Hale testified that he had gone out to Endicott’s house the night of the shooting, that Endicott had received a visitor, had excused himself and had gone upstairs, that Hale had waited downstairs for Endicott to finish his business with the man who had interrupted the session by ringing the doorbell, that he had heard a revolver shot from upstairs, that he had started for the stairs and had seen the figure of a man dashing downstairs immediately after the shot had been fired. He identified the man as being the defendant John Dittmar Ansel.
Again Quinn asked a few questions.
“That’s the prosecution’s case, Your Honor,” Irvine said.
“If the Court please,” Quinn said, getting to his feet, “we were not given the opportunity to cross-examine the witness Manning. It was understood that she was withdrawn from the stand, and—”
“Her testimony was stricken out,” Irvine said, “and subsequently reinstated without any motion on the part of the defense for the right to cross-examine.”
“That makes no difference,” Judge Lawton ruled. “The understanding was the defendant was to have an opportunity to cross-examine this witness. The Court lost sight of that matter because the Court felt that — Never mind. The witness Manning will return to the stand for cross-examination.”
Helen had really prepared for the newspaper photographers.
Barney Quinn started in on her gently.
Wasn’t it true that she had told Mrs. Endicott about John Ansel being sent on a suicide expedition some two days before Karl Endicott met his death?
The witness admitted that it was true.
“Now isn’t it a fact,” Quinn went on, “that Karl Endicott telephoned you on the day of his death and told you that you had made an assertion to his wife that was false, that he desired an opportunity to explain his side of the matter to you, that he was very much concerned that you had taken office gossip as your source of information and had not given him a chance to explain?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t you go out to his house at his request on the date of his death?”
“Yes.”
“And,” Quinn shouted, getting to his feet and leveling his finger at her, “didn’t you carry a .38 caliber Colt revolver in your purse that night?”
“It wasn’t in my purse. It was in my bra.”
“There is no reason to shout at the witness,” Irvine said in a low voice. “There is no call for all of these dramatics.”
Judge Lawton seemed completely bewildered. He looked from the suave district attorney to the attorney for the defense and then to the witness on the stand. “Proceed,” he said.
“And isn’t it a fact that, when you went out there that evening, the decedent, Karl Carver Endicott, your former employer, told you that he was expecting a visitor in the person of Cooper Franklin Hale, and didn’t he ask you to go upstairs and wait up there until after he had been able to get rid of Mr. Hale?”
“Yes.”
“And you went upstairs with him?”
“Yes.”
“Into a bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“And there Mr. Endicott discovered the weapon that you had in your possession?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he do with it?”
“He removed the weapon and chided me for carrying it.”
“And then what happened?”
“Then there was a ring at the doorbell, and Mr. Endicott told me that that was Mr. Hale and I would have to excuse him.”
“And then what?”
“Then he went downstairs and was down there for some fifteen minutes when the bell again rang and Mr. Endicott met the defendant at the front door.”
“Do you know it was the defendant?”
“I heard his voice.”
“You knew the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“You knew his voice?”
“Yes.”
“And what did Mr. Endicott do?”
“Took Mr. Ansel... I mean the defendant upstairs and into the den.”
“And this den adjoined the bedroom where you were waiting?”
“Yes.”
“And then what happened?”
“Mr. Endicott excused himself and entered the bedroom and told me that the situation had become more complicated than he had anticipated and that I had better go home, but that he would get in touch with me later on and arrange for a meeting”
“And what did you do?” Quinn asked, his manner showing his complete surprise at what was happening.
Here was a witness who should have been hysterical, who should have been in tears, who should have been reluctantly making damaging admissions, and she was sitting on the witness stand, cool, calm and collected, answering his questions without the slightest embarrassment. Here was the district attorney, who should have been bordering on panic as he saw his carefully constructed case being shattered to smithereens, and Irvine was standing cool, suave and sardonic, his manner that of one who is patiently putting up with tactics of a minor pettifogging nature simply because he doesn’t want to waste the time of the Court with objections.
A deputy sheriff tiptoed along the aisle of the courtroom and put a folded piece of paper into my hand. It was a message from our expert in Pasadena. It stated that he had been served with a subpoena duces tecum to appear and bring the gun with him into court.
I knew then we were sunk. I frantically tried to catch Quinn’s eye before he asked the one last fatal question.
“What did you do after that?”
She said, “I left the house and left the gun lying there on the bureau in the bedroom.”
“Who was in the bedroom?”
“The decedent, Karl Endicott.”
“And where was the defendant?”
“In the adjoining den.”
Quinn said, “That’s all,” and sat down. He was like a man who had hurled his weight against a door to smash it open, and found the door unlocked and unlatched.
District Attorney Irvine smiled benignly. “That is all, Miss Manning. And thank you very much for your frank statement of the facts.”
The witness started to leave the stand.
“Oh, just a moment,” Irvine said. “I have one question, and only one question, Miss Manning. Did you make a statement of what you have just testified to the defense in this case?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“To whom was that statement made?”
“To two detectives employed by the defendant, Donald Lam and Bertha Cool.”
“Thank you, thank you. That is all,” Irvine said.
The witness left the stand.
Irvine said, “Now Your Honor, in view of the testimony of this witness, it becomes necessary for me to call one more witness.”
He called our expert from Pasadena.
The expert identified the gun as having been received from us. He had, he admitted, cleaned up the gun so that he could fire a test bullet through it. He had not had access to the fatal bullet, and, therefore, he could not state whether that was the gun from which the fatal bullet had been fired.
“If you are given an opportunity to consult with the prosecution’s expert and an opportunity to examine the fatal bullet, do you feel that you can reach such a conclusion?” Irvine asked.
The expert said he thought he could.
The smiling Irvine suggested that the witness leave the stand and be given an opportunity to make such an examination, that Steven Beardsley, the ballistics expert for the prosecution, would be only too glad to cooperate in every way with an expert of such renowned professional standing.
And then Irvine asked to recall Cooper Hale to the stand briefly. That did it.
Cooper Hale testified that, after hearing the shot, he had dashed upstairs, that he had found Endicott lying dead on the floor, that there was a bullet hole in the back of his head, that there was no gun on the bureau in the room.