Hamilton Burger was on his feet. “Your Honor,” he said, “I submit that this is going far, far afield. The witness has stated positively that she had her glasses on at the time she made the identification, she has stated that she had her glasses on at all times during the period concerning which she has testified. Now Counsel has tried to show what would have happened if she had not had her glasses on. And now he is going even farther afield in an attempt to show what happened some time after the occurrence in question.”

  “For the purpose of raising at least an inference that she did not have her glasses on at that time,” Mason said.

  “Well,” Judge Keith ruled, “I think that Counsel has made his point and if there is any evidence which he has which would indicate this witness did not have her glasses on at that time, he is at liberty to present such evidence as part of his case.”

  “Exactly,” Hamilton Burger said. “The witness has given him all of the information that could possibly pertain to this case.”

  “I think I will sustain the objection to any further cross-examination along those particular lines,” Judge Keith said. “You have made your point, Mr. Mason, and if you have any evidence which you can produce tending to show that the witness did not wear her glasses at that time, or could not have worn them, that, of course, will be pertinent.”

  “What I want is to impeach the witness,” Mason said.

  “You will have to impeach her upon a matter that relates to the relevant portions of her testimony—in other words, to the presence or absence of glasses at that specific time, not at a later time. Proceed.”

  “Now when you first saw the defendant she was heavily veiled?” Mason asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That veil prevented you from seeing her features?”

  “Yes, sir. That was the object of it. That was why she wore it.”

  “But when she emerged from the rest room in the bus station at Bakersfield she was not wearing the veil?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then that was the first time you had seen the defendant’s face?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then how did you know that the person whom you then saw was the person who had gone into the rest room wearing a veil?”

  “Well—by her clothes, I guess.”

  “Can you describe those clothes?”

  “Well, I can’t particularly. I—I just know it was the same woman who came out, that’s all.”

  “You don’t know how many women were in the rest room at that time?”

  “Well, no.”

  “You simply saw a woman go in heavily veiled, and then you saw this defendant come out, and by some process of mental reasoning on your part you reached the assumption that it was the same person?”

  “Well, I know it was the same person.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I recognized her.”

  “By what?”

  “By her clothes.”

  “How was she dressed?”

  “Well, at this date I can’t tell you exactly how she was dressed, but I can come pretty close to it. I can tell you exactly what I had on, and I remember that she was dressed very much the same way. We commented about it on …”

  “I understand that,” Mason said. “You made that statement on direct-examination, but can you tell us exactly how the defendant was dressed?”

  “Only because I remember that her clothes were just about the same color as mine and we made some comment on it and I know how I was dressed and …”

  “I am asking you now,” Mason said, “if from your memory you can tell me exactly how the defendant was dressed.”

  She said, “And then if I tell you that, why you’ll ask me how the woman in the seat in front of me was dressed, and how the woman in the seat behind me was dressed, and when I can’t answer those questions you’ll make a monkey out of me.”

  The courtroom roared with laughter.

  Judge Keith pounded for silence but was smiling broadly as he said to Mason, “Proceed.”

  “So you can’t then remember how the defendant was dressed?”

  “All I can remember is that we talked about our clothes being about the same color. Now if you want to know how I was dressed …”

  “I don’t,” Mason said. “I’m simply trying to test your recollection to see if you can remember how the defendant was dressed.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then how can you be certain that it was the defendant you saw entering the rest room and wearing a heavy black veil?”

  “Well, it stands to reason she had to be the one. She’s the one who came out—I can’t remember exactly what her clothes were, but I do know that the woman who came out of that rest room without the veil was the same woman that went in wearing the veil. I’m swearing to that.”

  “Now,” Mason said, “if you were mistaken about wearing your glasses at that time, if you hadn’t had your glasses on, you couldn’t have made an accurate identification, could you?”

  “I was wearing my glasses.”

  “But if you hadn’t had them on, you couldn’t have made an accurate identification?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said, “that’s all.”

  “And that,” Hamilton Burger announced, “concludes our case. The prosecution rests.”

  The move came as a distinct surprise to Judge Keith and to most of the courthouse attachés who had filed in to listen to Mason’s cross-examination of Mrs. Maynard.

  “Court will take a ten-minute recess,” Judge Keith said, “before the defense starts putting on its case.”

  “Gosh, Perry,” Paul Drake said in a low voice to the lawyer during the intermission, “isn’t that a sketchy way to put on a murder case?”

  “That’s a damn skillful way of putting on a murder case,” Mason said. “He has enough in there to convict my client of first-degree murder if there isn’t any defense, and we’re faced with the choice of either putting Mrs. Fargo on the stand or not putting her on the stand.”

  “Both bad?” Drake asked.

  “Both terrible,” Mason said. “If we don’t put her on the stand the Judge will bind her over. If we do put her on the stand and she tries to substantiate her alibi, she’s sunk.

  “Her only real chance would be to tell what I think is the real truth. A story which for some reason she tried to avoid telling.”

  “What’s that?” Drake asked.

  Mason said, “She intended to take that bus up to see her mother, but she had some trouble with her husband. He was investing some of her separate property she’d inherited from a rich uncle who had died, and I think it’s pretty evident now that Fargo had been juggling accounts around and was short about twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars. I think Mrs. Fargo caught him at it and I think there was quite an argument. I think probably she threatened to tell the police and I think Fargo locked her in her bedroom and kept her there a virtual prisoner. I think she was in there while I was looking at the house pretending that I wanted to buy it, and I think Fargo was intending to skip out.”

  Drake said, “And then you think they had a fight?”

  “Then I think Fargo unlocked the door and I think that he probably tried to choke her and I think she had a knife and stabbed him, not intending to kill him but simply trying to defend herself, striking out blindly. She stabbed Fargo in the neck, severed an artery, realized what she had done, and in a panic ran downstairs, climbed in the car and started running, all the time with the feeling that if she could only catch this bus she could manufacture an alibi for herself. I think she had really intended to take the six o’clock plane, and the bus was something she resorted to as an alibi. I think she phoned her mother to corroborate the bus story.”

  “Suppose you put her on the stand and have her tell that story?” Drake asked. “It would be self-defense and …”

  “And the fact that she’d tried to manufacture an alibi and had made a false affidavit in order to make that alibi stand up would hopelessly prejudice the public against her. There’s some reason she won’t tell the true story. If I could only find that real reason and bring that into the evidence I’d stand a chance.”

  “Isn’t it an attempt to protect her son?”

  “No. I thought it was for a while but now I don’t think so. It’s something else, a most persuasive, powerful reason.”

  “Can’t you force her to tell the true story?”

  “No.”

  “Can’t you tell the Judge what the true story actually is?”