For a long moment, Della Street was silent. Then she said, “No.”
“That,” Scudder announced triumphantly, “is all.”
Mason arose to cross-examine.
“Della,” he said, “did you tell me about what you saw?”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t tell a living soul.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because,” she said, “I thought that, as your secretary, I couldn’t be called as a witness. I thought that the testimony of Aileen Fell would cover everything I had seen and that therefore it was best for me to say nothing. I was afraid that if the newspapers knew of what I had seen, they would exaggerate it because of my connection with you, and perhaps make it seem you were suppressing evidence by not calling me to the stand.... So I kept quiet.”
She turned to face Judge Romley.
“I really and sincerely thought, Judge,” she went on, “that no one could make me testify if I didn’t want to because I understood it to be the law that a lawyer’s secretary couldn’t be called to testify against the lawyer’s client.”
“That is only as to privileged communications,” Judge Romley said kindly.