Lieutenant Ogilby stepped over to the jury rail. The jurors crowded forward. The lieutenant pointed out the points of similarity made by the mark of the firing pin.
Sampson engaged in a brief whispered conversation with Hogan, the firearms expert of the homicide squad, and then said lamely, “That’s all. There are no further questions on cross-examination.”
His head was in a whirl. Facts shot through his mind in a confused procession. He tried to arrest them long enough to follow his ideas to their logical conclusion, but the confusion was too great. He felt as though he had been standing at the local station in a subway, watching express trains thundering past, and trying ineffectively to stop them. He was aware that people were looking at him, aware that Judge Barnes was frowning in puzzled concentration, that Mason was smiling, that the jurors were staring. He felt mental vertigo amounting almost to nausea. There was a dry taste in his mouth.
He heard Mason saying, “Now, if the Court please, having demonstrated that George Trent could not have been killed with the so-called Trent gun, he must have been killed by the Cullens gun, since it is established beyond question that there are only two guns, the Trent gun and the Cullens gun, and only two fatal bullets, the Trent bullet and the Cullens bullet. The bullet taken from Trent’s body matched the test bullet fired from one of the guns in the possession of the ballistics department. Since that couldn’t have been the bullet fired from the Trent gun, it must have been the bullet fired from the Breel gun.”
“Now then, your Honor, in view of the circumstances, I now ask that the jury be permitted to go to the house of Austin Cullens for the purpose of viewing the premises.”
Sampson’s only instinct was to fight. He jumped to his feet and said, “For what purpose, your Honor? Surely, nothing can be gained by having the jurors make such an inspection.”
“What is there there you don’t want them to see?” Mason asked.
“Nothing.” Sampson said lamely.
“Then why not let them go?”
Judge Barnes took a hand. “Just a moment, Mr. Mason,” he said, “you will please refrain from arguing with counsel, and address yourself to the Court. Just what reason have you for asking that the jurors go to these premises?”