“Will you have a chance to talk with her before she goes on the witness stand?” Drake asked.
Mason shook his head. “I don’t want to, Paul.”
“We could have taken her away from them,” one of the men said.
“And what a sweet mess that would have been,” Mason said. “Played up right in the newspapers, it would have made her testimony sound ten times as bad as it’s really going to be. My only remaining chance is to show she was hiding from me as well as from the DA.”
“How bad do you think it’ll be, Perry?” Drake asked.
“It’ll knock my technical defense into a cocked hat,” Mason said grimly. “What the hell do you think she ducked out for? She actually saw Carl Newberry go overboard. God knows what else she saw. Get busy and pay that bill. I want to get out of here.”
Chapter 16
A crowd jammed the courtroom when Judge Romley reconvened court at three o’clock. Word had been passed through the courthouse of what was to happen. Telephone wires had buzzed with the news, and, by two-thirty, every seat was taken. By three o’clock, people, standing elbow to elbow, were flattened against the walls. The crowd overflowed into the corridor.
Judge Romley, apparently unaware of the cause for the sudden interest, glanced curiously at the crowd, then said to Scudder, “Have you any further evidence to prove the corpus delicti? ”
Scudder arose, his manner triumphant. “I have,” he said, “evidence which will not only prove the corpus delicti, if the Court please, but which I expect will connect the defendant directly with the crime. Before placing that witness on the stand, however, I would ask permission to call one witness slightly out of order. It is for the purpose of laying a foundation.”