“Many formal gowns are like that, are they not?” Mason asked.
“It depends on the taste,” the witness countered, “and the manner in which they’re worn.”
“Now, Mrs. Moar followed her husband up the stairs to the boat deck?”
“Yes.”
“There’s an iron rail running along both sides of those stairs?”
“That’s right.”
“And as Mrs. Moar went up the stairs, she held to the rail with both hands,” Mason asked, “that is, she placed each of her hands on one of the rails?”
“Yes, she... no, she did not!” the witness said emphatically, in the manner of one who refuses to be trapped. “Her right hand held to the iron rail. Her left hand had gathered up the skirts of her dark gown.”
“Now,” Mason inquired blandly, “will you kindly tell us just where a woman clad in a backless evening gown, with a front which was altogether too skimpy, a gown which fit so tightly over the hips that you considered it indecent, with her right hand holding to the iron rail of a flight of steps, her left hand holding up the skirt of her evening gown, could have carried a thirty-eight revolver?”
For a startled moment, Aileen Fell was silent. The tense courtroom was filled with the sound of rustlings as spectators leaned forward, anxious to miss no word. After a moment, Aileen Fell said, “She had it in her left hand.”