“Well,” she admitted, “I don’t think a woman looks as attractive in spectacles when she’s attending a formal function. In my own case, I think my appearance is...”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “And, of course, you weren’t wearing your glasses when you went on deck after the captain’s dinner?”
“Well, I...”
“Because, if you had been,” Mason went on to point out, “with the rain beating down in torrents, the lenses would have been covered with moisture and you couldn’t have seen things clearly.”
“No,” she said emphatically, “I was not wearing my glasses.”
“I thought not,” Mason said, still holding her glasses in his hand. “Now then. Miss Fell, about how far were you from Mrs. Moar when you climbed the stairs to the boat deck?”
“You mean when she was standing over the body of her husband?”
“Yes.”
“I said fifty or sixty feet.”
Mason backed away from the witness, to stand just in front of the deputy district attorney. “This far?” he asked.