“I did nothing of the sort,” Serle said with dogged persistence.
Kittering, who had recovered his composure, said, “Your Honor, I object to this. This is an attempt to browbeat the witness. It...”
“Objection overruled,” Judge Knox said. “Proceed, Mr. Mason.”
“Better think again,” Mason said, “because I’m going to prove what I say, Serle.”
Serle clamped his lips tightly together, and said nothing, but the skin across the top of his forehead began to glisten as it slimed with cold perspiration.
“Now,” Mason went on calmly, “let’s go back to the night of the murder. You went to the Home Kitchen Café. Hazel Stickland waited on your table. She...”
“I didn’t eat there the night of the murder,” Serle blurted. “I ate with Hogarty in his apartment. I tell you, I never was at the Home Kitchen Café any time that night.”
Mason said, calmly, “You were there, Serle. You and Bill Hogarty. You may have arranged to get rid of the waitress, but you perhaps failed to notice that two girls were seated at the table next to you, and that Hogarty was surreptitiously trying a pickup.” — Mason whirled abruptly to face the audience. “Miss Gertrude Lade,” he called out. “Will you stand up please?”
Gertrude Lade stood up.
Mason, pointing a rigid forefinger, said, “Look at that young woman, Serle. I am going to ask you if you have ever seen her before — if, as a matter of fact, she wasn’t seated at the table next to you when you were eating dinner in the Home Kitchen Café on Friday, the seventh of this month?”