Mason nodded.
“The California driving license,” she said, “has a thumbprint on it and also my picture.”
“The picture,” Mason said, “isn’t good enough to suit me.”
“There’s the thumbprint,” she said. “That should convince you.”
She walked over to a writing desk, opened it, spilled a little ink from a bottle onto a blotter, pressed her thumb against the blotter, then pressed it against a sheet of writing paper several times.
“I think these impressions are clear enough,” she said. “You should be able to make a comparison from those.”
“You don’t happen to have a magnifying glass, do you?” Mason asked.
“No, I don’t. I— Wait a minute, I do, too. Just a moment.”
She opened another drawer in the writing desk and rummaged around among some odds and ends and then produced a magnifying glass.
Mason opened his brief case, reached in, took out the card case, turned to the thumbprint on the California driving license and carefully compared the thumbprint with the thumbprints on the paper she had given him.
Satisfied, at length, the lawyer took the handbag from the brief case and said, “It’s all here except the gun. I’m holding that.”
“Why?”
“It may be evidence.”
“Of what?”
“Murder.”
She looked at him wordlessly, panic in her eyes.
“Where did you get the gun?” Mason asked.
“My husband gave it to me.”
“Where did he get it?”
“He bought it.”
“Why did he give it to you?”
“For my protection, because I do a little driving at night.”
“What happened last night?”
“My husband and I reached an agreement.”
“On a property settlement?”
“Yes.”
“Know an attorney by the name of Banner?” Mason asked.
“Huntley L. Banner?” she asked, her voice dripping with distaste.
“Yes. Who is he?”
“He’s my husband’s attorney, and I think it is largely due to him that my marriage split up.”
“It split up?”
She made an inclusive, sweeping gesture with her hand, indicating the apartment. “What do you think I’m doing here?” she said. “I’m establishing a residence.”
“So you can get a divorce?”
“Yes.”
“It’s amicable?”
“Of course. My husband is paying all my expenses.”
“I had a talk with Banner this afternoon,” Mason said.
“You did?”
“That’s right.”
“How did you happen to get in touch with him?”
“I didn’t,” Mason said. “He got in touch with me. He said that you had telephoned his office that you were going to put your affairs in my hands for the purpose of negotiating a property settlement.”
“Why in the world would he say a thing like that? I never called him and there was no need for me to get a lawyer. My husband and I reached an agreement without any difficulty. We had been holding off to see what developed in connection with certain oil property.”
“Banner said he had been authorized to make a deal on a property settlement,” Mason said.
She said, “I just can’t understand it.”
“Understand what?” Mason asked.
“The fact that Garvin didn’t call Huntley Banner and tell him that everything had been fixed up... What time was it he called you?”
“Around two o’clock or so this afternoon, perhaps a little after two. I didn’t make a note of the time.”
“Why, Garvin was going to call him first thing in the morning.”
“That was this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Evidently,” Mason said, “he didn’t do it. Is there any reason why he wouldn’t have done it?”
“No. He told me he was going to and I knew he would keep his word”
“Evidently,” Mason said, “he didn’t keep his word.”
“I just can’t understand that. It’s not like him. He—”
Mason indicated the telephone. “Suppose you call him right now,” he said, “and ask him what the score is.”
“That’s a good idea,” she said.
She went to the telephone, called long distance and said, “I want to put through a collect call to Garvin S. Hastings in Los Angeles. That’s a person-to-person call and I want the charges reversed. This is Mrs. Hastings calling.”
She gave the operator her number and the number of the Los Angeles telephone and settled down to wait.
“Do you always call him collect?” Mason asked.
“Yes,” she said. “He likes it that way. It gives him an opportunity to know I’m calling and where I’m calling from. He doesn’t like to have someone just call him on the telephone and not know who it is.”
“Doesn’t he have a secretary to handle the telephone?” Mason asked.
“Not at the house at night. He...”
She broke off and said into the telephone, “Are you sure?... No, I guess that’s all right. Just cancel, please.”
She dropped the telephone into place, looked up at Mason and said, “I can’t understand it. The long distance operator says a tape recording connection is on. That’s an answering service Garvin has when you call and a voice answers stating it’s a tape recording, that you will have thirty seconds after the voice ceases talking to transmit any message you may wish, that the message will be recorded on the tape so it can be played back when the subscriber returns to answer the telephone personally.”
“I tried calling that number,” Mason said, “and got the same message.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“This afternoon after we had inventoried the contents of your purse.”
“But I can’t understand it,” she said. “I just can’t understand why Garvin didn’t call up Huntley Banner and tell him.”
“He was to do that this morning?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t there this morning?”
“No,” she said. “I had other appointments.”
Mason said, “You just arrived here a short time ago. It didn’t take you all day to drive from Los Angeles here.”
“I had something else to do.”
“What?”
“I don’t think I care to tell you any more, Mr. Mason.”
“All right,” Mason said. “We’ll start putting two and two together. You were with your husband last night.”
“Yes.”
“You reached a property settlement with him.”
“Yes.”
“He was to telephone his lawyer, Huntley Banner, and tell him to draw up the necessary papers for you to sign. He was to do that early this morning.”
“Yes.”
“Banner hasn’t heard from your husband,” Mason said. “Your handbag was stolen yesterday. It was left in my office around noon today. There was a thirty-eight-caliber revolver in that handbag. A woman, wearing large dark glasses which would make it exceedingly difficult to recognize her, came to my office shortly after noon, told the receptionist her name was Hastings, that she had to see me upon a matter of the greatest importance, that she was in danger, that she needed protection and a private detective.
“Then after a few minutes she said she had to leave the office, that she’d be right back. She left and didn’t come back. She left your handbag in my office. In that handbag was your gun. It had been fired twice.
“Your husband didn’t do the things he was supposed to have done today. He isn’t answering the telephone.
“Now then, Mrs. Hastings, just suppose that some woman had stolen your handbag, had gone to your husband’s house shortly after you left this morning, had fired two shots and your husband is lying there very, very dead. Where do you suppose that’s going to leave you?”