“Yes, sir.”
“Did he leave the room at any time?”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Sampson asked.
“Merely trying to get the picture,” Mason said affably. “I want to find out what became of the bullets.”
“You’ll find out when we put Sergeant Holcomb on the stand,” Sampson said.
“Well,” Mason observed, “I think if the doctor answers this question, that will conclude my cross-examination.”
“No,” Dr. Frankel said, “Sergeant Holcomb did not leave the room. He was present at my side during both of the postmortems.”
“That’s all,” Mason said.
“Call Harry Diggers,” Sampson said.
Diggers took the witness stand. Clearly, almost photographically, he described operating his car on St. Rupert boulevard. He had just passed Ninety-First Street and was about midway in the block. There had been a blue sedan with a crumpled left rear fender parked at the curb. This sedan had suddenly lurched into motion and swerved sharply to the left. The witness had pulled his car to the right to avoid a collision. At that moment, the defendant had jumped out from the curb, to run directly in front of his headlights. She had flung up her hands as though to ward off the car. The witness had swung his car sharply to the left, but the front end had missed the defendant, and the running board had struck her leg and knocked her down. She was unconscious. He had started to take her to the nearest hospital, but other motorists, who had driven up, advised him to let the ambulance which had been summoned take the responsibility. Diggers had found her bag lying beside her, with a gun protruding from it. He had picked the bag up, and had insisted on having its contents inventoried, at first by bystanders, and then, when he realized the nature of the contents, by the ambulance crew. He read the inventory, and the number of the gun, from his notebook, where he had scribbled them down.