"Friends of the court are defined as persons having a proper interest in the case. As this case arises from the death of the former Amba.s.sador of the Solar League, I cannot see how the present Amba.s.sador and his staff can be excluded. Overruled." He nodded to me. "Continue, Mr.

Amba.s.sador."

"As I understand, I have the same rights of cross-examination of witnesses as counsel for the prosecution and defense; is that correct, Your Honor?" It was, so I turned to the witness. "I suppose, Doctor, that you have had quite a bit of experience, in your practice, with gunshot wounds?"

He chuckled. "Mr. Amba.s.sador, it is gunshot-wound cases which keep the practice of medicine and surgery alive on this planet. Yes, I definitely have."

"Now, you say that the deceased was. .h.i.t by six different projectiles: right shoulder almost completely severed, right lung and right ribs blown out of the chest, spleen and kidneys so intermingled as to be practically one, and left leg severed by complete shattering of the left pelvis and hip-joint?"

"That's right."

I picked up the 20-mm auto-rifle--it weighed a good sixty pounds--from the table, and asked him if this weapon could have inflicted such wounds. He agreed that it both could and had.

"This the usual type of weapon used in your New Texas political liquidations?" I asked.

"Certainly not. The usual weapons are pistols; sometimes a hunting-rifle or a shotgun."

I asked the same question when I cross-examined the ballistics witness.

"Is this the usual type of weapon used in your New Texas political liquidations?"

"No, not at all. That's a very expensive weapon, Mr. Amba.s.sador. Wasn't even manufactured on this planet; made by the z'Srauff star-cl.u.s.ter. A weapon like that sells for five, six hundred pesos. It's used for shooting really big game--supermastodon, and things like that. And, of course, for combat."

"It seems," I remarked, "that the defense is overlooking an obvious point there. I doubt if these three defendants ever, in all their lives, had among them the price of such a weapon."

That, of course, brought Sidney to his feet, sputtering objections to this attempt to disparage the honest poverty of his clients, which only helped to call attention to the point.

Then the prosecution called in a witness named David Crockett Longfellow. I'd met him at the Hick.o.c.k ranch; he was Hick.o.c.k's butler.

He limped from an old injury which had retired him from work on the range. He was sworn in and testified to his name and occupation.

"Do you know these three defendants?" Goodham asked him.

"Yeah. I even marked one of them for future identification," Longfellow replied.

Sidney was up at once, shouting objections. After he was quieted down, Goodham remarked that he'd come to that point later, and began a line of questioning to establish that Longfellow had been on the Hick.o.c.k ranch on the day when Silas c.u.mshaw was killed.

"Now," Goodham said, "will you relate to the court the matters of interest which came to your personal observation on that day."

Longfellow began his story. "At about 0900, I was dustin' up and straightenin' things in the library while the Colonel was at his desk.

All of a sudden, he said to me, 'Davy, suppose you call the Solar Emba.s.sy and see if Mr. c.u.mshaw is doin' anything today; if he isn't, ask him if he wants to come out.' I was workin' right beside the telescreen. So I called the Solar League Emba.s.sy. Mr. Thrombley took the call, and I asked him was Mr. c.u.mshaw around. By this time, the Colonel got through with what he was doin' at the desk and came over to the screen. I went back to my work, but I heard the Colonel askin'

Mr. c.u.mshaw could he come out for the day, an' Mr. c.u.mshaw sayin', yes, he could; he'd be out by about 1030.

"Well, 'long about 1030, his air-car came in and landed on the drive.

Little single-seat job that he drove himself. He landed it about a hundred feet from the outside veranda, like he usually did, and got out.

"Then, this other car came droppin' in from outa nowhere. I didn't pay it much attention; thought it might be one of the other Amba.s.sadors that Mr. c.u.mshaw'd brung along. But Mr. c.u.mshaw turned around and looked at it, and then he started to run for the veranda. I was standin' in the doorway when I seen him startin' to run. I jumped out on the porch, quick-like, and pulled my gun, and then this auto-rifle begun firin'

outa the other car. There was only eight or ten shots fired from this car, but most of them hit Mr. c.u.mshaw."

Goodham waited a few moments. Longfellow's voice had choked and there was a twitching about his face, as though he were trying to suppress tears.

"Now, Mr. Longfellow," Goodham said, "did you recognize the people who were in the car from which the shots came?"

"Yeah. Like I said, I cut a mark on one of them. That one there: Jack-High Abe Bonney. He was handlin' the gun, and from where I was, he had his left side to me. I was tryin' for his head, but I always overshoot, so I have the habit of holdin' low. This time I held too low." He looked at Jack-High in coldly poisonous hatred. "I'll be sorry about that as long as I live."

"And who else was in the car?"

"The other two curs outa the same litter: Switchblade an'

Turkey-Buzzard, over there."

Further questioning revealed that Longfellow had had no direct knowledge of the pursuit, or the siege of the jail in Bonneyville. Colonel Hick.o.c.k had taken personal command of that, and had left Longfellow behind to call the Solar League Emba.s.sy and the Rangers. He had made no attempt to move the body, but had left it lying in the driveway until the doctor and the Rangers arrived.

Goodham went to the middle table and picked up a heavy automatic pistol.

"I call the court's attention to this pistol. It is an eleven-mm automatic, manufactured by the Colt Firearms Company of New Texas, a licensed subsidiary of the Colt Firearms Company of Terra." He handed it to Longfellow. "Do you know this pistol?" he asked.

Longfellow was almost insulted by the question. Of course he knew his own pistol. He recited the serial number, and pointed to different scars and scratches on the weapon, telling how they had been acquired.

"The court accepts that Mr. Longfellow knows his own weapon," Nelson said. "I a.s.sume that this is the weapon with which you claim to have shot Jack-High Abe Bonney?"

It was, although Longfellow resented the qualification.

"That's all. Your witness, Mr. Sidney," Goodham said.

Sidney began an immediate attack.

Questioning Longfellow's eyesight, intelligence, honesty and integrity, he tried to show personal enmity toward the Bonneys. He implied that Longfellow had been conspiring with c.u.mshaw to bring about the conquest of New Texas by the Solar League. The verbal exchange became so heated that both witness and attorney had to be admonished repeatedly from the bench. But at no point did Sidney shake Longfellow from his one fundamental statement, that the Bonney brothers had shot Silas c.u.mshaw and that he had shot Jack-High Abe Bonney in the shoulder.

When he was finished, I got up and took over.

"Mr. Longfellow, you say that Mr. Thrombley answered the screen at the Solar League Emba.s.sy," I began. "You know Mr. Thrombley?"

"Sure, Mr. Silk. He's been out at the ranch with Mr. c.u.mshaw a lotta times."

"Well, beside yourself and Colonel Hick.o.c.k and Mr. c.u.mshaw and, possibly, Mr. Thrombley, who else knew that Mr. c.u.mshaw would be at the ranch at 1030 on that morning?"

n.o.body. But the aircar had obviously been waiting for Mr. c.u.mshaw; the Bonneys must have had advance knowledge. My questions made that point clear despite the obvious--and reluctantly court-sustained--objections from Mr. Sidney.

"That will be all, Mr. Longfellow; thank you. Any questions from anybody else?"

There being none, Longfellow stepped down. It was then a few minutes before noon, so Judge Nelson recessed court for an hour and a half.

In the afternoon, the surgeon who had treated Jack-High Abe Bonney's wounded shoulder testified, identifying the bullet which had been extracted from Bonney's shoulder. A ballistics man from Ranger crime-lab followed him to the stand and testified that it had been fired from Longfellow's Colt. Then Ranger Captain Nelson took the stand. His testimony was about what he had given me at the Emba.s.sy, with the exception that the Bonneys' admission that they had shot Amba.s.sador c.u.mshaw was ruled out as having been made under duress.

However, Captain Nelson's testimony didn't need the confessions.

The cover was stripped off the air-car, and a couple of men with a power-dolly dragged it out in front of the bench. The Ranger Captain identified it as the car which he had found at the Bonneyville jail. He went over it with an ultra-violet flashlight and showed where he had written his name and the date on it with fluorescent ink. The effects of AA-fire were plainly evident on it.

Then the other shrouded object was unveiled and identified as the gun which had disabled the air-car. Colonel Hick.o.c.k identified the gun as the one with which he had fired on the air-car. Finally, the ballistics expert was brought back to the stand again, to link the two by means of fragments found in the car.