“There was a bloodstain,” Drake said.
“That’s right. I’m coming to that. I got to thinking about the reddish color on the paper, and along about ten or eleven o’clock I could see there was a lot of unusual activity over there at the Jennings’ house, with people coming and going, so I got to wondering about the way he’d been washing off that sidewalk with the hose. You see, he quit doing that the minute I got out there. He acted just as if he’d been a kid that had been caught in some kind of mischief. Well, I went out to look around. Out there in the gutter, just alongside the curb above where the paper had been lying, there was a red blotch of blood that hadn’t been washed away yet. I’m pretty sure it was blood, and out a little ways from the curb you could see two spots of blood — looked like somebody had been bleeding and had left the place, walking along the lawn instead of along the walk and then stood for a minute at the gutter, getting a car door open, then had stepped into the car and driven away.
“Now, you probably think I’m... well, maybe you’ll think I’m a little mite too nosy or something, but I just got to wondering about that blood. I said to Martha, I said, ‘Martha, suppose that seven-year-old kid was playing with a gun? Suppose they let him have it and took the shells out of it whenever he was playing with it, but suppose this time they didn’t get all the shells out. Suppose there happened to be a shell left in the barrel and suppose he’d shot somebody?’”
“Anything that makes you think he did?” Mason asked.
Gales hesitated for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “Nothing in particular — nothing I can put my finger on.”
“Don’t be so cautious, Jonathan,” Martha Gales prompted. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell them what you told me?”
“Because I can’t prove anything and I may be getting in pretty deep.”
“Go ahead,” Drake said impatiently, “let’s have it.”
“Well, of course, it’s only just a surmise, but Robert was going out on some kind of a Scout trip or something this morning — now why in the world would anyone get up to take a kid out on a Scout trip at four o’clock in the morning — and I thought I heard a shot sometime last night.”
Mason and Drake exchanged glances.
“They took Robert out at four o’clock in the morning?” Mason asked.
Gales nodded. “Must have been around there. It was before daylight.”
“If you couldn’t see, how did you know it was Robert?”
“I heard them talking. I didn’t look at the time, but it must have been right around four o’clock.”
“And it was after Robert left that you saw Jennings washing off the sidewalk?”
“That’s right.”
“His arthritis is bothering him this morning, I believe,” Mason said.
“Yes, he had his cane with him this morning.”
Drake, looking out of the window, said, “Oh-oh, here comes Lieutenant Tragg.”
Mason said to Jonathan Gales, “All right, tell me about the baby sitter. What do you know about her? Does she drive her own car?”
“That’s right.”
“What make is it?”
“I can’t tell you the make. It’s an older type of car — a sedan.”
“She’s in her forties?”
“I would say so.”
“Heavy-set?”
“Well, not fat, just... well, rather broad across the beam.”
“How long has she been baby-sitting for them?”
“Well, I guess maybe six-eight weeks or so. Robert is only there for part time. You know, he’s a child by another marriage — Selkirk, his name is, and—”
The doorbell sounded.
Martha Gales said, “I’ll get it.”
“Never mind Robert,” Mason said. “I know all about him. I’m interested in this baby sitter. Do they say anything about her, or...”
“No, we don’t visit much back and forth. I—”
“You don’t think she’s some relative, or...?”
“No, I think they got her through an agency. I think they said—”
Lt. Tragg’s voice said, “How do you do, madam. I’m Lieutenant Tragg of the homicide department. I’m making an investigation and I’d like to ask you a few questions. Do you mind if I come in?”
Tragg didn’t wait for an answer but pushed his way into the interior of the house, then jerked back in surprise as he saw Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake.
“Well, well, well,” he said, “what brings all of you here?”
“What brings you here?” Mason countered.
Tragg hesitated a moment, then said, “Well, you’ll read it in the papers so I guess there’s no harm in telling you. Mervin Selkirk was found dead in his automobile in the parking lot of the San Sebastian Country Club shortly after one o’clock this afternoon. He’d been dead for some time. There’d been an extensive hemorrhage from a chest wound. The doors of the car were closed and the windows were all up. The fatal bullet was of .22 caliber and there’s reason to believe it was fired from a Colt automatic.”
Lt. Tragg looked at the horrified faces of Martha and Jonathan Gales. “You folks know anything about Mervin Selkirk?” he asked. “Ever meet him? Know him when you see him? Did you see him here last night?”
They shook their heads.
“We don’t know him,” Gales said.
“Anything unusual take place next door during the night?” Tragg asked. “The boy, Robert, was Mervin Selkirk’s son, you know.”
Martha Gales shook her head.
Jonathan Gales said, “Not that we know of. The only thing I know about is the bloodstains.”
Lt. Tragg snapped to attention as though he had received an unexpected jolt of an electric current. “Bloodstains! Where?”
“Next door and on the sidewalk. I was telling Mr. Mason, his secretary and Mr. Drake here about what we saw—”
Tragg said, “Hold it, hold it! Okay, Mason, I guess you’ve beaten me to it, but from now on we’ll follow standard procedure. We’ll excuse you. This is a police investigation of a murder.”
As Mason hesitated, Tragg added, “We can, of course, just take these people up to the district attorney’s office and interrogate them there, but it will be more convenient for all of us if we do it here. And,” he added with a wry smile, “if you’re as fast as you usually are, you already have all the information you need.”
Mason shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Gales. “Thanks for your co-operation,” he said. “You’ll find Lieutenant Tragg likes to adopt a hard-boiled exterior. He barks and he growls, but he really doesn’t bite.”
“On your way,” Tragg said gruffly.
Mason led the way to the door.
“I’ll drive you folks to the office,” Drake said, as he held open the door of his car.
“No, you won’t,” Mason said. “There isn’t time for that. Drive us to the nearest taxi stand, then get out to the San Sebastian Country Club, find out everything you can dig up out there. I also want you to locate the Selkirk boy. I want to interview him. You’d better telephone your office, and, while you’re about it, tell them to find out who the Jennings’ baby sitter is.”
“That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Drake protested.
“No, it isn’t, Paul,” Mason said. “We don’t give a damn about the haystack, so that will help. Burn up the haystack and wash away the ashes. That will leave the needle where you can find it. It’s the needle we’re interested in, not the haystack. Now, get busy.”