The Case of the Singing Skirt (13 page)

"We found a bullet embedded in the woodwork of the cabin near the door. I believe that it was checked out by ballistics and shown to have been fired from the weapon which was lying there on the floor of the yacht near the hand of the woman."

"You subsequently performed an autopsy on the body of this woman?"

"I did, yes, sir."

"And what did you find?"

"I found that she had been killed by gunfire. Two bullets had entered the chest cavity, slightly above and to one side of the heart. The two bullet holes were less than an inch and a half apart, and the courses of the bullets were, generally speaking, parallel."

"Had the bullets gone through the body or were they still embedded in the body?"

"One of them had been deflected and had embedded itself in bone. The other had just penetrated far enough to go through the body. It was found in the clothing of the decedent."

"These bullets were, in your opinion, the cause of death?"

"Yes."

"Cross-examine," Fraser said to Perry Mason.

Mason arose and walked toward the witness. His manner was casual and his voice was calmly conversational. "Two bullets, Doctor?"

"Yes."

"Which one inflicted the fatal wound, Doctor?"

"They both inflicted fatal wounds."

"Which one was the cause of death?"

"Either could have been the cause of death."

"Pardon me, Doctor. I'm not asking you about could have, I'm asking you about which did cause death."

"Both of them inflicted fatal wounds."

"Would you say both bullets caused death?"

"Yes."

"Would you say that a person could die twice?"

"That isn't what I mean."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that either bullet might have caused death and either bullet could have caused death."

"How far apart were the bullets?"

"Around an inch and a half at the point of entrance."

"And which one was fired first?"

"I have no way of knowing."

"Were the bullets instantly fatal?"

"That depends on what you mean by instantly."

"Well, what do you mean by it?"

"When I say instantly I mean instantaneously."

"Did either of these wounds inflict an instantaneously fatal wound?"

"Both of the bullets instantaneously inflicted a mortal wound."

"How long after the first wound before the victim died?"

"That I don't know. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes at most."

"You think perhaps it was as much as five minutes?"

"Perhaps."

"Ten minutes?"

"Perhaps."

"Fifteen minutes?"

"I consider it very unlikely. Actually I think death occurred within a matter of two or three minutes."

"And which bullet wound caused death?"

"Oh, Your Honor," Fraser said, getting to his feet, "I object to this type of cross-examination. The questions have already been asked and answered."

"They've been asked," Mason said, "but they haven't been answered."

"Furthermore, it's incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. It doesn't make any difference," Fraser went on.

Judge Keyser said, "I'd like to hear from counsel if he feels the questions are pertinent or relevant to any particular point."

"I think it is very important to find out how the victim died, when the victim died and what caused the death of the victim. I think that's important in any murder case," Mason said.

"But where an assailant fired two bullets, does it make any difference which bullet was fired first or which wound was the one which produced death?" Judge Keyser asked.

"How do we know that the assailant fired two bullets?" Mason asked.

Judge Keyser looked at Mason with an expression of swift surprise. "Are you contending there were two assailants?" he asked.

"Frankly, I don't know," Mason said. "I am contending at the moment, as the legal representative of this defendant, that I have the right to find out all the facts in the case."

"The objection is overruled," Judge Keyser said.

Dr. Calvert said angrily, "Let me make this statement to the Court and counsel. There were two bullets. One of the bullets actually penetrated a portion of the heart. I consider that bullet produced almost instantaneous death. The other bullet was a little to the left. It missed the heart but would have been fatal within a few minutes… that is, that's my opinion."

"All right," Mason said. "Let's call the bullet that missed the heart bullet number one and the bullet which penetrated a portion of the heart bullet number two. Which was fired first?"

"I don't know."

"I submit that it's incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial," Fraser said. "This is simply a case of an attorney trying to grasp desperately at the straw of some technicality."

Judge Keyser shook his head. "I think there is an interesting point here. I don't know what the other evidence will show, but if counsel is pursuing this lead with some definite objective in mind, it is manifestly unfair to deprive the defendant of the right of a searching cross-examination. Therefore, I will overrule the objection."

"Which bullet caused death, Doctor?"

"I don't know. It depends upon the sequence in which the bullets were fired."

"If," Mason said, "the bullet we have referred to as bullet number two was fired first and bullet number one was fired after an interval of as much as three minutes, you would assume that bullet number one was fired into a dead body. Is that correct?"

"If you want to assume anything like that, I would say yes."

"If bullet number one was fired first, it would have been how long before death intervened?"

"My best opinion would be three to five minutes."

"But it could have been as much as ten minutes?"

"Yes."

"Now, suppose that after bullet number one was fired and, assuming that it was fired first, bullet number two was fired almost immediately, then death actually occurred from bullet number two."

"I would so assume if we accept those premises."

"Both bullet number one and bullet number two were recovered?"

"That's right. Both of them were taken from the body."

"And what did you do with them?"

"I personally gave them to Alexander Redfield, the ballistics expert."

"And what did you tell him when you gave him the bullets?"

"That they were the bullets taken from the body of Nadine Ellis."

"You had identified the body by that time?"

"It had been identified so that I could make that statement to Mr. Redfield."

"You gave him both bullets?"

"Yes."

"Did you mark them in any way?"

"I made a small secret mark on the bullets, yes."

"So that you can identify them?"

"Yes."

Mason said, "I assume that the prosecution has the bullets here and that they will shortly be introduced in evidence. I think that Dr. Calvert should identify the bullets at this time."

"We can identify them," Fraser said, "by having the witness Redfield testify that the bullets he produces are the ones he received from Dr. Calvert."

"I would like to connect up every link in the chain," Mason said. "I think I have a right to do so."

Fraser said angrily, "If the Court please, I was warned that I would encounter just these badgering tactics from counsel. After all, this is only a preliminary examination, and I am not going to be trapped into making a big production of it."

"I'm not making a big production of it," Mason said. "I am simply asking that the witness produce the bullets that he mentioned in his testimony. He stated he recovered them from the body of Nadine Ellis. I want to see those bullets."

"I think counsel is within his rights," Judge Keyser said. "Certainly you intend to produce the bullets within a few minutes, Mr. Deputy District Attorney."

"I do," Fraser said, "but I want to put on my case in my own way and not have the defense attorney tell me how I'm going to do it."

"Come, come," Judge Keyser said. "Apparently it doesn't make any difference. If you have the bullets here, why not produce them? Is there any reason why they can't be produced or why you are reluctant to produce them?"

"No, Your Honor."

"Let the witness identify them, then."

Fraser, with poor grace, turned to Alexander Redfield, the ballistics expert who was seated directly behind him, and accepted a glass test tube from Redfield. He approached the witness stand and handed this test tube to the doctor.

"I hand you two bullets, Doctor. I'll ask you to look at them and state whether or not they are the bullets you took from the body of the decedent."

Dr. Calvert took a magnifying glass from his pocket, inspected the bullets through the glass test tube, then nodded slowly. "These are the bullets," he said. "They both have my secret mark on them."

"What is your secret mark?" Mason asked. "Where is it?"

"I prefer to keep it secret," Dr. Calvert said. "It is a very small mark that I make and it serves to identify the bullets which I recover in the course of my autopsies."

"Then you use the same mark on all of your bullets?" Mason asked.

"That's right."

"Why?"

"So I can identify them. So that they are not to be confused with bullets that are recovered by some of the other autopsy surgeons. In that way I know my own work."

"I see," Mason said. "You use the same mark on all bullets you recover?"

"That's what I said, yes!" Dr. Calvert snapped.

"Then may I ask how many bullets you recover in the course of a year from bodies in connection with your own autopsies?"

"I don't know. It isn't a standard amount. It varies, depending on the number of autopsies, the number of homicides by shooting, and various other factors."

"Do you recover as many as fifty bullets a year?"

"Not on an average, no, sir."

"As many as twenty-five?"

"I think perhaps in some years I have recovered twenty-five. I wouldn't say that was an average."

"As many as twelve?"

"Yes, I would think so."

"And the only way you have of identifying these bullets is by your secret mark?"

"That is right. That is all the identification I need."

"It may be all the identification you need, Doctor, but as I understand it, these two bullets are now identified simply as being bullets which you recovered, not bullets which were recovered from the body of Nadine Ellis."

"Well, I know that those are the bullets."

"How do you know?"

"I can tell by looking at them, the shape of the bullets, the caliber."

"Then why was it necessary for you to put your secret mark on them?"

"So there would be no mistake."

"The same secret mark that you put on an average of a dozen bullets a year, that you have at times put on as many as twenty-five bullets in a year?"

"Oh, Your Honor," Fraser said. "This is argumentative. The question has been asked and answered. It's simply an attempt on the part of counsel to browbeat the witness."

Judge Keyser regarded Mason thoughtfully, then turned to the witness. "Isn't there anything that you use in the line of a label or identification on these bullets that shows they are the particular bullets that were recovered in this particular case?"