“I don’t think the witness’s impressions are pertinent,” Linton objected.
“Perhaps not,” the judge agreed irritably. “However, the Court is interested in this phase of the witness’s testimony. You say that he didn’t know much about handling a boat?”
“That’s right, Your Honor.”
“Wasn’t that rather unusual for a man who had taken an interest, even if only an academic interest, in the habits of sharks?”
“That,” Cameron replied, “is what I was trying to say when this lawyer stopped me. It impressed me as being strange that a man...”
Judge Newark smiled, “I don’t think we need your impression now Mr. Cameron. Can you describe the appearance of this man in any greater detail? How was he dressed? What did he weigh?”
“Well, he was bundled up in an overcoat, and that was another thing that was — well, not exactly strange, but out of place.”
“In what way?”
“Well, Your Honor, a person who is going to row a boat will wear a good heavy jacket — a Mackinaw, or a leather coat, or something of that sort, and trousers and shoes or boots. It’s very seldom that a man who’s around rowboats much wears an overcoat — particularly an overcoat that has any class to it.”
“Why?”
“Well, you see rowboats leak — all boats leak some, and usually the bottoms of the boats are more or less messy with fish bait and things of that sort. And an overcoat in a rowboat drags down on the bottom of the boat and gets dirty. You just can’t keep an overcoat from doing it. The way a rowboat is constructed, the seat is so low that when a person sits on it, the skirt of the overcoat will drag on the bottom of the boat and in any water that’s there.”
“Yes, yes. I see your point,” Judge Newark said, quite plainly interested now. “And this man was wearing an overcoat. Can you describe the overcoat?”
“It was a light-colored overcoat, sort of a light gray, but it was a good heavy coat.”
“Any pattern in it?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“And you say he was around thirty?”
“I would say he was right around thirty — probably not over thirty.”
“And what about his appearance?”
“Well, I noticed he was rather slender with a dark complexion, and he had a sort of a stoop. I can’t describe what I mean exactly, but when you’re around the waterfront, if you’ll notice people who have worked around yachts or boats, they’re nearly always deep-chested. And you take a person who’s hollow-chested and he sort of stands out. You notice him.”
“I see,” Judge Newark said. “Now this man rented the rowboat at about nine o’clock and returned about ten thirty?”
“Yes, Your Honor, that’s correct.”
“Did he say anything about where he’d been?”
“Just out on the flat studying sharks. He had a flash-light with him.”
“Any notebook?”
“Not that I could see. I don’t know what he had in the pocket of his overcoat.”
“Did he ask any questions about the location of the mud flats?” Mason asked.
“No, sir, he didn’t. He seemed to know right where he was going. He got in the boat and started out. But you could tell that he was a greenhorn from the way he handled the boat.”
“How so?”
“Well, his stroke wasn’t regular, and he caught a crab now and then. Sometimes his oars would go down deep in the water and sometimes they’d just be breaking through the surface. He didn’t — well, he just didn’t make any headway. He didn’t handle the boat. He didn’t seem to know anything about water or about boats.”
“And that’s the only boat you rented that night?”
“That’s right.”
“And you’d recognize this man if you saw him again?”
“Yes, sir. I think I would.”
“That’s all,” Judge Newark said to Mason. “Proceed, Counselor.”
“Now then,” Mason went on, abruptly changing the subject of his cross-examination, “you were waiting for the police when they arrived, is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And did you volunteer to take them out to the yacht?”
“Yes, sir. They asked me if I knew where the yacht would be, and I told them. I knew right where Mr. Burbank customarily anchored.”
“You got out there to the yacht at about what time?”
“Oh, around eleven-fifteen, I guess.”
“That was almost at dead low tide?”
“That lacked just about an hour and a half of being dead low tide. That’s right, yes, sir.”
“And by that time the boat was aground?”
“I’ll say it was aground.”
“Tilted pretty well over?”
“Tilted way over. You could hardly stand on the thing.”
“And that tilting had perhaps disarranged some of the evidence?” Mason asked.
“Well, I don’t know about that. I’m not making any statement about the condition of the evidence.”
“How far was the boat heeled over?”
“It was heeled way over.”
“About how far from the perpendicular?”
“It must have been somewhere around twenty-five to thirty degrees.”
“And it was hard to keep your footing under those circumstances?”
“I’ll say it was.”
“The body was lying on the floor?”
“Yes.”
“In the position shown in this photograph?”
“That’s right, yes, sir.”
“Now then,” Mason said, “if the murder took place along in the evening there must have been one other intervening dead low tide. That is, the low tide which occurred at three minutes past twelve on Saturday morning, is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And one intervening high tide?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What time would that have been?”
“Six-twenty-six a. m. on that Saturday morning.”
“You remember the tides?”
“That’s my business — part of it. I remember them.”
“Now in this photograph,” Mason said, “the position in which the body is shown is over on the side of the cabin, with the head lying down against the low corner as shown in the photograph.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And isn’t it quite possible that the body could have rolled from a position at the other end of the cabin?”
“It is, yes, sir.”
“During the period of dead low tide which occurred at three minutes past midnight the night before?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So that the fact that the position of the body as shown in the photograph might be exactly the same as the position in which it was when the body was discovered, would not preclude the possibility that the body had rolled during the night, during the low tide which occurred three minutes after midnight.”
“I’d say that that body was pretty apt to have rolled,” the witness said.
“He’s not an expert on bodies,” Linton objected.
“He’s an expert on boats,” the judge snapped.
“You take a list like that,” the witness explained to the judge, “and you’re going to find things at the low side of the cabin. Now on this particular boat, the way she was listed, the starboard side was the low side. The body could have been clean over on the other side of the cabin when the murder was committed, but that dead low tide at twelve-o-three would have rolled her over.”
Mason took from his pocket a protractor, walked up to the judge’s bench and said, “The Court might care to do a little armchair detective work.”
“Thank you,” the judge said, smiling. “I was just thinking of that.”
“I don’t understand this interchange between Court and Counsel,” Linton objected.
Judge Newark placed the protractor on the photograph and said, “I think it‘s — ‘It’s elementary, my dear Watson.’ ” he added with a smile.