“And then?” Mason asked.

  “Then,” she said, “I looked up and saw Mrs. Snoops had been watching. Lord knows how long she’d been watching—probably she’d seen everything. I told Jimmy to leave. He started to go and ran into some officers from a radio prowl car, who took his name and address from his driving license. Then I knew we were sunk.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Mason said. “Did Jimmy come back into the house after the officers took his name and address?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “We talked things over, and Jimmy had the idea of having Rita come over and put on my dress, catch the canary, finish clipping his claws, and take occasion to stand in the window where Mrs. Snoops could see her and recognize her plainly. You see, we look enough alike so Mrs. Snoops couldn’t have been absolutely certain, seeing through the lace curtains.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason said.

  “I rang up Rita. She knows the rest.”

  “Where did you ring her up from?”

  “The house, but I didn’t dare say much.”

  “How long were you there after you telephoned?”

  “No time at all. Telephoning her was the last thing I did in the house. I rushed to the airport, where I called Rita again and told her everything.”

  “Did you come here in a regular plane, or a chartered plane?”

  “No, I flew to San Francisco, and then took a plane to Reno.”

  Mason jerked his head toward Jimmy Driscoll and said, “How about you?”

  “He came too,” she said.

  “On the same plane?”

  Rosalind nodded.

  “Now then,” Mason asked, “when did you first know your husband had been murdered?”

  Her eyes grew wide and round. “Walter?” she said. “Murdered?”

  Mason, watching her narrowly, said, “Yes. Murdered.”

  “Watch out, Rosalind,” Driscoll warned. “It’s some sort of a trap. He hasn’t been murdered, or we’d have heard of it.”

  Mason turned to stare at Rita Swaine. “You knew it, Rita,” he charged.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, unless it’s some sort of a stall to get a big fee out of Rossy.”

  “Is that the truth?” Rosalind Prescott demanded. Has he been murdered, or is this some sort of a trap?”

  Mason continued to regard Rita Swaine with thoughtful eyes. “How did you come here?” he asked. “By regular plane or chartered plane?”

  “I chartered a plane and came directly here.”

  “How soon after you left my office?”

  “Within a very few minutes. I left the canary at the pet store I’d asked you about, then took a cab and went directly to the airport.”

  “And you didn’t know Walter Prescott’s body was lying in the upstairs bedroom of that house?”

  “You mean Rosalind’s house?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t, and I don’t think it was or is.”

  Rosalind Prescott abruptly sat down, stared wide-eyed at the lawyer.

  “You didn’t know it?” Mason asked her.

  “No, of course not—it’s—it’s a shock to me. Not that I cared for him. I didn’t. I hated him. You’ve no idea how cold-blooded, how scheming, how utterly petty he was! There wasn’t a spark of affection in his make-up—Whether he’s dead or alive, I still hate him—but this is a shock, just the same.”

  “Your husband,” Mason said, “was found in his bedroom upstairs. He was fully clothed, ready for the street. He had been shot three times with a .38 caliber revolver. The police found the gun in back of the drawer in the desk where you’d hidden it, and they figure, so far, it’s the fatal gun. If anything has turned up to change their opinion I haven’t heard of it.”

  Mason turned to Jimmy Driscoll. “What was the gun you gave Rosalind?”

  “A Smith & Wesson.”

  “What caliber?”

  Driscoll hesitated, then said, “A .38—but that’s not an unusual caliber.”

  “Any distinguishing marks on it?” Mason asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean—anything by which that gun can be identified, any marks or scratches?”

  “Yes. A little V-shaped piece was broken out of one of the pearl handles right near the butt of the gun.”

  “Was it blued-steel or nickel-plated?”

  “Blued-steel.”

  Mason said in a voice devoid of expression, “Let’s hear your side of this thing, Driscoll—no, wait a minute before you say anything. I’m Rosalind Prescott’s lawyer. Probably I’m representing Rita Swaine too. I don’t know about that. I’ll have to figure it out. I’m not representing you, and I’m not going to represent you.”

  “I don’t want you to,” Driscoll said vehemently. “I have counsel of my own, in whom I have more confidence—a lawyer whose professional manner is far more dignified than yours.”

  Mason appraised him judicially. “Yes, you would fall for a dignified manner, proper clothes, a big mahogany desk, and the usual background of hokum. All right, that’s settled. You have your lawyer. I’m Rosalind Prescott’s lawyer. Now, do you want to say anything?”

  “Of course I want to say something.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason told him. “Say it.”

  “I want to corroborate Rosalind’s statement in every way.”

  Mason stared at him with cold eyes. “Did you kill Walter Prescott?” he asked.

  “Of course not. I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Did you see Walter Prescott while you were in the house?”

  “No. I was with Rosalind all of the time.”

  “All of the time?” Mason asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Every minute?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re willing to swear to that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, don’t misunderstand me,” Mason said. “You’re going to swear that you were with Rosalind Prescott every minute, from the time you entered the house until you and Rosalind left together?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about when you went out to lift the man out of the coupe, and when you met the officers? You weren’t with her then.”

  Driscoll said, in a calm tone which just missed being patronizing, “That’s while I was out of the house. I understood that your questions related to the time I was in the house.”

  “And all the tíme you were in the house, you were with Rosalind every minute of the time?”

  “I’ve already answered that two or three times.”

  “Answer again, then. You were with her?”

  “Yes.”

  Rosalind started to say something, but checked herself as Driscoll frowned at her.

  “All right,” Mason said, “then you were in the bedroom with her while she was changing her clothes.”

  Driscoll started to make some quick rejoinder, changed his mind, closed his lips on his unspoken words, glanced hastily at Rosalind and said, “Well, of course, she—How about it, Rosalind?”

  Rosalind said, “Of course he wasn’t with me while I was changing my clothes! He wasn’t with me while I was packing my overnight bag. He’s just trying to make an alibi for me.”

  “Just in case that’s right,” Mason said, “I wanted you to see what a price you’d have to pay for making that alibi. That question’s going to come up. Either Jimmy Driscoll has to swear he was in the bedroom with you while you were changing your dress, or he’s going to have to place you in that bedroom alone.”

  “But wait a minute,” Rosalind said, “that was after Jimmy’d given me the gun. Mrs. Snoops will have to admit that.”

  Mason nodded. “Yes, you changed your clothes afterwards. But how about Walter, was his body lying in his bedroom at that time, or wasn’t it?”

  “Why—why, I don’t know.”

  “How long since you’d been in his bedroom?”

  “I hadn’t been in all the morning. His bedroom is separated from mine by my dressing room and a bath. I met him that morning at breakfast. He was particularly offensive. He’d found a letter Jimmy had written me. He’d just been waiting for something like that. He’d taken twelve thousand dollars of my money, and I didn’t have a thing to show for it. He was afraid I was going to demand it back and he was just looking for an opportunity to put me in the wrong and file suit for divorce, so it would look as though I’d thought up the money business after he’d filed and in order to save my own reputation by putting him in the wrong.”

  “I suppose you know,” Mason told her, “this is going to sound like hell in front of a jury.”

  She nodded.

  “According to Mrs. Snoops,” Mason went on, “you were trimming the claws of the canary when Driscoll came into the solarium and took you in his arms.”

  She nodded.

  “Mrs. Snoops,” Mason went on remorselessly, “had been watching you for several minutes before Driscoll came in. Driscoll wasn’t in the solarium with you, but he’d already been in the house for some forty-five minutes. Mrs. Snoops saw him come in and noticed the time.”

  “She would!” Rosalind exclaimed bitterly.

  “That,” Mason said, “isn’t the point. The point is, Driscoll wasn’t in the solarium with you. Where was he?”

  “Telephoning,” Driscoll said quickly.

  “To whom?”

  “To my office. Rosalind’s telephone call had caught me at my apartment. I dashed out to see her, and I had some orders which had to be executed first thing in the morning, so I telephoned my office.”

  “How long were you telephoning?”

  “I don’t know exactly, perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten minutes.”

  “And it was while he was telephoning,” Mason asked, turning to Rosalind Prescott, “that you went into the solarium to clip the claws on the canary?”

  “Yes.”

  “And prior to that time Driscoll hadn’t gone in for affection?”

  “He hadn’t taken me in his arms, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “No.”

  “So that’s another period of time while Driscoll was in the house that you can’t account for what he was doing?”

  “No,” she said, “I guess not.”

  “If you want to put it that way,” Driscoll said hostilely.

  “It’s the way I want to put it,” Mason remarked, without taking his eyes from Rosalind Prescott. “And it was while this telephone conversation was going on that the automobile accident took place outside?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you let go of the canary and dashed to the front of the house?”

  “No, wait a minute. I let go of the canary when Jimmy took me in his arms. Then Jimmy let me go, and I was all flustered, and Jimmy said he was going to call and make reservations for me on the next plane to Reno. So he went out to telephone, and I was getting ready to catch the canary, and then the accident took place.”

  “And, before that, Driscoll had been telephoning his office?”

  “Yes, I believe so. It’s all confused in my mind. I was pretty much upset by the quarrel with Walter, and then finding myself running away with Jimmy—well, I just can’t remember things in detail. There are a lot of blurred impressions in my mind.”

  “But, all in all, Driscoll was at the telephone for several minutes, and on at least two occasions?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you can’t swear he was at the telephone?”

  “No.”

  “What time did the accident happen?”

  “I can tell you that. It was right at noon. The twelve o’clock whistles had just started to blow when I heard the crash.”

  “Then Driscoll went out, helped lift the unconscious man from the coupe, and returned to the house. By the time he returned you were back in the solarium, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you first know Mrs. Snoops was watching you?”

  “After Jimmy had given me the gun.”

  “And that was when you decided that he was going to leave the house and you’d join him later?”

  “Yes. I was going to the airport. He’d write me at Reno.”

  “And he went out, ran into the officers, had to give them his name and address, and then came back to tell you that the fat was in the fire and that you’d better let him go to Reno with you?”

  “Not exactly like that. He told me what had happened. We realized it put us in an awful spot, so we sat down and tried to figure out some way of getting around it. Then Jimmy thought of having Rita come in and finish clipping the canary’s claws where Mrs. Snoops could see her. She could put on my dress and go stand in the window.”

  Mason, looking across at Driscoll, said, “A clever idea—only rather tough on Rita.”

  Driscoll said, “At that time, Mr. Mason, you will kindly remember, I didn’t know anyone had been murdered. I thought it was simply a question of saving Rosalind from having her name dragged through a lot of legal mud because of my impulsiveness and because I couldn’t help showing my love.”

  Mason said disinterestedly, “Save it for the jury, Driscoll. They’ll want to hear it more than I do. Now then, does either of you know what caused that automobile accident?”

  Driscoll disdained to say anything, but Rosalind Prescott shook her head.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ve found out,” Mason said. “Harry Trader, driving one of his big vans, was making a turn into Fourteenth Street, to deliver some stuff Walter Prescott had ordered him to put in the garage. He swung wide to make the turn. Packard, driving the coupe, came dashing up on the inside without looking where he was going. The first thing he knew, he sensed the van looming ahead of him and on his left. By that time, it was too late. The van was swinging in for the curb. Packard couldn’t change the course of his car, and they struck. Now then, the reason Packard wasn’t looking where he was going was because he’d seen something in a window of one of the houses on his right, which had arrested his attention. It couldn’t have been the Anderson house, because Mrs. Anderson was the only one in that house and she was standing at her dining room window, looking into your solarium. Therefore, it must have been something which he saw in your house, Mrs. Prescott. Now then, have you any idea of what that something could have been?”

  “None whatever,” she said promptly.

  “It couldn’t have been in the Prescott house,” Driscoll said positively, “because Rosalind and I were alone in the house. She was in the solarium and I was telephoning.”

  “That,” Mason said moodily, “is what you say. What do you suppose Packard will say when they find him?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care—What’s the matter? Can’t they find him?”

  Mason shook his head. “He wandered out of the hospital and disappeared. Now then, Driscoll, where were you when Packard left the hospital?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About an hour after the accident.”

  Rosalind laughed light-heartedly and said, “That’s once the breaks are with us, Mr. Mason. Jimmy was with me at the airport—in fact, I guess we were already flying to San Francisco.”

  Mason said, “Now here’s something else: You people are wanted by the police. I know you’re wanted by the police. Rita left a broad back trail because of that lame canary. I traced her through that, and if I did, the police may. Now then, if it were ever kown that I talked with you here and didn’t turn you in to the police, knowing that you were fugitives from justice, I might be held as an accessory. The question is, can I trust you to keep your mouths shut?”

  Rita Swaine nodded and said, “Why, of course.”

  Rosalind Prescott said, “But we’re not fugitives from justice, Mr. Mason.”

  “Well, it looks like it. Why did you come here in such unseemly haste?”

  “I came here,” she said, “because I wanted to get out of the state so Walter couldn’t serve any divorce papers on me. I thought I could come to Reno and file a divorce case of my own. After I got here, I found out I couldn’t do it until I’d had six weeks’ residence. But I didn’t want Walter to know where I was for a while because I was afraid he’d kill me. So this suited me all right.”

  “And Driscoll came here to be with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And why did you come here, Rita?”

  “To bring some of the things Rossy needed.”

  “And you had to charter an airplane to do it?” “Well,” she said, “I wanted to tell Rossy that everything had worked like a charm; that I’d fooled Mrs. Snoops and that you’d agreed to represent her, and that she was to get in touch with you. I thought perhaps she could telephone you and arrange for an appointment. She could fly in and fly out and Walter wouldn’t be any the wiser.”

  “You didn’t go into that upstairs bedroom while you were in the house?” Mason asked.

  “Not into Walter’s bedroom, no. Rossy had left the dress on the bed in her room. I ran up to her room, changed into her dress, came down, caught the canary, put on an act for Mrs. Snoops, packed some things for Rossy, and took them with me when I left the house. I sent some other things by express.”

  “You had the express man call for them while you were there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you send them?”

  “To Mildred Owens, General Delivery, Reno. You see, that’s the name Rosalind had told me she’d register under, so I could keep in touch with her without anyone knowing.”

  “Sounds like rather an elaborate set of precautions just to avoid a husband,” Mason pointed out.

  “I can’t help it. That’s the truth.”