The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

Chapter 18

Ten minutes later, when court was reconvened, Gulling said, “My next witness will be Alfred Korbel.”

Taking the witness stand, Alfred Korbel qualified himself as an expert in ballistics and fingerprints.

“I show you a certain revolver, being a Colt .32-caliber, number 14581, and ask if you have ever seen it before?”

“I have — yes, sir.”

“When?”

“I first saw it at about seven-forty-five in the evening of the third of this month when it was delivered to me by Sam Dixon. I made several tests with it in my laboratory, and saw it again at approximately midnight — the night when the defendant Adelle Winters identified it as being a gun that belonged to her.”

“You have made tests with this gun?”

“I have — yes, sir.”

“Did you examine it for fingerprints?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you find any?”

“No.”

“Can you explain why there were none?”

“When the gun was delivered to me, it was covered with a coating of slime. There were bits of garbage adhering to portions of the gun as well as to an empty cartridge case that was in one cylinder. There were also bits of garbage in the barrel. Considering that the gun had been packed in garbage which had subsequently been stirred up, I should hardly expect to find any legible prints on it. Now, that sounds rather complicated,” Korbel said with an apologetic smile; “but what I’m trying to say is that if the gun — as the evidence indicates and as I understand is the case — was packed for some hours in a garbage can, to which more garbage was added from time to time, I should hardly expect to find fingerprints on it.”

“What was the condition of the gun — that is, as to being loaded?”

“Five chambers were loaded, and one had been recently fired. This one contained an empty cartridge case.”

“Did you make tests with the bullet handed you by the autopsy surgeon some time on the evening of the third?”

“I did — yes, sir.”

“And without at this time asking you to tell where that bullet came from, I will ask you what your tests showed.”

“They showed that the bullet had been fired from that gun.”

“And you made tests of the handle on the lid of the garbage pail for fingerprints?”

“I did, yes.”

“What did you find?”

“May I have that brief case, please?” Korbel asked.

Gulling handed it to him.

Korbel opened it and took out a set of photographs. “This photograph, taken with the aid of a mirror,” he said, “shows the under side of the garbage can’s handle. The handle shows several latents — some of them smudged, some clearly identifiable.”

“Directing your attention to the latent enclosed in a circle,” Gulling said, “did you identify that latent print?”

“I did. That is the print of the middle finger of the left hand of the defendant, Adelle Winters.”

“You may inquire,” Gulling snapped.

“There are several latent prints on that handle?” Mason asked.

“That’s right. They’re quite plain, Mr. Mason.”

“You can make out several of them plainly enough to identify them?”

“You mean, to compare them with other prints?”

“Yes.”

“That’s right.”

“You are employed by the police? That is, you are connected with the city police?”

“As an expert, yes.”

“And you take orders from the police?”

“I don’t understand just how you mean that. If you wish to imply that the police tell me what to say, you are wrong.”

“But they tell you what to do?”

“Well... yes.”

“So that when the police are working up a case against a person, you are biased insofar as that person is concerned?”

“How do you mean?”

“Take the instant case,” Mason said. “You were and are trying to get evidence connecting Adelle Winters with the murder. You aren’t investigating the murder, but just trying to implicate Mrs. Winters.”

“I don’t see where there’s any difference. It’s all the same thing.”

“No it isn’t. Take these fingerprints for instance. The minute you identified one of these prints as that of Adelle Winters that was all you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Naturally.”

“In other words, you were interested in the latents on the garbage pail only to the extent of trying to prove a case against her?”

“Well, I guess so, yes; but I don’t see what you’re trying to establish, Mr. Mason. Naturally, if she had handled the lid of the garbage pail, that was evidence. I was trying to establish that.”

“Exactly, and you didn’t try to find out to whom those other latents belonged?”

The witness smiled. “Oh that! Dozens of persons had access to that garbage pail. It was a public place, so to speak. Many people from the kitchen of the café had access to the garbage pail and had lifted it during the afternoon. I am willing to admit that I was concerned only with finding and identifying a print proving that the defendant Adelle Winters had at some time previous to my examination lifted the cover.”

“Exactly!” Mason said. “In other words, you wanted to find one thing in order to establish a case against this defendant. When you found it, you quit looking for anything else. Isn’t that right?”

“In that particular place, yes.”

“Why didn’t you try to identify those other prints?”

“Because I wasn’t concerned with them. I was instructed only to find out whether the garbage can had been handled by the defendant Winters.”

“And when you said you assumed that the cover had been lifted several times during the afternoon — because further garbage had been deposited — you didn’t have any ground for that assumption, did you?”

“Well... yes, I did.”

“Such as what?”

“Well... of course, it’s obvious that it must have been done.”

“What is there in the evidence that makes you think so?”

“Well... nothing that I personally have seen. But it’s obvious from the evidence.”

“Just point out the part of the evidence that makes it obvious that additional garbage got put in subsequently.”

“Why,” Korbel said, “take Sam Dixon’s evidence. When he found the gun it was pretty well down inside the garbage — which shows that more garbage had been piled on top of the gun after it had been thrown in.”

“How does it show that?”

“Come, come!” Gulling interposed. “This is merely wrangling with a witness about an interpretation of evidence. It’s up to the Court to make that interpretation.”

“Quite right,” Mason said. “I am just trying to establish the bias of this witness, Your Honor. Here is a man who has admitted that he examined the evidence only for the purpose of building up a case against the defendant Winters — not for the purpose of trying to find out what had actually happened.”

“But isn’t it obvious that exactly that must have happened?” Judge Lindale asked, a little impatiently.

“It is not, Your Honor.”

Lindale’s face showed surprise. “I’d be glad to hear counsel on that,” he said skeptically.

“The assumption is,” said Mason, “that — because this gun was found, shall we say, buried in the garbage — from time to time during the afternoon additional garbage had been dumped in. Now, if the Court please, bear in mind the time element. Because of the shortage of help, the dining room at the Lorenzo Hotel closes at one-forty-five in the afternoon and does not open again until six-thirty. I believe that a check-up among the kitchen help will reveal that the last lot of garbage during daylight hours is deposited shortly before two in the afternoon, and that no further lots are put in till seven-fifty in the evening.

“Now, if the Court will bear with me for a moment and look at the evidence, the Court will notice rather a peculiar situation. If the defendant Winters tossed a gun into the garbage can at two-twenty in the afternoon, and if more garbage did get piled on top of that gun before the time when police turned out the contents on a canvas, then there would have been a good case of circumstantial evidence. But if no garbage was put in between the time the defendant was seen there and the time the police spilled out the contents, then it is obvious that — whatever the defendant Winters did — she certainly did not put the gun there. It must have been put there some minutes earlier, before she went out.”

“How’s that?” Judge Lindale asked in a puzzled tone.

“The testimony of the prosecution’s own witness, Thomas Folsom, indicates that the defendant Winters was more likely to have been merely looking into the garbage can than to have been putting something into it.”

“That’s merely the strained interpretation you put on his testimony,” Gulling snapped irritably.

“Obviously,” Mason said, “it may have been possible for the witness to drop a gun into the garbage can; but she certainly couldn’t have pushed it down deep into the garbage — for, if she had, her right hand would have got smeared with garbage and she would have had to go and wash it off. Indeed, in order to push the gun deep she would have had to roll up her right sleeve — and she certainly didn’t do that, or the witness Dixon would have seen the motions she made.”

“He couldn’t see her hands,” Gulling said.

“He couldn’t see her hands, but he could see her shoulder and her elbow. Had she pushed anything deep into the garbage, the witness Dixon certainly would have seen her do it.”

“Yes,” Judge Lindale said, “one would conclude as much, from the witness’s description of what he saw. Of course, Mr. Mason, you didn’t ask him specifically whether the motions he did see were consistent with a thrust deep into the garbage?”

“Certainly not,” Mason said. “He was the prosecution’s witness. Had I given him that idea, he would have changed his recollection again! The fact remains that his own statement made shortly after two-twenty on the third is far more eloquent than anything he’s said since then. At that time he thought the defendant had merely looked inside the garbage can. It has only been since that day that he has built up a purely synthetic recollection of seeing the defendant ‘toss’ something into the garbage can. If it were now suggested to him that she really must have been ‘thrusting’ something deep into the garbage, he would stretch his recollection accordingly, and would soon have convinced himself that he had seen her ‘thrust’ something deep into the garbage!”

“A most interesting point,” Judge Lindale said. “Has the prosecution any suggestion or explanation?”

“The prosecution has not,” Gulling said angrily. “The defendant Winters is plainly guilty of coldblooded, deliberate murder. Only a fraction of the evidence is in at the present time. Our next witness will show that the motive of the crime was robbery; that the defendant Winters had concealed on her person a wallet containing slightly more than three thousand dollars which had been taken from the body of Robert Hines.”

“Or picked up somewhere by the defendant,” Mason put in.

“That will be your contention, of course,” Gulling sneered. “You’ll claim that she was walking along the street and what should she happen on but a wallet? She picked it up and meant to look inside, but it was dark, and—”

“Come, come,” Judge Lindale said. “There’s no occasion for sarcasm, Counselor; the evidence in regard to the wallet will stand or fall by itself. But right now Mr. Mason has just made an interesting suggestion about the position of the weapon. Now, as I understand it, Counselor, you cannot prove that the weapon was on top of the garbage?”

“How should I know?” Gulling retorted sullenly. “When the police turned the garbage can over, they naturally mixed the contents all up.”

“But,” said Judge Lindale, “the witness Dixon lifted the lid off — must have, in order to take the gun out. If he had seen the gun there on top of the garbage he would have picked it up and not ordered the garbage all dumped out.”

“Exactly,” Mason resumed. “That, of course, is why I examined the witnesses in the way I did.”

“Have you,” the judge asked him, “checked on the matter of when further lots of garbage are deposited?”

“We have, Your Honor. Our information is that on that day no additional lots were deposited from two in the afternoon until seven-fifty at night.”

“Has the prosecution made any such check?” Judge Lindale asked.

“The prosecution has not,” Gulling said, with increasing irritation. “The prosecution has enough evidence right now to convict both of these defendants in front of a jury, let alone have them bound over.”

“I understand,” Judge Lindale said, “and the eventual disposition of the case may be quite another matter. But the Court calls to the attention of counsel that this is a case involving a charge of first-degree murder. If there is any legitimate conflict in the evidence, it would seem that the prosecution ought to be as anxious to investigate as the defense is. It appears to this Court obvious that, considering the evidence as it now stands, the defendant Winters could not have thrust the weapon down deep into that garbage can. I assume that it has been identified as the murder weapon?”

“It has, Your Honor.”

“Then I suggest that we continue this case until tomorrow morning,” Judge Lindale said; “and that the prosecution, with the aid of the police, give special attention to ascertaining the facts about that garbage can and whether more garbage was added between two-twenty in the afternoon and the time when the gun was discovered. Court is adjourned.”

Harry Gulling pushed back his chair and rose from the table usually occupied by the prosecution counsel. His manner was grim and determined as he marched across to the defense table.

“Mr. Mason,” he said crisply.

Mason got up and turned to face him.

“I had hoped that before evening the case would have been sufficiently presented so that all of the facts would be before the Court and the public, and the defendants bound over.”

Mason merely nodded, watching the man in cautious appraisal.

“Unfortunately,” Gulling went on, “owing to your tactics the situation has changed. You have confused the issues as well as the Court, and this has to some extent changed my own plans.”

Mason still said nothing.

“Only to some extent, however.”

Out of the corner of his eye Mason saw two newspaper photographers holding their cameras in readiness.

“I feel,” Gulling went on, “that it is only fair to tell you now that my basic strategy has not been changed. I hand you herewith, Mr. Perry Mason, a subpoena to appear before the Grand Jury of this county at the hour of seven this evening.” And he pushed a paper at Mason.

Simultaneously the synchronized flashbulbs of two cameras flared into brilliance as photographers recorded the serving of the subpoena.

“Thank you,” Mason said, and calmly pocketed it.

“And I warn you, Mason,” Gulling went on, as the photographers hurried away to get their pictures developed in time to make the afternoon editions, “you’re going to’ be faced with a charge of perjury on the one hand or of being an accessory on the other. I now have evidence indicating that you picked up Eva Martell at the streetcar on the evening of the murder and spirited her away. I think that a certain party who runs a rooming house, and who has apparently been trying to protect you, is guilty of perjury. Investigation now discloses that she is a former client of yours whom you successfully defended some time ago. I feel it is only fair to tell you this much, so that you will be prepared.”

Mason advanced a step. “All right,” he said his face granite-hard, “you’ve prepared me. Now I’ll prepare you. You’ve made a personal issue out of this. You’ve walked into court on this case personally. I assume you’ll be with the Grand Jury tonight to examine me personally. You have a political job. I haven’t. You can turn the heat on me, and I can take it. If I turn the heat on you, I don’t think you can take it.”

“Right now,” Gulling said, “I am the one who is in the position to turn on the heat, and it’s going to be very hot, Mr. Mason!”