“Yes, sir.”
“Both thirty-eight caliber revolvers?”
“Yes, sir, but they were of different makes.”
“I understand that,” Mason said. “I’m simply trying to get the circumstances under which the test was conducted before the jurors. I believe one of the guns was one which had been used in the murder of George Trent, was it not?”
The witness smiled. “I’m sure I can’t tell you about that, Mr. Mason,” he said. “I know what Sergeant Holcomb told me when he handed me the guns. But it is only my province to test guns by firing projectiles from them and comparing them with fatal bullets.”
Judge Barnes smiled. Larry Sampson grinned. If Mason thought he could get anywhere cross-examining an expert like Hogan, he had another guess coming. Hogan was deadly as a rattlesnake on cross-examination. Try to crowd him, and he’d strike back in a hurry.
“By the way,” Mason said, “do you remember whether you first compared a bullet from the gun which Sergeant Holcomb told you had been used in the Trent case, or the one which Sergeant Holcomb told you had been found in the bag of the defendant in this case?”
Hogan frowned meditatively and said, “As nearly as I remember, Mr. Mason, I first discharged a test bullet from this gun. Then I discharged a test bullet from the gun which Sergeant Holcomb told me had been used in the Trent case.”
“And in checking the bullets, what order did you follow?” Mason asked.
“Sergeant Holcomb handed me a bullet which I first compared with a bullet fired from this gun,” Hogan said. “I believe I mentioned to Sergeant Holcomb that it wasn’t fired from this gun...”