Jennings was silent.
“Is that what happened?” Mason asked.
“Yes,” Jennings said, “that’s what happened.”
“So then,” Mason said, “you took the gun which your wife had taken from Robert. What did you do with it?”
“My wife had put it on the hall stand. I picked it up and looked at it, then left it on the hall stand and went back to bed.”
“And when you put it back on the hall stand, you must have loaded the magazine and put the clip of ammunition back in the gun.”
“I guess I must have. I guess that’s right.”
“And then you went to bed?”
“Yes.”
“And you believe that sometime during the night the defendant got up, left her bedroom, went down to the hall stand, got the gun, went out to your car with license plate bearing the number JYJ 113 which you had left parked at the curb, drove out to the San Sebastian Country Club and killed Mervin Selkirk.”
“She must have. There’s no other explanation. The evidence shows she did.”
“How did she know that Mervin Selkirk was to be at the San Sebastian Country Club?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did she know that your car was left at the curb with the key in it?”
“She saw me park the car there.”
“And leave the key in it?”
“I don’t know, I may have— No, wait a minute, I left the key in it when I returned from the veterinarian’s office. I was excited.”
“And who used a rattail file to roughen up the barrel of the gun so that the ballistics experts could not tell what gun had fired the fatal bullet?”
“I presume she did.”
“Why?”
“So that the gun couldn’t be traced to her.”
“Then having done that, she deliberately left the gun under the pillow of the bed where she had been sleeping?”
“She probably did that inadvertently.”
Mason smiled and shook his head. “The gun was registered in your name, Mr. Jennings. You were the one who would be more interested than anyone in making it impossible for the fatal bullet to be traced.”
Jennings said nothing.
“And you now think that you must have loaded the gun after your wife put it on the hall stand?”
“Yes. I must have.”
“Then where did you get the shells? You surely didn’t go to the defendant’s room?”
Jennings rubbed his cheek with a nervous hand. “I guess I was mistaken. I couldn’t have loaded the gun.”
“Then if the defendant fired the gun, she must have descended the stairs, found the gun, inspected it, found it was unloaded, then climbed the stairs to her room, found the box of shells, loaded the gun and then gone to the country club to kill Mervin Selkirk?”
“I... I guess that’s right.”
“How would she have known there was ammunition in the room?”
“She must have found it.”
“How would she have known the gun was on the hall table?”
“She must have seen it when she started out.”
“How would she have known it was unloaded?”
“She must have inspected it.”
“And then climbed the stairs to her room to get shells?”
“Of course. Why don’t you ask her?”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know what she did.”
“Now, when your dog was shot at perhaps twelve-thirty to one o’clock on the morning of the eighteenth, the barrel of the gun hadn’t been tampered with, had it?”
“No.”
“Then if the bullet is still in the dog, that bullet can be recovered by a surgical operation and the individual characteristics of the barrel of your gun can be determined just the same as though a test bullet had been fired from it. In other words, the bullet which was fired into the dog would then become a test bullet.”
“I guess so.”
“And how do you know that the barrel of the gun hadn’t been tampered with at the time the dog was shot?”
“I... I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Mason said. “You know because you were the one who tampered with the barrel. You were the one who used the rattail file. You were the one who knew that Mervin Selkirk was to be at the San Sebastian Country Club and you went out there to kill him.”
“I didn’t do any such thing,” Barton Jennings said, “and you can’t prove it.”
“Then,” Mason asked smilingly, “why did you go out to Robert’s tent at twelve-thirty-five on the morning of the eighteenth to get the gun which was under Robert’s pillow?”
“Because I didn’t think it was a good thing for the boy to sleep there with a gun.”
“Then why didn’t you get the gun before you had gone to bed?”
“I didn’t think of it.”
“You knew he had the gun?”
“Well, yes.”
“But you didn’t think of it until after you went to bed?”
“Well, it wasn’t until after I went to bed that I... well, that’s right, I got up and dressed and went out to get the gun.”
“Did you waken your wife when you dressed?”
“No, she was sound asleep.”
“But she wakened when she heard the shot?”
“I don’t think so. She wakened when Robert came running into the house, telling the story of his nightmare.”
“Of what you have characterized as his nightmare,” Mason said. “Actually, Robert told exactly what had happened; that he had wakened to find a man groping his way toward his bed, that he had instinctively thrown up the gun and pulled the trigger.”
Barton Jennings was silent.
“I think,” Mason said, “I have no further questions of this witness.”
“I have no questions on redirect examination,” Hamilton Burger said. “I may state to the Court that while this cross-examination has revealed many unexpected developments, the fact remains that the positive identification of the defendant speaks for itself.”
“I’m not certain it does,” Judge Kent said.
“I would like to ask a few more questions of Millicent Bailey on cross-examination,” Mason said.
“Very well. Mrs. Bailey, you may return to the witness stand,” Judge Kent ruled.
“Your Honor, I object,” Hamilton Burger said. “This is a piecemeal cross-examination and—”
“And it is entirely within the control of the Court,” Judge Kent ruled. “Recent developments have made the testimony of this witness appear in an entirely different light. Return to the stand, Mrs. Bailey. Mr. Mason, you may proceed with your cross-examination.”
Mason said, “Mrs. Bailey, you state that you saw the defendant at around three or three-thirty on the morning of the eighteenth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did you next see her?”
“On the morning of the nineteenth, at about ten o’clock.”
“Where did you see her?”
“I picked her out of a line-up at police headquarters.”
“How many other people were in that line-up?”
“There were five women in all.”
“And you picked the defendant as being the one you had seen?”
“Yes.”
“Now that was the next time you had seen the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“You hadn’t seen her after that time when you saw her in the morning at about three or three-thirty, or somewhere in there?”
“Well, I... I had had a glimpse of her.”
“Oh, you had had a glimpse of her. Where was that?”
“At police headquarters.”
“And where did you see her at police headquarters?”
“I saw her when she was being escorted into the show-up box.”