“Yes.”
“Then would you say that all of those cases were deaths due to cyanide of potassium?”
“Certainly not.”
“Yet in this case you have concluded that the man died of cyanide of potassium poisoning simply because you couldn’t find any other cause of death. Isn’t that right?”
“Well — that’s hardly a fair way to put it.”
“How else would you put it?” Mason said.
“Well, I have assumed that there must have been a cause of death and inasmuch as I couldn’t find a cause of death at the time of post-mortem, and inasmuch as the body had been embalmed, I assumed that the cause of death had been obscured by the embalming.”
“In other words, because you couldn’t find the cause of death you assumed the cause must have been obliterated by the embalming?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you do know that in cases where there has been no embalming whatever it is a medical fact that in a goodly percentage of these cases it is impossible to find the cause of death?”
“Not ten per cent, as you suggested.”
“How do you know it isn’t?”
“Well, I... I am assuming it isn’t. I think the percentage is far lower. I think it is around three to five per cent.”
“You are referring now to your own practice?”
“Yes. In cases where autopsies have been performed the percentage of deaths from undetermined causes is negligible.”
“In your own practice it is from three to five per cent?”
“Oh, call it that. I’m being generous with you in fixing those figures.”
“Now, in this particular case, simply because you were unable to find the cause of death and because the body had been embalmed you assumed the cause of death was some agency that must have been removed by the embalming fluid and therefore you assumed that it was the injection of cyanide of potassium?”
“Well, that’s rather an unfair way of putting it, but I’ll answer that question in the affirmative.”
“You have other cases where you have been unable to determine the cause of death before embalming?”
“Yes.”
“Three to five per cent, Doctor?”
“Well, yes.”
“Did you in those cases certify the cause of death as cyanide of potassium?”
“Don’t be absurd. Certainly not!”
“Have you ever certified any of those cases as having been caused by cyanide of potassium?”
“No.”
“You have then certified in those cases that the cause of death was unknown?”
“Well... no.”
“You didn’t know the cause of death,” Mason asked, “you were unable to find it?”
“That’s right.”
“Yet you didn’t so state in your certificate?”
“A death certificate, Mr. Mason, has to recite some cause of death. It is a general practice among medical men to have a certain blanket category which is listed as the cause of death when it is impossible to determine absolutely what was the cause of death.”
“In other words, when you can’t find a cause of death you simply draw on your imagination. Is that right?”
“Well, you have to put down some cause of death.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “So in those cases of yours where you weren’t able to find the cause of death you simply went ahead and filled in a cause of death anyway. Is that right?”
“In those cases, yes.”
“So in at least three per cent of your cases you deliberately falsify your death certificates?”
“I don’t falsify it.”
“It is incorrect?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yet you state in the certificate that you do know?”
“All doctors do.”
“And you do?”
“Yes. Have it your own way.”
“This case was a similar case to all of those others except that in this case you have said it was a death by cyanide of potassium?”
“Well, this case is not exactly similar.”
“Why isn’t it similar?”
“Because there is evidence of the possibility of cyanide poisoning.”
“What evidence?”
“The color of the skin for one thing.”
“But you noticed that color of the skin at the time you signed the death certificate attributing the cause as coronary thrombosis, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“All right, what else was there?”
“Well, of course,” Dr. Granby blurted, “there is the confession of the defendant, her own admission—”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “Because it has been reported to you that statements made by the defendant indicated death by cyanide of potassium poisoning you have concluded that death must have been by cyanide of potassium.”
“Well, that was one of the reasons.”
“That’s the only significant reason you can bring out at this time, isn’t it, Doctor?”
“That and the fact that there was no other cause of death visible.”
“But you have just stated that in an appreciable percentage of deaths you haven’t been able to find any cause of death.”
“Well, yes.”
“But your certificate didn’t so state?”
“I gave a cause of death.”
“Despite the fact you couldn’t find the cause of death you signed a certificate stating that death was due to a certain cause?”
“That is the generally accepted medical practice.”
“That,” Mason said, with a tone of finality, “is all.”
Hamilton Burger whispered to his trial deputy. Apparently they were unhappy about the doctor’s testimony but didn’t know exactly how to try to repair the damage.
“Any further questions?” Judge Ashurst asked.
Hamilton Burger shook his head. “No,” he said, and his manner indicated that he realized his whispered conference had further weakened his case. “No further questions.”
Hamilton Burger’s next witness was Marilyn Bodfish, who, it turned out, was the day nurse who had been in charge of the case on the Saturday when Mosher Higley met his death. She testified that it was customary for the defendant, Nadine Farr, to “take over” at around noon on Saturday, giving the witness some time off; that on this particular Saturday it had been a sunny day and the witness had retired to a secluded place between the garage and a fence where there was a folding cot, and had been engaged in taking a sun bath when she had heard the’ emergency electric bell ringing in her bedroom which was on top of the garage; that she had hastily donned some clothes and hurried to the house, finding Mosher Higley in convulsions and gasping for air, that there was some retching; that there was a broken cup on the floor, that some chocolate had been spilled on the floor and that some chocolate had been spilled on his nightshirt; that she noticed at the time that the chocolate on the floor was still warm.
“Did you notice anything else?” Hamilton Burger asked.
“I noticed a certain odor.”
“What odor?”
“An odor of bitter almonds.”
“As a part of your training as a nurse did you study poisons?”
“I did.”
“Do you know the significance of the odor of bitter almonds?”
“It is the odor of cyanide of potassium.”
“And you detected that odor at that time?”
“I did.”
“Cross-examine,” Hamilton Burger said triumphantly.
“When did you first appreciate the significance of that odor?” Mason asked.
“I noticed it as soon as I was bending over the patient. I—”
“Answer my question,” Mason interrupted. “When did you first appreciate the significance of that odor?”
“Oh, later on, when I heard that there was a possibility of cyanide poisoning.”
“You were there in the room when Dr. Granby arrived?”