Mason turned to Sampson and said courteously, “Now if the Prosecutor’s office will kindly produce the gun which was found in the drawer of George Trent’s desk, and the gun with which it is claimed George Trent was killed, I will ask the witness to identify that gun.”
Sampson said, “It will take a few minutes.”
“Very well,” Mason said, “the Court will perhaps take a brief recess.”
The Court took its recess. Newspaper reporters crowded around Mason, asking questions. Spectators, feeling that courtroom history was being made, refused to leave their seats. The jurors glanced at Mrs. Breel as they filed out. Their glances no longer contained hostility. There was curiosity, interest, and, here and there, a glance of sympathy. Perry Mason continued to sit at his counsel table. There was about him nothing of the swagger of one who is putting across a tricky play. He had, instead, only the attitude of a disinterested expert who is trying to assist intelligent jurors in discharging their duties.
Mrs. Breel indicated by a beckoning forefinger that she wished to talk with Perry Mason. He moved his chair over to her side. “Do you,” she asked, “know what you’re doing?”
“I think so,” Mason said. “I’d hoped, of course, I could keep them from definitely establishing that it was your handbag. Now, I’m having to fall back on my second line of defense.”
“Well,” she said, weighing the issues as judicially as though her own fate had not been involved, “it seems to me that you’re getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“Well,” Mason observed, smiling, “that at least will be a change of scenery.”
She thought for a moment, then said, “Do you know, Mr. Mason, I believe that if I concentrated real hard, I could get some glimmerings of memory about what took place...”
“Don’t concentrate, then,” Mason said.
“Why? Don’t you want me to remember?”
“I don’t think it will be necessary.”
“Do you think it would hurt anything?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Mason told her. “So far, I’m proceeding simply according to logic. But when we check up on events, it’s sometimes startling to find how illogical events actually are.”
“Well,” she told him, “you know your own business best, but I don’t think there’s a single person on that jury who believes that the man from the homicide squad got those bullets mixed up. He’s too positive, and he’s had too much experience.”
“Yes,” Mason said simply.
“Now, what do you mean by that?” she asked.
Mason grinned. “That he’s too positive,” he said, “and that he’s had too much experience.”
Sarah Breel laughed. “Promise me,” she said, “that you’ll be careful.”
Mason patted her hand. “Leave the worrying to me,” he told her. “I believe that was the bargain, wasn’t it?”
“No,” she said with a smile, “Virginia took over the worrying concession.”
“That’s right,” Mason admitted, “perhaps she’s worrying now. Who knows?”
Sarah Breel flashed him a swift glance of pointed interrogation. But Mason, apparently intending his last remark merely as a pleasantry, moved back to the counsel table and started arranging his papers.
Court reconvened at the end of five minutes, and Carl Ernest Hogan, the ballistics expert, stepped forward and said, “Let the ·record show that, purely for the purpose of evidence in this case, I submit for inspection a certain revolver numbered R, nine-three-six-two. And the record can also show that I’m not going to let that gun out of my possession.”
“That’s quite fair,” Mason said. “I understand that this weapon is being held as evidence in connection with the homicide of George Trent.”
“That’s right,” Carl Ernest Hogan said.
“Lieutenant Ogilby, I am going to ask you if you have ever seen this gun before?”
“I have.”
“Is that the gun which Virginia Trent had with her on the Saturday afternoon in question?”
Lieutenant Ogilby snapped open the cylinder, spun it swiftly and said, “It is.”
“Is that the gun which was fired by her at that time?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mason said to Sampson, “You may cross-examine.”
Sampson jumped to his feet, as though fairly tearing into the witness. “You say that is the same gun,” he thundered, “and yet you have given it only a casual inspection. You haven’t even looked at the number on the gun.”
“No, sir,” Lieutenant Ogilby said. “I didn’t make my identification from the number on the gun.”
“The company which manufactures this revolver makes thousands of absolutely identical revolvers, made by machinery, and alike in every respect, save only that, for the purposes of identification, each one of those revolvers is given a number by the manufacturer. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then how can you presume to recognize this gun and differentiate it from the thousands of other identical guns which have been made, unless you look at the only positive mark of identification, to wit, the number stamped on the gun by the manufacturer?”
Lieutenant Ogilby smiled. “You’ll pardon me, Mr. Sampson,” he said, “but I happen to know firearms. It’s a hobby of mine. While you are correct in your statement that these firearms are absolutely identical when they’re manufactured, just as automobiles are identical when they leave the factory, before guns have been in use very long, they take on certain individualities. For instance, on this gun, the front sight was a little high. Miss Trent shot low with it. I tried to get her to take a coarse sight, but she couldn’t understand doing that, so I filed the sight down myself. The file marks are quite visible on this sight. Moreover, in order to absolutely check so there could be no question of doubt, I went out to the place where we had done our target shooting, at the request of Mr. Mason, and picked up the empty shells which had been ejected from the gun when I reloaded it.”
“What have the empty shells got to do with it?” Sampson asked sneeringly.
“Simply this,” Lieutenant Ogilby said. “Before the science of ballistics learned that bullets fired from a gun could be identified by marks made by the rifling, the only method of determining whether a shell had been fired from a given gun was to center the firing pin on the percussion cap. Firing pins, theoretically, strike in the center of the percussion cap. Actually, they do no such thing. Furthermore, in the course of use, each firing pin develops little peculiarities of its own. There is not only the position of the indentation made by the firing pin on the percussion cap, but there are also little irregularities in that impression which are distinctive. I satisfied myself that each one of those shells had been fired from this same gun.”
“You didn’t have the gun to compare those shells with,” Sampson said.
“No, but I had a photograph of the cylinder of this gun which was furnished me by a newspaper, and which I have every reason to believe was authentic. But just a minute, Mr. Sampson, if you wish, I’ll make that check right here and now.”