Judge Erwood looked again at the witness. “You mean that you lied to him?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Why?” Judge Erwood asked.
“If the Court please,” Hamilton Burger said, “with all due respect to the Court’s question, I submit that we’re getting into a lot of things here which are extraneous.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Judge Erwood said. “After all, this is direct examination. You have the right to cross-examine. The situation seems confused to the Court. However, when we analyze the testimony of this witness, it would appear that all we have shown is that another person was perhaps at the scene of the crime—”
Judge Erwood stroked his chin thoughtfully, then turned to the witness. “You’re certain that Mrs. Ferney, or Dawn Manning, as you call her, had moved before you left the grounds?”
“Absolutely certain, Your Honor, and I am certain she had gone on to Meridith Borden’s house.”
“Now, why do you say that?”
“She was photographed there,” Loretta Harper said.
“That’s a conclusion of the witness,” Judge Erwood said. “It may go out of the record. There’s no need for you to make the motion, Mr. District Attorney. The Court will strike that of his own motion.”
Mason moved forward, presented the photographs of Dawn Manning to the witness. “Do you recognize these photographs?” he asked.
“Yes!” she snapped.
“Who is the person shown in the photographs?”
“Dawn Manning.”
“State to the Court whether that is the same person you have referred to as the one who turned into Meridith Borden’s estate at about nine o’clock on the night of the eighth of this month.”
“That is the one.”
Mason turned to the prosecution’s table. “Cross-examine,” he said.
Again there was a whispered conference.
At length, Hamilton Burger arose ponderously. “You don’t know that Dawn Manning, as you call her, ever went near that house, do you, Miss Harper?”
“Of course I know it.”
“Of your own knowledge?”
“Well, I know it as well as I know anything. Her photographs were there.”
“Don’t argue with me!” Hamilton Burger said, pointing his finger at the witness. “You only surmise it from these photographs, isn’t that right?”
“No!” she snapped.
“No?” Hamilton Burger asked in surprise.
“That’s right!” she snapped at him. “I said no!”
“You mean you have some other means of knowledge?”
“Yes.”
Hamilton Burger, recognizing that he had got himself out on a limb, hesitated as to whether to ask the next logical question or to try to cover by avoiding the subject.
It was Judge Erwood who, having taken a keen personal interest in the proceedings, solved the dilemma. “If you have some other means of information,” he said, “indicating Dawn Manning went to the house, and you have not disclosed that, it would be advisable for you to tell us how you know she was in the house.”
“Frank Ferney knocked on the door of the studio,” Loretta Harper said. “A woman said, ‘Go away,’ and Frank recognized her voice as the voice of his wife.”
“How do you know that?” Hamilton Burger shouted at the witness.
“Frank told me so himself.”
“I move that this statement of the witness be stricken from the record, that all of this evidence about Dawn Manning having gone to the house be stricken as a conclusion of the witness and as being founded on hearsay,” Hamilton Burger said.
“The motion is granted,” Judge Erwood ruled, but there was a speculative frown on his face.
“I have no further questions,” Hamilton Burger said.
“No redirect,” Mason said.
The witness started to leave the stand. “Just a moment,” Judge Erwood said. “This is a most peculiar situation. The Court is, of course, keenly aware that under the law, evidence is restricted so that extraneous evidence and hearsay evidence is not admitted in Court. But here we have a most unusual situation. The Court is going to ask a few questions to try to clarify the matter somewhat.”
The judge turned to the witness. “Miss Harper, you stated that Dawn Manning was driving the car.”
“Yes, sir, Your Honor.”
“With one hand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the other hand was holding a gun?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where was that gun pointed?”
“At me.”
“How did it happen that you were riding in the car with Dawn Manning?”
“She forced me to get in at the point of a gun.”
“Then she had a gun with her all of the time?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Of course, you have no means of knowing whether this was the gun which, according to the testimony of the ballistics expert, was the weapon from which the fatal bullet was fired.”
Loretta Harper said, “It looked like the same gun. She stole the car, and she could just as easily have stolen the gun. Frank Ferney has been trying to protect her. Make him tell what happened.”
Judge Erwood said hastily, “Well now, of course, we are getting into a lot of extraneous matters. That last remark is legally irrelevant. However, what appears to have been a rather simple case now becomes more complicated. Do you have any more questions, Mr. Prosecutor?”
“None,” Burger said.
“Mr. Mason?”
“None,” Mason said.
“The witness is excused.”
Mason said, “I now desire to recall Mr. Ferney for further cross-examination.”
“That is objected to, if the Court please,” Hamilton Burger said. “The prosecution has concluded its case, the defense had ample opportunity to cross-examine Mr. Ferney, and covered his testimony thoroughly.”
“The Court feels that it understands the question Mr. Mason wants to ask of Mr. Ferney,” Judge Erwood said. “And, since the order of proof in motions of this sort are addressed to the sound discretion of the Court, the Court will grant the motion. In fact, the Court will state that if Mr. Mason had not made this motion, the Court of its own motion would have asked Mr. Ferney to return to the stand.
“The motion is granted, Mr. Mason. Mr. Ferney, return to the stand.”
Ferney came forward and took the witness stand.
“Go ahead, Mr. Mason, resume your cross-examination.”
Mason said, “Directing your attention to the time when you have testified that you were looking for Meridith Borden after you and Dr. Callison had entered the house, did you go up the stairs to the room used as a photographic studio?”
“I did.”
“Was the door open or closed?”
“It was closed.”
“Did you knock on that door?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“A woman’s voice called out, ‘Go away.’”
“Why didn’t you tell us about this before?”
“Because I wasn’t asked.”
“Weren’t you asked if you had tried to locate Borden and had been unable to do so, if you had called his name and had received no answer?”
“I called his name. I received no answer. I told the truth.”
“But now you say there was a woman in the studio.”
“Sure. Lots of times women were there. This is the first time anyone asked me about her.”
“And she said, ‘Go away’?”
“Yes.”
“Now then,” Mason said, “I ask you if you know of your own knowledge who the woman was who was on the other side of that closed door?”
Ferney hesitated, then said in a low voice, “I feel that I do.”
“Who was it?”
“It was my wife, Dawn.”
“You mean the woman who has been variously described as Dawn Manning and as Mrs. Frank Ferney?”