"Around twenty-two to twenty-three; somewhere in there; driving a high-powered foreign sports model. He parked it at such an angle I couldn't get the license number."
"On a guess," Mason said, "that was Marvin Harvey Palmer.
"All right, how long did he stay?"
"Somewhere around fifteen minutes. Then he left and a woman came in, a woman about forty, and boy, was she worked up! She went in the minute the kid went out. She was just as stately as you please, and she was in there nearly ten minutes. Then she came out, and that's when the man went in. Now, this man had been waiting. He'd seen the woman's car and recognized it, or had seen the woman or something; anyway, he'd parked his car down at the far end of the parking place here, then he'd seen the woman's car and he'd driven out, parked his car in the street someplace and walked in and hung around in the shadows down at the far end waiting for the woman to leave. He was a dignified guy wearing dark glasses. The minute the woman left he hot-footed it across to Unit 10, banged on the door and went in and was there about five minutes. He came out and things simmered down for about ten minutes and then this blonde came in and boy, was she a knockout… I got the license number on her car."
"Did you get a good look at her?" Mason asked.
"I'll say I got a good look at her. She parked the car and opened the door on the left-hand side and slid out from behind the steering wheel. Believe me she was in a hurry and she didn't care how she looked when she got out-she was just getting out.
"Unit 10 was on the other side of the car from her and when she opened the door and slid out she was coming right toward me. Her skirt just rolled up under her and- Boy, oh, boy, talk about legs!"
"Let's go a little higher than the legs," Mason said. "What about her face?"
"Around twenty-four or so; blonde, tall, and my God, what a figure! She really filled out her clothes."
"All right," Mason said, "this is important. Now, what time did she go in and how long was she in there?"
"She went in about ten minutes after the man left and she was in there, I guess, ten or fifteen minutes. And when she came out she was all excited. Boy, was she running! She made a dive for her car. This time she went in the door that was on the right-hand side and slid across the seat. She threw the car into reverse and whipped out of here in such a hurry that she forgot to turn her headlights on. I've got the time written down in my notebook."
"And after that?" Mason asked.
"After that, everything was quiet for a couple of minutes. Then the manager came down and pounded on the door and after a while opened the door and went in. Then she came out on the run and a few minutes after that the police came."
"All right," Mason said. "Now, let's get this straight. You have been watching this place ever since-what time?"
"Ever since the guy got in here, or right after he got in."
"You know every person who went into that motel. You saw everyone."
"Sure, I saw them."
"There's no back entrance?"
"Just the one door. That is, we may have to check it, but I'm sure there's just the one door because that's the way the places are laid out… and Sid was going to send someone in with some eats for me. -.. Boy, I'm famished!"
"Never mind that," Mason said. "This blonde was in there for how long?"
"About fifteen minutes."
"And she was the last one in?"
"That's right. This guy was hurt. If it was a fist fight, it was the man. If it was a shot or a stab, it could have been the girl-probably was, because she was the last one in."
Mason took Nye to one side, said in a low voice, "We'll peg the first man definitely as Montrose Foster. We'll peg the next man tentatively as Marvin Harvey Palmer, and the third visitor could have been Mrs. Winlock. Then the man with the dark glasses we can be pretty certain was George Winlock… What time did we leave the Winlock residence, Sid?"
"Right around eight-twenty-five," Nye said.
"And it's how far from the Winlock residence here?"
"Not over five minutes if you're driving in a hurry. Both the motel here and the Winlock residence are on the same side of town."
"All right," Mason said. "As soon as we left the place, George Winlock jumped in his automobile and drove here. He found his wife's car parked out in front.
"Now, if that second visitor was Marvin Harvey Palmer, he must have left the house to come out here a short time before we left the house. You told me a sports car left the place."
Nye said, "Would it be in order to ask if your interview with George Winlock exploded a bombshell?"
"It exploded a bombshell," Mason said.
"All right," Nye said, "the answer is simple. The room was bugged. The kid found out what was going on and wanted to beat everybody to the punch, so he came tearing out here."
"Then what happened?" Mason asked.
"Then the wife followed. She was ready to start at about the same time but she wanted to put on her face and take the shine off her nose.
"Her husband left immediately after we did. He drove out here and-well, that's it."
They moved over to join Dillard.
"Whatever happened," Dillard repeated, "is the result of what the blonde did."
"Now, wait a minute," Mason told him. "You're getting out of orbit, Dillard. The blonde in all probability is my client."
"Oh-oh," Dillard said.
"It's one thing for you to say what time she came and what time she left," Mason went on, "but it's quite another thing to have you making any big fat surmises as to what happened while she was in that cabin."
"I'm sorry," Dillard apologized, "I guess I spoke out of turn, but-well, the way I looked at it, there was no other way of figuring it."
"There may be another way of looking at it," Mason said. "Let's suppose that this young man tried to get something from Boring and got a little rough. He left Boring lying unconscious on the floor. The woman could have been the boy's mother. She went in and found the man lying on the floor, dying. She also found some weapon that tied the crime in with her son. She paused long enough to straighten certain things up, remove certain bits of evidence, including the weapon; then she took off.
"The man could have been her husband. He was waiting for her to come out so he could go in. He'd spotted her car as soon as he drove up."
"And the minute he spotted the car," Nye said, "he knew that the room in his house had been bugged and that his wife had been listening in on whatever conversation it was that you had with him."
"Well," Mason said, "let's suppose that the boy had hit Boring with the butt of a revolver, and that his mother found Boring unconscious and got out; then the husband, coming in as soon as his wife had left, found the man in a dying condition. He looked around just long enough to make certain his wife hadn't left any clues that would indicate she had been there-that meant he could have been the one who picked up the revolver-and then he got out."
Dillard asked, "Have you fellows got names to put on these tags of son, mother and husband?"
"We think we have," Mason said. "I'm talking in terms of tags instead of names because you're going to be a witness. If you haven't heard any names, it'll be that much better for you."
Dillard said, "You fellows figure it up any way you want to. All I know is that the blonde was the last one in the room. If she's your client, I'm not going to start guessing what she was doing in there for fifteen minutes, but you know what the police are going to think. You may sell your idea to a jury, but the police won't buy it. They'll feel that if she found the man lying on the floor badly injured or dying, she wouldn't have stuck around for fifteen minutes."