“Yes. I think they were.”
“You gripped her right wrist when you lifted her through the car window?”
“Yes.”
“You wrapped your fingers around her wrist?”
“Yes.”
“Now did you notice anything peculiar about her right hand?”
“Not at the time.”
“But you did later?”
“Yes.”
“When was this?”
“After she had been removed from the car and was lying on the ground waiting for an ambulance. A motorist had given us an automobile robe which we had spread on the ground, and the motorist and I moved the girl over to this robe.”
“Now by the girl, you mean the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“And at that time, you noticed something about her right hand?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“There was something red on her little finger. At first, I thought it was blood. It came off and made a red smear on the back of my hand. I tried to wipe it off, and it didn’t wipe off the way blood would.”
“It was lipstick.”
“I think so, yes.”
“Now did you notice her left hand?”
“Yes.”
“There was a glove on it, was there not?”
“Yes.”
“But none on her right hand?”
“No.”
“Had you searched the automobile?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find any lipstick in the car?”
“No. I found her purse and sent that in with her in the ambulance.”
“Find any baggage?”
“No.”
“Not anywhere in the automobile?”
“No.”
“Now, if the defendant’s right hand had been resting on the steering wheel, particularly gripping it with the force used by a person in trying to avoid an accident, there would have been lipstick on the wheel of that car?”
“Well...”
“Objected to as argumentative,” the district attorney said.
“Sustained.”
“Did you examine the steering wheel of the car to see whether there were any of lipstick on it?”
“Not then.”
“Later?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find any?”
“Just a very faint trace of lipstick in one place... You see, if she had been trying to fix her lips at the time of the accident and driving with one hand...”
“That will do,” the judge interrupted sternly. “The court will draw its own conclusions. Simply testify to the facts.”
“You looked in the trunk of the car?”
“Yes, of course.”
“There was no baggage there?”
“No baggage.”
“The ignition on the car was locked?”
The officer lowered his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “It was locked when the car got to the garage. You see, it was moved with a wrecking outfit. There was no reason to start the motor. I looked the car over for liquor and baggage, but I didn’t notice the ignition until yesterday when it was called to my attention.”
“The ignition was locked?”
“That is right.”
“Did you look for fingerprints on the steering wheel of the automobile?”
“No, sir, I didn’t. When we see a car go off the road into the ditch and find a person unconscious at the steering wheel with his fingers wrapped around the wheel and no one else in the car, we don’t match fingerprints to see who was driving it.”
A titter rustled around the courtroom. The judge looked inquiringly at Mason. “You wish a motion to strike out that last statement, Mr. Mason?”
“Oh, let it stay in,” Mason said, and turned once more to face the witness.
“Now, the car doors were closed?”
“Yes.”
“Both doors?”
“Yes.”
“It was rather a cold night, was it not?”
“What is that got to do with it?”
“I am just asking.”
“Well, it was cold up there.”
“The wind was blowing?”
“Yes.”
“And do you know whether the car in which the defendant was seated had a heater?”
“I believe it did. I can remember now... Yes, it did.”
“And the heater was on?”
“Yes, the fan was running.”
“Now, you say that you lifted the defendant out through the window.”
“That is right. The window in the car door.”
“On what side?”
“On the right-hand side. The car was lying on its left side.”
“I see. And you lifted the defendant through the right window?”
“That is what I said.”
“Now, it was impossible for you to lower the glass in the window from the outside, wasn’t it?”
“Naturally.”
“And you didn’t open the door?”
“Not then. I told you we lifted her out through the window. The door was jammed. How many more times do I have to tell you?”
Judge Cortright said sternly, “The witness will confine himself to answering questions. However, counsel should bear in mind that the calendar is crowded with other matters, and this question has been asked and answered in one form or another several different times.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “In a moment, I think Your Honor will appreciate the importance of the question. You couldn’t roll this window down from the outside of the car, could you, Mr. Corvis?”
“No. I didn’t say I rolled the window down. The window was open.”
“Rolled all the way down?”
“I... Yes.”
“This car was a four-passenger coupe?”
“Yes.”
“There were only two doors?”
“That is right.”
“And the windows were rather large — large enough to lift the defendant through?”
“We couldn’t have lifted her through,” Corvis said, “if they hadn’t been big enough to lift her through.”
The deputy district attorney let the spectators see his broad grin.
“Then,” Mason said, “another person could have made his escape from this car through this window?”
Corvis thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“But if the defendant got through, a man could have crawled through, couldn’t he?”
“I don’t know.”
“That question is argumentative,” Hanley said.
Mason smiled. “I shall withdraw it. The facts speak for themselves. Now, Mr. Corvis, you have been a traffic officer for some time?”
“Five years.”
“You have had an opportunity to observe quite a bit about the operation of motor cars?”
“Naturally.”
“Did you ever,” Mason asked, smilingly, “observe a car being operated at night on a mountain road with a cold wind blowing and the window in the door on the right-hand side rolled all the way down — the night being cold enough to necessitate the use of a heater in the car?”
Hanley jumped to his feet. “Your Honor, that is not proper cross-examination. We didn’t qualify this man as an expert. It calls for a conclusion of the witness, a matter of opinion, it is argumentative, and...”
“Objection sustained,” Judge Cortright said. “You didn’t qualify him. It isn’t proper cross-examination.”
Mason, having made his point, contented himself with a smile. “That’s all.”
Corvis left the stand. Other witnesses told of the collision of the four-passenger coupe being operated at a high rate of speed, swerving around a car on a three-lane pavement to find another car already occupying the third lane of the collision of the zigzag course taken by the car. With one exception, none of the witnesses had seen the driver of the car. It had, they explained, happened too quickly.
Edith Lions, however, who had been riding in the car which the four-passenger coupe had tried to pass, told a different story. She was about twenty-two, a red-haired girl with turned-up nose, freckles, and rapid-fire speech. She said, “I was riding with my mother and father in the car. We were sitting three in the front seat. This car was coming along behind us at a terrific rate of speed. All of a sudden it swerved out to pass us, but at that time a car coming from the other direction was passing another car which was also coming toward us.”