“So you deliberately planned to get caught stealing … ?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. “Somewhere, I’d read that a person couldn’t be charged with shoplifting until they’d removed the things from the store. However, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Mason …”

  Sergeant Holcomb interrupted. “All right, now I’m going to tell you something else. Your brother was found …”

  Dr. Gifford came charging forward. “No, you don’t!” he shouted. “I warned you my patient was to be spared that nerve shock. You agreed to this interview on that understanding. You can’t …”

  “I can do anything I damn please,” Holcomb said. “You aren’t in charge here. I’m in charge here.”

  “You may not think I’m in charge here,” Dr. Gifford said, “but this woman is under my care. I stretched a point in letting you question her at this time. You’re not going to inflict any shock on her. That was definitely understood before the interview commenced.”

  “Well, as it happens,” Holcomb said, “I’ve changed my mind. I may not know a lot about medicine, but I think this woman is in full possession of her faculties right now and …”

  Dr. Gifford nodded to the red-headed nurse. She produced a package from under her arm. Dr. Gifford said. “Just a moment,” and stepped forward. “Let me see your left arm, please, Mrs. Breel,” he said.

  She extended her left arm. Dr. Gifford made a quick jabbing motion with his right hand. Sergeant Holcomb pushed forward and said suspiciously, “Say, what are you doing?”

  Dr. Gifford stood so that his body shielded his hand and Mrs. Breel’s arm from Sergeant Holcomb’s eyes. Then he stepped away and motioned to the nurse. She handed him a piece of cotton. Dr. Gifford placed the piece of cotton to the neck of an alcohol bottle and swabbed off a place on Mrs. Breel’s arm. He turned to the court reporter and said, “You might make a note at this time that I have just given Mrs. Breel a powerful narcotic and sedative, administered hypodermically. While I don’t ordinarily consider such treatment indicated in a case of this nature, I consider that it is infinitely preferable for the patient than being subjected to further nerve shock.”

  Sergeant Holcomb said, “I don’t give a damn what you’ve given her. I’m going to go ahead with this thing. …”

  “Go right ahead,” Dr. Gifford advised. “The patient is now beginning to feel the influence of the narcotic. As a physician, I would say that any answer to any question she might make from now on will be completely unreliable.”

  Mrs. Breel sighed, settled back on the bed, and closed her eyes. There was the faint trace of a smile visible at the corners of her mouth. Sergeant Holcomb yelled, “She’s shamming. That’s a damn fake. That hypodermic couldn’t have taken effect this soon.”

  “I take it,” Dr. Gifford said, “that you consider your knowledge of medicine superior to mine.”

  Sergeant Holcomb lost his temper. His face darkened as he shouted, “Well I know what I think. I think she’s shamming. I think this whole thing is a stall. Now then, I’m going to tell her about her brother. Mrs. Breel, you can play possum all you want to, but your brother was found …”

  Sampson lunged for Holcomb, clapped his hand over Holcomb’s lips. “Shut up, you fool. I’m in charge of this.”

  Holcomb jumped back with his fist doubled, then squared away to face Sampson belligerently. “All right,” he said, “you asked for it. You …”

  “Shut up!” Sampson said. “Can’t you see that you’d be playing right into their hands?”

  Sergeant Holcomb said, “I’ll show you,” and swung.

  Sampson jumped back. Gifford said, “Gentlemen, I’m going to order hospital attendants to clear this room. This is a disgraceful scene, and it’s having a most harmful effect on my patient.”

  Sampson said, “Don’t be a damn fool, Holcomb. Can’t you see that if you …”

  Holcomb, still facing Sampson with his fists doubled, said, “Stand up and fight, you little rat! You can be taken in by all this flim-flam, but I’m not being taken in by it.” Still holding his fists doubled, and keeping Sampson away from him, he turned around to face the bed. “All right, Mrs. Breel,” he said, “let’s see how you take this…. Your brother’s body was found in his office. He’d been shot by a thirty-eight caliber revolver and the body jammed in a packing case.”

  Mrs. Breel might not have heard him. With her eyes closed, her face utterly without expression, she breathed steadily and deeply, as though sleeping. Sampson said sarcastically, “All right, flat-foot, now you’ve done it! You’ve played the one trump card we had at a time when she was under the influence of a narcotic.”

  “She’s no more under the influence of a narcotic than I am,” Sergeant Holcomb said, but his voice somehow lacked conviction.

  “No?” Sampson said. “Well, you’ll never be able to surprise her with that bit of information now. You’ve put your cards on the table. She’ll sleep that hypodermic off and decide how she wants to play her cards after she wakes up.”

  Mason said, “Now that there’s a lull in the furious recriminations, I want the court reporter to be quite certain that he has noted the time at which Dr. Gifford gave the patient the hypodermic. I want him to note that, notwithstanding the nervous condition of the patient, the deputy district attorney and the sergeant of the homicide squad engaged in a fist fight, across the foot of the bed …”

  “There wasn’t any fist fight,” Sampson said. “Don’t be a fool, Mason.”

  “I considered it a fist fight,” Mason observed.

  “Well, I didn’t,” Sampson said. “I didn’t even make a pass at Holcomb. I kept out of his way.”

  “Holcomb certainly made a swing at you,” Mason said.

  “Well, that’s neither here nor there,” Sampson remarked.

  Mason grinned his fighting grin. “It may not be here, but it’s either in that shorthand record or I’m going to find out why it isn’t.”

  The court reporter nodded wearily and said, “It’s in.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said.

  There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Breel, on the bed, gave a peculiar gurgling sound which might have been a snore. Sergeant Holcomb asserted once more, “No hypodermic in the world ever took effect that quick.”

  “Did you,” Mason asked, “note the exact time when Dr. Gifford administered the hypodermic?”

  “No,” Holcomb said, “but it was less than two minutes ago.”

  Mason said, “Time passes very rapidly, Sergeant, when you’re engaged in fisticuffs with a deputy district attorney in the room of a patient whose physicial condition is so grave that the doctor has warned you not to subject her to any undue shock.”

  Sampson said disgustedly, “Come on, we’re not getting anywhere with this. We’re just playing into Mason’s hands now.”

  Holcomb said, “Well, there’s a lot about this that needs to be explained.”

  “Not here,” Sampson told him.

  Sergeant Holcomb stood staring at the woman on the bed, as though the sheer impact of his eyes would stir her to life. Dr. Gifford said, “You gentlemen might just as well do your brawling elsewhere. My patient is now completely oblivious to everything which is taking place.”

  Holcomb turned to the doctor and said, “You’ll hear more about this.”

  “Yes, there’ll be a lot more heard about it,” Dr. Gifford said grimly. “If there are any resulting complications, I am going to hold you personally responsible.”

  Mason said, “I think, Doctor, we can get a court order restraining the officers from asking any further questions until after you have decided that such questions won’t jeopardize her health.”

  “That interval,” Dr. Gifford said with dignity, “will, of necessity, be somewhat prolonged because of the mental strain to which she has just been subjected. Gentlemen, I am going to ask you to clear the room.” As they hesitated, Dr. Gifford said, “In the event you don’t go now, I am going to ask the hospital office to send up sufficient orderlies to see that the room is cleared.”

  Sampson said, “Come on, Holcomb. We can’t do anything here.”

  Holcomb said, “Well, I’m not going to leave Mason behind to tip her off what to say.”

  Mason started toward the door. In abrupt contrast to the vociferous recriminations which had taken place in that room, he made an elaborate show of tiptoeing so that he would not disturb the sleeper. “I,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “see nothing gained by trying to disturb the slumbers of a drugged woman.”

  Dr. Gifford nodded. Despite himself Sampson suppressed a smile. Sergeant Holcomb, seeming about to choke with indignation, started to say something, but Sampson touched him on the shoulder and said, “That’s all of it, Sergeant.”

  Chapter 9

  Mason stopped in the telephone booth at the hospital to call Paul Drake. “Listen, Paul,” he said, “things are happening fast up at this end. Give me the low-down on Virginia Trent.”

  “They’re keeping her in the custody of a police nurse,” Drake said. “They took her to headquarters last night, and gave her the works until she had hysterics good and plenty. Then they had a doctor give her a big sedative and a police nurse took her home. The nurse is standing guard.”

  “Any formal charge?” Mason asked.

  “None at present. They’re probably holding her as a material witness if it comes to a show-down, but they’re not too certain about her. The uncle was killed with one bullet fired from a thirty-eight caliber revolver found in the upper right-hand drawer of the desk. You were there when Sergeant Holcomb found the gun.”

  “So what?” Mason said. “She came in there just a few minutes before I did. The body had been there for some time.”

  “I know, but they’re wondering whether she didn’t go in there to do something about disposing of the body or trying to get something out of the pockets or …”

  “All that’s absurd,” Mason said.

  “Well, I’m not arguing with you,” Drake told him philosophically, “I’m telling you what the authorities claim. They’ve claimed absurdities before and they’ll probably do so again. What’s happened up there, Perry? You seem to have your fighting clothes on.”

  “Oh, they tried to get rough with Mrs. Breel,” Mason said.

  “Did they get anywhere?”

  “Nowhere at all,” Mason reported, and chuckled at the thought.

  “How about Ione Bedford?”

  “She’s still in the Milpas Apartments.”

  “Has Pete Chennery come in yet?”

  “Not according to latest reports.”

  “All right, then,” Mason said, “we’ll take the gambling-house angle. I’m out at the Dearborn Memorial Hospital. You’d better come out and pick me up. I came out in a cab.”

  Drake said, “I’ll be out there in ten minutes.”

  Mason hung up the telephone, strolled down the linoleum-floored corridor to the big marble steps in front of the hospital, where he enjoyed the sunlight and concentrated over a cigarette until Paul Drake slid his car in close to the curb. Mason ran down the steps, jumped into the car and said, “Let’s tackle that banker on the gambling angle, Paul.”

  “Okay,” Drake said, spinning the wheel. “Why is the gambling-house angle so important?”

  Mason said, “Because the books don’t balance, Paul.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mason said, “Notice that, according to the reports Cullens gave Ione Bedford over the telephone, George Trent had been up to The Golden Platter on Saturday night and had hocked the stones for six thousand dollars. Cullens was going to get them for three.”

  “Well?” Drake asked.

  “George Trent’s body,” Mason said, “was found in his office. According to all the reports I get, when he goes out on a drunk he doesn’t shave, bathe or change his clothes. He gets pretty disreputable. Now then, he was neatly dressed, and there wasn’t any stubble on his face when his body was found. He must have been killed in his own office. If he went to the gambling house and pawned those stones for six thousand dollars, he must have returned to his office some time that night and was killed there.”

  “Well,” Drake said, “why couldn’t that have happened?”

  “It just doesn’t fit into the picture. In the first place, he’d mailed in the keys to his car. He’d gone out to get drunk. It’s a moot question whether he’d have taken the Bedford diamonds with him. Now then, if he did, it’s hard to believe he’d have hocked diamonds which didn’t belong to him—at least that early in the game. After he’d been on a bat for two or three days and his sense of perspective had become pickled in alcohol, it might have been different.”

  “What are you getting at?” Drake asked.

  “Simply this: If Trent didn’t leave those stones at The Golden Platter in return for six thousand dollars, why did Cullens tell Ione Bedford that he did? If Trent didn’t leave the stones there, and Cullens thought he did, and went up and started to get rough with those gamblers, they might have been responsible for what happened to Cullens. Apparently, a copper penny had been inserted in the socket of one of the lights out at Cullens’ house so that when anyone came in and turned on the light switch, it’d blow the fuse. That doesn’t sound like an amateur to me. Moreover, if those were the Bedford diamonds in Mrs. Breel’s bag, and if it was Mrs. Breel’s bag, there’s no definite proof that the diamonds actually came from that chamois-skin belt which Cullens was wearing. Now then, you add to that the fact that Ione Bedford swears they weren’t her diamonds, and we get into some complicating factors.”

  “I’ll say we do,” Drake said. “It’s all tangled up like a cat in flypaper, and the more you move it around, the worse it gets.”

  “Therefore,” Mason said, “it’s important to go back to first principles. I want to find out whether those stones actually were pawned with The Golden Platter.”

  “I don’t see how the witness we’re going to interview now can help you on that,” Drake said.

  “He can help us to this extent,” Mason told him. “Suppose Cullens was playing some kind of a game and simple stringing Ione Bedford along? Suppose he didn’t have any actual tip that the stones had been hocked at The Golden Platter … ? Or, suppose he didn’t go to The Golden Platter, but was standing in cahoots in some way with Bill Golding?”

  “I get you,” Drake said. “You want to check on everything. Is that right?”

  “On everything,” Mason told him.

  “Well, here we are,” Drake observed, driving the car into a parking station. “The bank’s across the street.”

  They crossed the street, to enter the sumptuous marble interior of the bank, where a uniformed policeman paraded back and forth in slow dignity. Officers sat behind desks, dictating, making notations, holding conferences. Cashiers were busily engaged in accepting deposits and paying out checks. “Who’s our man?” Mason said.

  “The white-haired bird over here on the left,” Drake told him.

  Mason said, “He looks absolutely impregnable.”

  Drake chuckled, “Remember the story about the banker’s glass eye, Perry. Come on, let’s go.”

  They approached a breast-high marble railing on which appeared a brass plaque bearing the name, MR. MARQUAD. The white-haired man was listening with cold impassiveness to a man who sat on the opposite side of his desk. The visitor was leaning forward, sitting on the very edge of the chair, giving the impression of wanting to crawl up on the desk in order to get nearer to the banker. Finally, Mr. Marquad shook his head. The man engaged in a barrage of conversation. Again the banker shook his head and, with a gesture of finality, picked up some correspondence on his desk. Mason heard him say, “I’m sorry, but it’s absolutely impossible.”

  As the man still lingered, Marquad said, “That, of course, is my judgment. I’ll take it up with our advisory board if you desire…. Very well, I’ll make a note and submit it to them. You can drop in at ten-thirty tomorrow morning for your answer.”

  He made a note on a pad, smiled a cold farewell at the departing visitor, and then got up to come to the partition and regard Mason and the detective with an expression of neutral greeting. Mason felt that the face could change instantly into patronizing courtesy or cold negation without seeming in the least inconsistent with that initial expression. Drake flashed a questioning glance at Mason. Mason nodded and said, “I’ll handle it, Paul.”

  Mr. Marquad turned to Mason. Mason said, “I wonder if you read the morning paper, Mr. Marquad?”

  “Just what did you have in mind?” Marquad asked. Mason slid his card over the counter. Marquad looked at it, and his face showed a flicker of expression. “Yes, Mr. Mason,” he said, “I’ve heard of you. What did you have reference to particularly?”

  “The murder of Austin Cullens,” he said.

  “Indeed!” Marquad remarked.

  “I’m trying to check up on Cullens’ activities immediately preceding the murder,” Mason said. “There was a photograph and, in addition to the photograph, an excellent description. In case you haven’t read about it, Mr. Marquad, I’ll call your attention to the clipping.” Mason took a newspaper clipping from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it to the banker. Marquad glanced at it and nodded. “Please read the description,” Mason insisted.

  The banker read the description and then said, “I’m sure I don’t know just what you’re getting at, Mr. Mason.”