Sampson said, “Mrs. Breel, I’m going to be frank with you, perhaps brutally frank. I’m doing it for your own good. When you were struck by that automobile last night, there was a thirty-eight caliber revolver in your bag. The police have discharged a test bullet from that revolver. They have made micro-photographs of that bullet. They have also recovered the fatal bullet which killed Austin Cullens. They have made micro-photographs of that bullet. The two bullets, compared side by side under a powerful microscope, and as shown in the micro-photographs, are not only identical bullets, but moreover, they were both discharged from the same gun. In other words, Mrs. Breel, the gun which you had in your possession in your handbag last night fired the bullet which killed Austin Cullens.”
Mrs. Breel regarded him sternly. “Young man,” she said, “are you sure that a gun was found in my bag?”
“Absolutely,” Larry Sampson said. “The bag was lying on the pavement near you when...”
“But that doesn’t indicate that it was my bag,” Mrs. Breel said. “I was unconscious at the time. You can’t hold me responsible for a bag which was found near me. I don’t know who put it there.”
Mason grinned and flashed a wink at Dr. Gifford. Sergeant Holcomb said disgustedly to the doctor, “And this is the woman you said shouldn’t answer questions because her thoughts might not be coherent.”
Larry Sampson hesitated a moment, then opened a leather handbag which was on the floor near the corner. “Mrs. Breel,” he said, “I’m going to show you a handbag. I’m going to ask you to say whether this is your handbag.”
Dramatically, he jerked out the handbag with the two imitation jade rings, and whirled to hold it out in front of him. Mrs. Breel surveyed the bag with an appraisal which was almost disinterested. “I think,” she said, “that I did have a bag like that once, but I can’t be certain. However, young man, I most certainly can’t say that that is my bag... You see, I had it some time ago.”
Sampson looked nonplused. Abruptly, he reached into the bag and pulled out the partially knitted garment. “Try and deny the ownership of this,” he said. “This is yours, isn’t it?”
She looked at it with a perfectly blank countenance, “Is it?” she asked.
“You know it is.”