When Atticus is cross examining Heck Tate, the following information is revealed about Mayella's injuries:
Atticus looked up at Mr. Tate. “Which side again, Heck?”
“The right side, Mr. Finch, but she had more bruises—you wanta hear about ‘em?”
Atticus seemed to be bordering on another question, but he thought better of it and said, “Yes, what were her other injuries?”
As Mr. Tate answered, Atticus turned and looked at Tom Robinson as if to say this was something they hadn’t bargained for. “…her arms were bruised, and she showed me her neck. There were definite finger marks on her gullet—”
“All around her throat? At the back of her neck?”
“I’d say they were all around, Mr. Finch.”
From this information, we find that Mayella was injured primarily on one side of her body, the right. We also find that someone strangled her around her entire neck, using both hands. Next, when Bob Ewell is questioned, he is asked to write, and the jury and courtroom sees that he is left handed, meaning that his primary hand is consistent with Mayella's injuries. Finally, we hear from Tom Robinson, who recounts that Mayella kissed him - and when Bob Ewell sees this, he attacks her.
The witness (Tom)swallowed hard. “She reached up an‘ kissed me ’side of th‘ face. She says she never kissed a grown man before an’ she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don’t count. She says, ‘Kiss me back, nigger.’ I say Miss Mayella lemme outa here an‘ tried to run but she got her back to the door an’ I’da had to push her. I didn’t wanta harm her, Mr. Finch, an‘ I say lemme pass, but just when I say it Mr. Ewell yonder hollered through th’ window.”
“What did he say?” Tom Robinson swallowed again, and his eyes widened.
“Somethin‘ not fittin’ to say—not fittin‘ for these folks’n chillun to hear—”
“What did he say, Tom? You must tell the jury what he said.”
Tom Robinson shut his eyes tight. “He says you goddamn whore, I’ll kill ya.”
“Then what happened?”
“Mr. Finch, I was runnin‘ so fast I didn’t know what happened.”
Just in case the reader still does not believe that Bob could've beaten Mayella, we get the final detail that Tom is lame on the left side of his body from an old cotton gin accident:
He looked oddly off balance, but it was not from the way he was standing. His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand, and from as far away as the balcony I could see that it was no use to him.
“Scout,” breathed Jem. “Scout, look! Reverend, he’s crippled!”
Reverend Sykes leaned across me and whispered to Jem. “He got it caught in a cotton gin, caught it in Mr. Dolphus Raymond’s cotton gin when he was a boy… like to bled to death… tore all the muscles loose from his bones—
Atticus proves that it's literally impossible that he could have inflicted Mayella's injuries.
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