Rosalind Prescott sat in Perry Mason’s office, clenched her little gloved hands until the soft leather grew tight across the knuckles, and said fiercely, “No, I didn’t kill him! I tell you I didn’t. I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t!”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did.”
“Suppose you did know, then what?”
Her eyes were hard, as they met Mason’s. “I’d tell the police.”
“Suppose Rita did it?”
“What makes you think Rita did it?”
“That isn’t what I said. I asked you what your attitude would be if Rita had killed him.”
“If Rita killed him,” she said, “she isn’t entitled to any consideration from Jimmy or from me. She put us both in an awful spot.”
“Suppose Jimmy killed him?”
“If Jimmy killed him he isn’t entitled to any more consideration — well, hardly any more — well—”
Mason nodded and said, “So it’s different if Jimmy killed him, is it?”
“Well,” she said hotly, “if Jimmy killed him, he had some reason. He had plenty of reason.”
“Did Rita have any reason?”
“I don’t know. If she did it, it was probably in self-defense.”
“Isn’t that a good reason?” Mason asked.
“Yes. The reason’s all right, but it’s the way she handled it, sneaking out and leaving the body in such a way that Jimmy would be blamed for it.”
“And if Driscoll did it, then what?”
“Jimmy did it to protect me — but he didn’t do it — that is, I don’t think he did it.”
“Did Mrs. Anderson have any grudge against Walter Prescott?”
Her eyes opened wide with surprise. “Why, Mr. Mason! What makes you ask that?”
“I’m just trying to cover every angle of the case,” he said. “Also, I’m trying to cover every possible defense which we might raise. Did she have anything against him?”
“I don’t think so. Of course, Walter had objected to her snooping around. He’d told her a couple of times to mind her own business and quit peering into our windows, and she told him he could keep the shades drawn if he didn’t want her to see him. She said she wasn’t going around her house and pull down all the shades at night.”
“Was it much of a battle?” Mason asked.
“Not particularly. She’s snippy, and Walter was very sarcastic.”
“And that’s all she had against him?”
“All that I know of, yes.”
“Now, your husband had threatened to kill you?”
“Yes.”
“Many times?”
“Twice. The first time was a couple of months ago over something which needn’t make any difference here. The last time was the morning when I ran away.”
“Why did you go to Reno?”
“I had an idea of establishing a residence there and getting a divorce. I thought if I were out of the state Walter wouldn’t do anything right away, and after he’d had a chance to cool off, I might be able to fix things up with him so there wouldn’t be a scandal.”
“You went with Driscoll?”
“Yes.”
“You knew he was jealous of Driscoll?”
“He wasn’t jealous of anyone. He was just a coldblooded, selfish, calculating—”
“Wait a minute,” Mason interrupted. “That isn’t going to be the attitude you’ll take on the witness stand. Cut out that vicious hatred when you speak of Walter Prescott. Remember, he’s dead.”
“I don’t care whether he’s dead or alive. He was—”
“He was your husband,” Mason interrupted. “You had differences of opinion with him. It had occurred to you for some time that you no longer cared for him; that you’d been tricked into marrying him, but you felt sorry for him. Understand that. Your attitude was one of sympathy and compassion. You realized that, while at times he was intensely disagreeable, it was because of his peculiar nervous temperament.”
“It was because he had a cold heart and a selfish, calculating disposition,” she said.
“And,” Mason went on, heedless of her comment, “it was a great shock to you when you learned he was dead, just as it would be a shock to hear that anyone who had been close to you had passed away. You weren’t overcome by grief because you realized you didn’t love him, but you were shocked, and deeply grieved. Hundreds of thousands of marriages go on the rocks every year, but that doesn’t mean that either or both parties to the divorce action are not ordinary likeable human beings. It simply means that emotions don’t remain static; that love, like any other fire, will burn itself out unless fresh fuel is added, and many people don’t understand the art of adding fresh fuel to romance, once the romance has culminated in marriage.”
She said, “You want me to say that?”
“Words to that effect,” he told her.
“On the witness stand?”
“You probably won’t be asked on the witness stand. But long before you get into court you’ll be interviewed by newspaper men and—”
“I’ve already been interviewed,” she said. “Plenty!”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing. You told me to say nothing, and that’s exactly what I did.”
“All right,” he told her. “We’re going to change that now. You’re going to talk, and you’re going to talk freely. You just can’t believe that Rita could possibly have done any such thing, although you didn’t have an opportunity to discuss with Rita exactly what had happened after you left the house. Remember, you’re to tell all the newspaper people that you and Rita didn’t discuss what occurred while she was there in the house.”
Rosalind Prescott nodded.
“You’ll admit frankly that you love Jimmy Driscoll. In fact, you’ll spread that on rather thick. Remember, all the world loves a lover. But be sure that it’s romance and not the marital transgression of a restless woman. You had loved Jimmy; then you had quarreled. You had resolutely put Jimmy out of your life and endeavored by every means to make your marriage a success. Gradually the veneer had worn off. You came to see that you and Walter weren’t suited for each other. No matter how much he might have meant to others, he couldn’t fill your life. And he didn’t try. Your married life became sort of a cat-and-dog existence. You were desperately unhappy. During all of this time the thought of Jimmy Driscoll hadn’t come to your mind except as a friend. Then he wrote to you, not as a lover, but as a friend, a friend who had handled all your financial matters. He told you that it would be better to make the break and get it over with and not try to prolong a hopeless situation. Then, when Jimmy came to the house and you looked in his eyes, you suddenly realized that you loved him and always had loved him. But that was after you had realized that you could never continue living with Walter Prescott: after you had both agreed to split up and obtain a divorce. Do you understand that?”
“What do I say about the twelve thousand dollars?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Mason said, “other than that you gave Walter some money to invest. His untimely death prevented you two from having a financial accounting.”
“That’s what I say, but what about the twelve thousand dollars?” she demanded.
“It doesn’t make any difference now,” Mason told her. “You inherit whatever property there is. Now that the authorities have decided not to prosecute you on a murder charge, I’m filing application for letters of administration. Are there any relatives?”
“No. Otherwise he’d have willed everything to them. In any event, he—”
“Forget it,” Mason interrupted. “Remember that Walter was nervous. Walter was working too hard. Walter was a man who cared nothing for society or companionship, but only because he was too self-sufficient. The fact that you didn’t get along with him doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with his character.”
She said venomously, “I hate to lie. He embezzled my money. He was a—”
“Never mind what he was,” Mason said. “He’s dead. You remember what I told you about him. Keep that attitude whenever you speak of him. He left no relatives, and you as his wife inherit all of his property, whether it’s separate or community. You’ll get your twelve thousand back that way.”
The private telephone on his desk jangled into noise. Only three people had the number of that telephone. It was used only in the event of major emergencies.
Mason scooped the receiver to his ear and heard Drake’s voice saying, “Sorry to call you on this line, Perry, but this is important as hell. I think we’ve found Jason Braun, or Carl Packard, whichever you want to call him.”
“Where?” Mason asked.
“Out in the country. I’m having a man bring up a car.”
“Where are you now?”
“Just leaving the office. I’ll meet you at the elevator.”
Mason said, “Okay,” banged up the receiver, pushed back his chair, called over his shoulder to Rosalind Prescott, “Be back in an hour. In the meantime, remember what I told you. Change your attitude to the newspaper boys. Talk plenty, but don’t tell them anything.”
Della Street scooped her notebook and pencils into a handbag, said, “Do you want me, Chief?”
He shook his head and said, “Go over Mrs. Prescott’s story with her a little. Pretend you’re a newspaper woman. Ask her questions and get her answers. I’ll either be back in an hour or telephone you.”
He grabbed his hat, jerked open the corridor door, and strode down the flagged floor. Drake was waiting for him at the elevator.
“What is it?” Mason asked.
“It’s reported as an automobile accident,” Drake said. “It went in through the traffic department. I don’t think the police have taken a tumble yet.”
“What sort of an accident?”
“Car rolled over a grade out in the mountains between Santa Monica and Triumfo. It’s been down at the bottom of the canyon for a couple of days.”
“The man that drove it?” Mason asked.
“Under the car. Smashed flatter than a pancake.”
The elevator slid to a stop. Drake started to say something as they stepped into the cage, but Mason said, “Save it, Paul,” and glanced significantly at the elevator operator.
Not until they were speeding out Wilshire Boulevard in a car driven by one of Drake’s men did the detective give any details to the attorney. “This report came in to the Highway Department. I won’t bother you with details, Perry, but one of the possibilities I’d figured on was that this chap, Packard, had disappeared because something had happened to him. So I’d assigned men to look into every murder and accident case, as well as every automobile accident. As soon as a report came in, my man chased out to the scene of the accident. He found out this fellow’s hat had the imprint of a haberdashery store in Altaville in the band, and that the initials ‘C.P.’ had been stamped in the band. There seemed to have been no papers of identification in the pockets. From all I can understand, the corpse is pretty much of a mess. However, we can make an identification from finger-prints. The Board of Fire Underwriters had all of their men fingerprinted, and I managed to secure a copy of Jason Braun’s prints.”
Mason said, “Of course, Paul, if the man’s dead, it isn’t going to do us any good to discover him in advance of the police, unless there are some circumstances in connection with his death which would give us a clue. After all, the thing I want is to find out what this man saw in the window of the Prescott house which distracted his attention and sent him crashing into that van.”
“Well,” Drake said, “I figured we’d get on the job, find out all we could, and perhaps take some photographs. I brought a camera along.”
“Where’s the place?”
“Up in the mountains. We go out to Santa Monica, start up the coast boulevard toward Oxnard, and then turn off on one of the side roads. My man will be waiting at the intersection to flag us down.”
Mason lit a cigarette, smoked thoughtfully for a moment while the driver, swinging to the outside lane of traffic, sent the speedometer needle quivering upward.
“Incidentally,” Drake said, “I’ve found out why the police took such prompt steps when the report came in about Stella Anderson having seen the man hiding the gun.”
“Shoot.”
“Prescott had telephoned the police that he had reason to believe someone was going to try to kill him, but couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say who that someone was. The police asked him a few questions, and, among other things, wanted to know if he wanted a permit to carry a gun. He said he didn’t, but said there’d been a prowler around the house for a couple of nights, and if he should telephone the police, he wanted quick action. He said he kept a double-barreled shot-gun in the house and said he wasn’t going to take any chances; that if anyone tried to break in he was going to cut loose with his shot-gun.”
“That sounds phony,” Mason said. “It doesn’t ring true.”
“I know it doesn’t,” Drake told him, “but that’s why the police paid attention to the report that came in about Driscoll giving a gun to the girl to hide.”
Mason said thoughtfully, “I wonder if he thought Jimmy Driscoll was going to be hanging around the house, and he could lay a foundation with a complaint to the police, and then spray Driscoll full of lead.”
“If we’re guessing,” Drake said, “it sounds like a good guess.”
Mason smoked in silence for half a dozen blocks, then said meditatively, “Well, we’re guessing... Paul, there’s something phony about Walter Prescott. I can’t put my finger on just what it is, but somehow he doesn’t ring true. This business of taking money from his wife to invest in the business, and salting it away — the large deposits which he apparently made in the bank, notwithstanding the relatively small amounts he took out of his business— By the way, Trader mentioned he was delivering some stuff to Prescott’s garage. I wonder just what that stuff was. Suppose you check into that angle?”
“But he had the accident and went right on to the hospital,” Drake said “—No, you’re right, at that, Perry, he did make the delivery later. I remember now. He said he left the hospital to come back to the garage.”
“Prescott, you’ll remember,” Mason told him, “had given Trader his keys.”
“That’s right.”
“So Trader had a key to the garage door.”
“I wonder what happened to those keys,” Drake remarked. “Trader’s never accounted for them, as far as I can find.”
“Might be a good plan to give him a little more shakedown.”
“Getting information out of Trader,” Drake said, “is like getting blood out of a turnip.”
Mason nodded. “He left the hospital before Packard was discharged. Packard was there about thirty-five minutes. He arrived there about ten minutes past twelve. That means Trader must have delivered the merchandise some time around quarter to one or one o’clock.”
“That would have been before Rita Swaine arrived?” Drake asked.
Mason nodded and said, “The more I think of it, Paul, the more I think I’m interested in knowing just what that merchandise consisted of. Trader didn’t want to give us any information when we talked with him, but now there’s been a murder, the situation will be different.”
Drake pulled out his notebook, braced himself against the swaying of the automobile, tried in vain to write legibly. He looked at the scrawled letters, grinned and said, “When I see something I can’t read, I’ll know that means ‘look up merchandise in the garage.’ ”
Mason settled back against the cushions. “What did you find out about Prescott?” he asked the detective.
“Plenty,” Drake said. “I can tell you all about him from the time he left kindergarten until he was found dead. I could even give you some of his grades in school.”
“How was he, bright?”
“Not particularly during grammar school. He took a spurt in high school, and made a pretty good record in college. He was a chemical engineer. Then he drifted into insurance adjusting.”
“How about his personality?”
“Rotten,” Drake said. “He made very few friends, either in college or outside. George Wray was the business producer in the firm. Prescott was a walking encyclopedia of miscellaneous information. He had a great mind for detail. He was valuable when it came to taking care of the business Wray brought in.”
“What about Driscoll?” the lawyer asked.
“Just a nice rich play-boy. His mother died when he was fifteen. She left an estate of around a couple of million, mostly in the form of cash. It’s all tied up in a complicated trust, administered by the bank. Driscoll can’t touch the principal until he’s thirty-five. The income goes to him in accordance with the terms of the trust, one of which is that he can’t have more than three hundred dollars a month unless he earns more than three hundred dollars a month in some gainful and legitimate occupation. Then he can get more — but that’s at the discretion of the trustees again.”
“Sounds as though the boy had some defect of character,” Mason said. “From the time he’s fifteen until the time he’s thirty-five is a long time.”
“I know,” Drake said, “but apparently it was his mother’s idea that he was going to have to work and learn something of the value of money before he started playing around with the estate. You see, she put it right up to him. He couldn’t be much of a man-about-town on three hundred a month. But if he earned three hundred dollars a month, then the trustees could turn over as much or as little of the income as they thought advisable. I think it was drink she was afraid of, I don’t know. Anyway, she sure put a fence around the kid.”
“How did she happen to pick on Dimmick, Gray & Peabody?”
“They’d been her lawyers for years. They drew up the trust. And, incidentally, picked off a sweet thing for the bank. That’s the way they do. The bank turns them an estate every once in a while, and they turn the hank a nice piece of trust business.”
“Mrs. Driscoll evidently had a lot of confidence in Abner Dimmick.”
“She did. He was the one who had the contact with her. It was partnership business, but Dimmick was the one she always asked for. Incidentally,” Drake said, “that young chap, Cuff, did a pretty good job of representing Driscoll, didn’t he?”
Mason frowned thoughtfully and said, “I wish I knew. He was either practicing law by ear and happened to make a good guess, or else he’s one of those natural courtroom lawyers we hear about but seldom see. He rather forcibly impressed on me that the authorities couldn’t extradite Rosalind Prescott and that it might be a good move on my part to keep her outside of the state.”
“But,” Drake said, “that would swing public opinion very strongly against her.”
“I’m not certain but what that’s what he was trying to do,” Mason said. “You see, his manner contrasts very much with my own. I sit in court with an armful of legal monkey-wrenches and toss them into the machinery whenever I see a couple of wheels getting ready to move around. Cuff is one of those chaps who apparently wants to co-operate all the time. He was so nice down there at the inquest that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Yet he managed to squeeze out from under and leave Rita Swaine holding the sack.”
They rode for a while in silence. Then Drake asked, “What was your hunch on the redhead in Prescott’s office, Perry?”
“I just thought she’d bear investigation, that’s all. Why, did you find out anything?”
“She’s leading a double life,” Drake said, grinning. “I know that much.”
“What’s the double life?”
“Daytimes she’s Rosa Hendrix. She works at the office under that name, goes home to a thirty-four-dollar-a-month apartment at 1025 Alvord Avenue. She stays there for half an hour or so, then calls a taxi and goes to apartment 5-C in the Bellefontaine, one of the swankiest apartment houses in the city.”
“And what does she do there?”
“Spends the night, apparently, then goes to the Alvord Avenue address and then to work.”
“But what’s the idea?” Mason asked.
“Darned if I know,” Drake told him. “I haven’t been on the job long enough to know.”
“Some man paying for the apartment in the Bellefontaine?”
“Apparently not. She keeps it under the name of Diana Morgan, has a few boy-friends who drop in to see her,but no more than could be expected with a respectable young woman. Everything’s handled very discreetly and aboveboard. But occasionally she announces she’s going to take a trip down to Mexico, up to San Francisco, or over to Reno. She sends a transfer man up, has her trunks taken down to the depot, and doesn’t show up for a week or so. Then she comes back with her procession of trunks, and settles down to routine life.”
“What does she do while she’s gone?” Mason asked.
“Apparently just keeps on working at Prescott & Wray’s office for a salary of a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. Incidentally, the apartment in the Bellefontaine costs her three hundred and ninety-five.”
Mason puckered his forehead into thought.
“Does that add up and make sense?” Drake asked. “You know, she could be a phony, but still not have anything to do with this case.”
Mason nodded thoughtfully. “She could, ” he said, “but all the way through this case there’s been something screwy, something which just didn’t make sense. So, under the circumstances, we’re going to dig into everything that looks the least big irregular. I hate to pry into Rosa Hendrix’s private love-life, Paul, but I want a complete report on everything she does.”
“I’m watching her like a hawk,” Drake told him. “It happens that the manager of the Bellefontaine is a client of mine. I did some work for him once, and he’s let me put one of my men on the elevator.”
The car gained the open road and roared into high speed. Mason sat frowning thoughtfully until he had finished his cigarette. Then he pinched out the stub, dropped it in the ashtray, shook his head and said. “Somewhere along the line, Paul, I’ve overlooked the big bet in this case. It’s just running around in circles.”
“An inside tip from headquarters,” Drake said, “is that they have enough on Rita Swaine to hang her. I don’t want to discourage you on your case, Perry, but I thought you’d like to know.”
Mason said, without taking his eyes from the road, his profile grim and granite-hard, “Don’t ever kid yourself, Paul, circumstantial evidence is sometimes a liar. I think this is one of the times.”
“You don’t think she did it?”
“No.”
“Who did, then?”
“I’m damned if I know. I’m hoping there’ll be something on the body of Jason Braun which will give us a clue as to whom he’d been talking with, where he’s been hiding during the last day or two. He saw something in one of the windows. He must have told someone what he saw.”
“Well, we’ll know in a few minutes. We’re eating up the miles now.”
Again Mason sat back and was silent. Not until the car slued off to the side of the road where a light roadster was parked, with a man standing beside it frantically waving his arms, did the lawyer appear to be conscious of his surroundings. “That your man, Paul?” he asked then.
The detective nodded. “He’ll lead the way,” he said.
Mason sat forward on the edge of the seat, watching every curve in the road as it snaked its way up a precipitous canyon.
“What the devil was Jason Braun doing up here?” the lawyer asked.
“I can’t figure it myself,” Drake said, “unless he came up here to meet someone. Remember, he was an investigator working on a case, and—”
“And if he’d wanted complete privacy, he could have secured it just as well about twenty-five miles nearer the city,” Mason interrupted.
Drake said, “We’ll see.”
The pilot car labored up the heavy grade, rounded a turn, and the stop light flashed an angry red of warning. Ahead of the car, a motorcycle officer, attired in whipcord, puttees and a leather coat, flagged the car to a stop. A tow car was parked crossways a hundred feet beyond him, a taut wire rope stretched down into the depths of the canyon. The motor of the car was turning slowly and the wire rope gradually reeling in over the revolving drums.
Mason and Drake jumped to the ground. Drake showed his card to the traffic officer. “I’m making an investigation of this,” he said.
“What’s the idea?” the officer wanted to know.
“I’m representing an insurance company,” Drake said. “The big-shot thinks the man’s a policy holder.”
“What makes him think that?” the traffic officer wanted to know.
Drake shrugged his shoulders and said, “Probably just a poor hunch, but one of his policy holders has been missing for two or three days, and he’s just playing it safe. Anyway, there’s ten dollars a day and expenses in it for me, eight and expenses for the photographer, and this guy, here, so I should worry.”
The traffic officer nodded. “I’d like prints of any pictures you take,” he said.
“Sure,” Drake told him.
“And don’t mess up anything. The coroner hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Think he’ll come?”
“He’ll probably tell us to bring the body in, but we’re awaiting definite instructions to make sure.”
“Where’s the body?” Mason asked.
“Over there under that tree, covered with a canvas. But you can’t tell anything by that.”
“Why not?”
“Take a look at the head and you’ll see why. Lying out in the sun for a couple of days hasn’t improved things any, either.”
Drake said, “Okay, thanks, we’ll take a look. Come on, boys, let’s go.”
They walked up the road to where the tow car, with its back wheels blocked, was straining at the weight on the other end of the steel line.
The sun beat down from a cloudless sky. The air in the canyon was dry, hot and still. A growth of scrub oak covered the slope which stretched down for a hundred feet below the roadbed to terminate abruptly in a fifty-foot drop. The tow car had raised the wreck above this drop and was now inching it up the slope. From time to time, branches of the scrub oak cracked explosively. Little spurts of powdery dust puffed upward from the trees.
Mason said to the man in charge of operations, “We’re investigators,” and moved over to the white canvas which had been spread beneath the shade of a big oak tree.
Picking up a corner of the canvas, he moved it back. Flies buzzed in angry circles. Mason dropped the canvas back into place and said, “Not much help there.”
Drake dropped to his knees, brought out a small inked pad from his pocket and said, “I can get something from the finger-tips, Perry.”
Mason once more turned a corner of the canvas back. The traffic officer continued to stand where he could warn traffic coming around the blind curve from below. The men in charge of raising the wreck from the canyon were completely occupied with the problems which confronted them. Someone shouted from down below. The winches ceased to turn, and the sounds of an ax, chopping away at a bush, could be heard from the thicket.
Drake transferred prints of the dead man’s fingers to a white piece of paper, produced a magnifying glass and another set of prints from his pocket. Sitting on his heels beside the mangled form of the dead man, Drake made his comparison.
“Don’t try to reduce it to a mathematical certainty,” Mason said. “All I want is a working hypothesis.”
“Well, you’ve got it,” Drake told him. “This is the guy.”
“Jason Braun?”
“Yes. Alias Packard.”
There were shouts from the brush-covered slope. One of the men leaned over the edge of the road, steadying himself by holding to the wire cable. Mason said, “Okay, Paul, go through his pockets. I’ll keep watch.”
“It’s highly irregular,” Drake pointed out. “The coroner is the one who’s supposed—”
“Forget it,” Mason told him. “Go through his pockets. There’s a car coming up the road now.”
For a moment there was comparative silence in the canyon. The grinding winches of the big tow car had stopped. There were no more shouts from down below. The ax blows were suspended. In the hot silence could be heard the faint grind of a car coming up the winding road.
Drake nodded to his assistant. Turning back the canvas, they explored the stained, stiff clothes of the corpse.
Drake said, “A knife, some keys, a handkerchief, half-smoked package of cigarettes, card of matches from the Log Cabin Café in Pasadena, a pencil, fountain pen, forty-eight dollars in bills, two dollars and seven cents in small change. And that’s all. No rings, stick pins, wrist watch — in fact, nothing else.”
Mason said, “That car’s about ready to come around the curve. Probably it’s the coroner. Get that stuff back in his pockets. Make an inventory if you can.”
The men pushed the things back in the pockets. Drake said, “Gosh, Perry, this is getting me where I live. I’m going to be sick.”
“Shut up,” Mason ordered. “Get busy and keep busy. I’ll tell you when that car rounds the corner. Then get up and get away— Here it comes. Beat it!”
Drake’s assistant jumped to his feet, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, inserted it in his lips and held the flame of a match cupped in trembling hands. Drake jerked the canvas back into position, took two uncertain steps toward Mason, veered abruptly, and leaned against the trunk of a tree. His face was a greenish-white.
The car slowed to a stop in front of the traffic officer’s upraised palm. Two men got out. They talked for a few moments. Then the officer nodded and stood to one side.
Mason watched the two men.
“Is it the coroner?” Drake asked, without moving his position.
Mason said, “Move down toward that tow car, Paul, I’m joining you. Let’s keep out of sight.”
“Is it the coroner?” Drake repeated, still standing against the tree.
“It’s Jimmy Driscoll and Rodney Cuff, his lawyer,” Mason said. “Get going.”
The three walked over to the tow car. The pair coming up the road walked with quick, jerky steps. Mason said, “Sort of circle around the hood, boys. Try to make everything you do seem casual. Don’t look over toward them. Keep your eyes on the cable. Act as though we’re part of the salvage crew.”
Someone shouted from below. The man standing by the drums pushed on a lever, and the winches started slowly revolving.
Cuff and Driscoll walked to the edge of the road, peered down the taut line of the wire rope, then stepped back and walked directly to the canvas-covered figure.
Mason said, “Leave this to me, Paul. You fellows stay here.”
He waited some thirty seconds, until Cuff had inserted his fingers in the pockets of the dead man’s coat, then he casually walked forward and said, “I think the coroner likes to be the one to do that, Cuff.”
Rodney Cuff jumped to his feet. Driscoll stared at Mason with the agonized expression of the landlubber who is about to be seasick.
Cuff’s face was completely without expression, but, for a moment, there was a widening of the blue eyes. Then he grinned, stretched out his hand, “Well, well,” he said, “fancy meeting you here!”
Mason took the outstretched hand, said, “You’re interested in this case, Counselor?”
Cuff met his stare steadily. “All right,” he said, “let’s quit beating around the bush. Was this man Carl Packard, or wasn’t he?”
“I never saw Carl Packard,” Mason told him.
“There’s ink on the fingers of his left hand,” Cuff observed.
“What brought you out here?” Mason countered.
“I fancy,” Cuff said, “that our mental processes were somewhat identical. Tell me, is it Packard?”
Mason met the younger man’s eyes and said, “Yes, Cuff, it’s Packard.”
Cuff glanced over toward Jimmy Driscoll, then shifted his eyes quickly back to Mason. “Then,” he said slowly, “we’ll never know just what it was Packard saw in the window.”
Mason turned to face Driscoll. “Don’t be too sure about that, Cuff.”
So far as he could ascertain, Driscoll’s face didn’t change expression by so much as the faintest flicker.