“It was the night of the captain’s dinner on shipboard?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“And how were you dressed?”
“In my raincoat, just as I’ve told you. Standing in the shadow, as I was, it was virtually impossible to see me...”
“I’m not asking you now about your raincoat,” Mason said. “I want to know what you had on underneath your raincoat.”
“What I... What I had on underneath my raincoat?”
“Exactly,” Mason said.
“Why... I don’t see what different that makes.”
“What I’m getting at,” Mason said, “is that you also were wearing an evening gown on that occasion, were you not?”
“Yes.”
“A light blue silk print?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“You were dressed for the captain’s dinner?”
“Yes.”
“And after the captain’s dinner, you decided to go on deck?”
“Yes.”
“You went to your stateroom and put on your raincoat and beret? Did you put on anything else?”
“No.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t pick up anything in your stateroom, other than the raincoat and the beret?”
“Mr. Mason, I fail to see what that has to do...”
“Did you pick up anything else in your stateroom?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Judge Romley swung around in his chair to frown down at the witness and said austerely, “The witness will confine herself to respectful answers to Counsel’s questions. The question was whether you picked up anything else in your stateroom. Did you or didn’t you?”
“No,” Aileen Fell snapped.
“Now,” Mason said, “going back to what you saw when you were on deck You have stated, I believe, that Mr. Moar climbed up the open stairway to the boat deck.”
“Yes.”
“And you say he protested when Mrs. Moar started to follow him?”
“He did.”
Mason said drily, “His protest was a gesture made with his right foot, wasn’t it?”
“Well... yes”
Someone in the courtroom tittered. The bailiff pounded for order.
“In other words,” Mason said, “he kicked at her, didn’t he?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Why didn’t you say so in your direct examination?” Mason asked. “Is it because you are biased in favor of the Prosecution and didn’t want this Court to feel Mrs. Moar might have been acting in self-defense?”
“I have no prejudice whatever against Mrs. Moar, other than the normal prejudice a woman has for a wife who will deliberately murder her husband,” Aileen snapped, and then settled back in her chair with the triumphant expression of one who has bested a cross-examiner.
Mason was completely unruffled. “Now, Mrs. Moar, ” he said, “had on a backless evening gown. This gown was rather tight fitting, was it not?”
“Yes.”
“And there was no back?”
“No.”
“It was rather skimpy in front?”
“Too skimpy, if you ask me, ” the witness said.
“Well,” Mason observed, “I am asking you.”
“Yes, it was very skimpy.”
“And fitted her tightly across the hips?”
“Molded to her hips would be more like it,” the witness said. “It was what I would call daring-to the Point of bad taste.”
“Many formal gowns are like that, are they not?” Mason asked.
“It depends on the taste,” the witness countered, “and the manner in which they’re worn.”
“Now, Mrs. Moar followed her husband up the stairs to the boat deck?”
“Yes.”
“There’s an iron rail running along both sides of those stairs?”
“That’s right.”
“And as Mrs. Moar went up the stairs, she held to the rail with both hands,” Mason asked, “that is, she placed each of her hands on one of the rails?”
“Yes, she... no, she did not!” the witness said emphatically, in the manner of one who refuses to be trapped. “Her right hand held to the iron rail. Her left hand had gathered up the skirts of her dark gown.”
“Now,” Mason inquired blandly, “will you kindly tell us just where a woman clad in a backless evening gown, with a front which was altogether too skimpy, a gown which fit so tightly over the hips that you considered it indecent, with her right hand holding to the iron rail of a flight of steps, her left hand holding up the skirt of her evening gown, could have carried a thirty-eight revolver?”
For a startled moment, Aileen Fell was silent. The tense courtroom was filled with the sound of rustlings as spectators leaned forward, anxious to miss no word. After a moment, Aileen Fell said, “She had it in her left hand.”
“You mean she was holding the revolver in her left hand and also holding her skirt?”
“Yes. The gun was beneath the folds of the dress.”
“Now, was this dress transparent?” Mason asked.
“It might as well have been.”
“But could you see the gun through it?”
“Well... well, I don’t suppose I could, no.”
“In other words,” Mason said, “you didn’t actually see Mrs. Moar take any gun up to the boat deck, and, when she walked past within a very few feet of you, you didn’t see any weapon in her possession, did you?”
“Well,” the witness said, “I know she had the gun. She must have had it.”
“And that’s the only way you know she had it — because you think she must have had it.”
“Well, yes, if you want to put it that way.”
Mason smiled. “I want to put it that way, Miss Fell.”
Her mouth was a thin, straight line. Her eyes blazed indignantly.
“Now, when you were half way up the stairs, you heard a shot?”
“Yes.”
“And when you arrived on deck, you saw Mrs. Moar standing over the unconscious form of her husband?”
“Lifeless form,” the witness said.
“Ah,” Mason observed blandly, “then it was a lifeless figure?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Yes.”
“In other words, you’re positive that Mr. Moar was dead at that time.”
“I think he was, yes.”
“Well now, are you guessing, or do you know?”
The deputy district attorney jumped to his feet, said, “Your Honor, I object. This is not proper cross-examination. This witness couldn’t possibly tell...”
“I object to the Prosecutor coaching this witness,” Mason interrupted. “She’s an educated woman and is thoroughly competent to take care of herself under cross-examination. She has said Mrs. Moar was standing over the lifeless form of her husband. She used that word ‘lifeless’ to prejudice Your Honor against Mrs. Moar, and I’m going to make this witness take back that statement. I am going to make her admit that she doesn’t know whether the form was lifeless or not.”
“You’re not going to do any such thing,” Aileen Fell snapped. “I said the body was lifeless, and it was lifeless.”
Scudder slowly sat down.
“You mean that Mr. Moar was dead, then, when you came up the stairs to the boat deck?”
“Yes.”
“Then, when you state that the defendant hoisted him to the rail and fired another shot into his body, you want the Court to understand that she was firing that shot into a dead man, and that shot had nothing to do with the murder of Mr. Moar, because Mr. Moar was already dead. Is that right?”
The witness started to say something, checked herself, stopped, then said savagely, “I guess Mrs. Moar wanted to make sure he was dead. That’s her type!”