The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (17 page)

"Yes."

"Raining hard?"

"Well, it wasn't raining quite as hard then as it had been a little while before. There had been a let-up; but it was raining."

"This was near a yacht club of which you are a member?"

"Yes."

"There's a fence separating that yacht club from the highway?"

"Yes."

"No street lights?"

"No."

"It wasn't moonlight?"

"No, sir."

"No stars visible?"

"No, sir… I see what you're getting at, Mr. Mason, but there was plenty of light to enable me to see what I've testified to."

"What was the source of that light?"

"There's a mast in front of the clubhouse of the yacht club and there are flood-lights on this mast to illuminate the moorings and the parking spaces where members keep their cars."

"And how far were those flood-lights from the place where the crime was committed?" Mason asked.

"Perhaps three or four hundred feet."

"So that this road was brightly lighted?"

"No, sir. I didn't say that."

"But it was lighted?"

"There was some light."

"Enough to enable you to see objects distinctly."

"Understand, Mr. Mason," Bixler said with the belligerent manner of one who had been carefully coached to avoid a certain trap, "this woman wore a white rain coat which made her quite visible after she stepped out of the shadows. The road was dark, all right, and there were deep black shadows, but when the woman stepped to the running board of the car there was enough illumination so I could see her figure quite distinctly. I couldn't see her features and I haven't tried to identify her."

"Your identification," Mason asked, "is due to the fact that she wore a white rain coat. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"How do you know it was white?"

"I could see it was white."

"Couldn't it have been a light pink?" Mason asked.

"No."

"Or a light blue?"

"No."

Mason suddenly raised his eyes from his fingertips to stare intently at the witness. "Are you willing to swear," he asked, "that it was not a light yellow?"

The witness hesitated, then said, "No. It wasn't a light yellow."

"Didn't have any yellow in it?" Mason asked.

"No, sir."

Mason said slowly, "You understand, there's a distinction between pure white and a light buff, or a cream color?"

"Yes, sir, of course."

"And sometimes, even in daylight, it's difficult to distinguish these colors?"

"Not particularly. I know white when I see it. This was a white rain coat."

"For instance, this sheet of cardboard," Mason said, whipping an oblong of pasteboard from his pocket, "is it white or yellow?"

"It's white."

Mason took another sheet of dead-white cardboard from his pocket, held it up, side by side with the other, and a titter ran through the courtroom.

Bixler said hastily, "That's my mistake, Mr. Mason. That first piece of cardboard had some yellow coloring in it. It looked white because you were holding it up against your dark suit. But, now I see the white cardboard placed beside it, I can see the difference in color."

Mason said casually, and after the manner of one who is seeking to help a witness clarify his testimony, "And if a white sheet had been held back of that rain coat you saw the night of the murder it would have helped you to detect the light yellow tint in the rain coat, just in the same way this white card has enabled you to see the difference between it and the yellow card. Is that right?"

"Yes, sir," the witness said, then lowered his eyes and said, "I mean, no, sir. That is, I think it was a white rain coat."

"But it might have been a light yellow one?" Mason asked, gesturing with the hand which held the two pieces of cardboard so that the witness's eyes shifted to the pieces of cardboard.

Bixler glanced helplessly at the deputy district attorney, at the unsympathetic faces of spectators in the courtroom. He slumped within his clothes as though his self-assurance had been suddenly deflated. "Yes," he said, "it might have been a light yellow rain coat."

Mason got slowly and impressively to his feet. Staring steadily at the confused witness, he said, "How did you know Brownley was dead?"

"I could tell by looking at him."

"You're positive?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you were badly rattled at the time?"

"Well, yes."

"And you didn't feel for his pulse?"

"No, sir."

"You could only see him in the illumination which came from the dash light of the automobile?"

"Yes, sir."

"You've never studied medicine?"

"No, sir."

"How many dead people have you ever seen in your life – I mean before they were embalmed and placed in coffins?"

The witness hesitated and said, "Four."

"Had any of those persons died by violence?"

"No, sir."

"So this was your first experience in viewing a man who had been shot, is that right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And yet you're willing to swear the man was dead when you made no examination?"

"Well, if he wasn't dead he was certainly dying. Blood was spurting from those wounds."

"Ah," Mason said, "he might have been dying, but not dead."

"Well, perhaps."

"And when you say that he was dying, you don't claim to have any medical skill, and had never before seen any man who was dying from gunshot wounds?"

"No, sir."

"And had never seen a man die from gunshot wounds?"

"No, sir."

"But you do know generally that sometimes men are shot, sometimes seriously, and ultimately recover, don't you?"

"Well… yes. I've heard of such cases."

"Now, do you want to swear that this man was dying?"

"Well, I thought he was dying."

"You wouldn't think much of a doctor who took a look at a man in the dim light given by the dash light of an automobile and then turned away and said the man was dead or dying and nothing could be done for him, would you?"

"No, sir."

"You'd expect a doctor to listen for heart action with a stethoscope, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yet you expect to look at the first man you had ever seen shot and be able to tell more than a trained physician, who had handled hundreds of similar cases, and without making the examination the physician would have had to make in order to reach an opinion?"

"Well, no, sir, I wouldn't say that."

"Well, then, you don't know the man was dying, do you?"

"Well, I knew he had been shot."

"Exactly," Mason said, "and that's all you know, isn't it?"

"Well, he was lying there all slumped over in a heap and he'd been shot, and there was blood on his head and on his clothes."

"Exactly," Mason said, "that's all you can swear to. You heard shots fired, ran to the car, saw a man slumped over and bleeding, and that's all you know, isn't it?"

"Yes, I guess so."

"You don't know whether he was dead?"

"No."

"Nor whether he was dying?"

"No."

"Nor whether the shots were more than mere flesh wounds."

"Well… no, I didn't examine him."

"That," Mason said, "is all."

"No re-direct," Shoemaker said, hesitating a moment.

"Call your next witness," Judge Knox ordered.

Shoemaker called the police officers who had answered the telephone call to the harbor. They testified to the search they had made for the automobile, of finally discovering bloodstains on the pavement; of tracing the reddish stains, which had been mixed in with the rain water, until they came to a pier; that they had grappled and had pulled an automobile to the surface; that the car was that of Renwold C. Brownley; that it had been left in low gear and was still in low gear when recovered; that the hand throttle had been pulled open and that, after the car had been recovered, tests made with it showed that the position of the hand throttle was such that the car would go exactly 12.8 miles per hour in low gear with the hand throttle in the same position as when the car had been recovered; that they had found a.32 caliber Colt automatic on the floor of the car; that they had found some empty cartridges; that they had recovered from the upholstering of the car two bullets, one of which had evidently missed the occupant of the car, the other showing evidences of having passed through human flesh.

At this point, Judge Knox announced that the hour was twelve-thirty, and adjourned court until two o'clock in the afternoon.

Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake went to lunch in a little restaurant on North Broadway, where they were able to secure a booth.

"What do you make of it, Paul?" Mason asked.

"You going to make a fight on the question of corpus delicti?"

"Yes. I had been hoping I could do it all along. But I wasn't certain what Bixler would testify to. I was afraid he might swear positively the man was dead, and stick to it. As it is, I think I can get the case thrown out of court."

Drake nodded. "You made a swell job of that cross-examination, Perry. Bixler was so rattled Shoemaker was afraid to try any re-direct."

"Isn't that going to be a highly technical defense?" Della Street asked.

Mason said grimly, "You're damned right it's going to be a technical defense. But, nevertheless, that's the law. Many people have been hanged on circumstantial evidence, where it subsequently appeared that the supposed victim never had been killed, but was alive and well. And that's the reason they made the law the way it is. The term, corpus delicti, means the body of the Offense. In order to show it, in a charge of homicide, the Prosecution must show death as the result, and the criminal agency of the defendant as the means. Now the Prosecution's going to run up against one big hurdle on this corpus delicti business. They can't show death, and if they're not careful, I can trap them into being crucified by their own proof."

"How do you mean?" Della Street asked.

"It's a goofy crime," Mason said. "The woman, whoever she was, fired the shots from the automatic, and then beat it. Now, the evidence shows that she beat it in her own car, going at high speed. Someone drove Brownley's car into the bay. That someone couldn't have been the person who did the shooting, because she had been seen by the Prosecution's own witness dashing madly away from the scene of the crime. It's improbable that she had a confederate who remained in the background while the shooting took place, only to step out subsequently and drive the car off the end of the wharf.

"The only other explanation is that Brownley was unconscious when Bixler looked in the car; but that after Bixler left Brownley recovered consciousness enough to try to drive the car in search of help; that he managed to get the car started, but was driving more or less blindly through a lashing rain, became confused on roads, and drove himself off the end of the pier."

Drake nodded slowly.

"Now, then," Mason said, "if when they recover Brownley's body, they find he died of drowning, it doesn't make any difference whether he might have died of the gunshot wounds within the next thirty minutes or the next thirty seconds. The fact that his death occurred from drowning, rather than from the wounds, means they can't convict Julia Branner of murder, because the wounds weren't the actual cause of death. That's a technical point, but it's been adjudicated."

Della Street frowned at her coffee cup and said, "Listen, Chief, on all your other cases you've been representing someone who was innocent. You've managed to bring the case to a spectacular conclusion by showing that the Prosecution had made a bad guess. People are for you. You have a reputation now, both as a lawyer and a detective; but the minute you resort to the ordinary tactics of the average criminal lawyer, you're going to turn people against you. If you use your ingenuity to get a guilty woman acquitted on a technicality, people are going to think you are tied up with murderers. They're going to lose their respect for you."

Mason said slowly, "In other cases, Della, I was more or less in the clear. On this case I'm in up to my necktie. They're going to put Pete Sacks on the stand. The minute they do that, and he testifies that Julia Branner asked him to murder Brownley and gave him the key to her apartment, and then says that I trapped him into a position where I stole that key from him, it's going to look like hell. That key wouldn't have been important if I hadn't taken it – but when I grabbed it, I made it the most important bit of evidence in the case. If the district attorney overlooks it, the Bar Association won't."

"Could you keep Sacks from testifying if you tripped them up on this corpus delicti business?" Drake asked.

"That's exactly the point," Mason told him. "That's why I'm making this defense. If I can beat the case on the corpus delicti, I'll get Julia Branner off temporarily. They'll throw this case out of court and everything will then wait until they recover Brownley's body. Sacks will never get a chance to tell his story, and the key won't seem so important. When they do find the body, the chances are I can prove Brownley died by drowning. Then, if the district attorney proceeds against me, it'll look like spite work. I've got to beat them on this corpus delicti angle. And after I do that, I've got to find more facts that will help our theory of the case."