“Yes,” Rodney Cuff said, answering for the witness. “If I may be allowed to call a witness I can prove my point.”
Scanlon hesitated for a moment, glanced at the deputy district attorney, then at Rodney Cuff, then back to Oscar Overmeyer.
Overmeyer slowly, almost imperceptibly, nodded his head, and Emil Scanlon said, “Very well, we’ll grant you permission to put on a witness. It’s rather irregular to handle the thing in this way, but this is a peculiar case and we’re anxious to get at what actually happened.”
There was something of triumph in Rodney Cuff’s manner as he got to his feet and said, “That’s all, Mr. Driscoll. You may leave the stand for the moment and I’ll call Jackson Weyman as my first witness.”
A slender-built man in the early forties got to his feet and started to leave the room. “That’s Weyman,” Rodney Cuff said. “I want him as a witness.”
An officer stopped Weyman at the door. Weyman turned and said, “I’m not going to be a witness. I didn’t come here to be called to the witness stand.”
His left eye was discolored and bloodshot. A piece of gauze, held in place by adhesive tape, covered the top of his forehead, and another smaller bit of tape was on his right cheek.
“I demand he be called as a witness,” Cuff said.
“Come forward and be sworn, Mr. Weyman,” the coroner ordered.
“I’m not going to do any such thing,” Weyman said, his voice surly. “I don’t want to be a witness, and you can’t make me. I’m a hell of a looking specimen to get on the witness stand!”