“Yes.”
“Murdered?”
“She jumped into Donner Lake and committed suicide. The body wasn’t identified, but police had photographs on file.”
“When?” Mason asked.
“Apparently just about the time David Latwell was murdered.”
“The date is very, very important,” Mason said.
“I have it all here for you, including photographs of the body.”
“You say she wasn’t identified?”
“No. The body was absolutely nude when it was found, and they never discovered any of her clothes. Apparently a damned attractive young woman. The verdict was that it was suicide. You can compare these photos. It’s Corine Hassen, all right.”
“Do you, by any chance, know whether she could swim?” Mason asked.
“I haven’t found that out, but I’ll be finding it out rather shortly.”
Mason said, “Things are beginning to take shape.”
“I don’t get you, Perry,” Drake said. “Honestly, I don’t.”
Mason dried himself with a towel, laid out clean underwear. Once more that peculiar granite-hard look was on his face.
“How about that girl from the Allgood Detective Agency?”
“Sally Elberton. We’re having her shadowed.”
“You can put your finger on her any minute?”
“Yes.”
Mason said, “Unless I’m very much mistaken, Lois Witherspoon is going to serve an ultimatum on me tonight. And I wouldn’t doubt if I heard from her father.”
Drake said, “I’ve got some more dope for you on Roland Burr. He came into town quite frequently, buying photographic supplies and things of that sort. The day that you came down from Palm Springs — the day he was kicked by the horse — he seems to have been particularly active. He went into town four or five times. Apparently he was getting photographic supplies, and doing errands. But he went to the post office a couple of times. On one trip his wife wasn’t with him.”
Mason paused in the act of putting on his shirt. He asked, “Did you inquire particularly at all of the places where parcels could be checked, to see if he had...”
“That’s another thing you were right on,” Drake said. “At the Pacific Greyhound depot, he left a parcel, received a check in return for it, and so far as I’ve been able to find out, never returned for that particular parcel. The girl on duty doesn’t remember him doing so.”
“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “There were several girls on duty there.”
Drake nodded. “That’s where the broken-leg business comes in handy.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you see that parcel was checked around noon of the day when his leg was broken. The girl who was on at the checking station goes on duty at nine o’clock in the morning and gets off at five o’clock in the afternoon. By five o’clock, his leg was broken. Obviously, he couldn’t have gone down after he’d broken his leg.”
“How about that package?” Mason asked.
Drake said, “The package is gone. Therefore, someone must have presented the pasteboard claim check.”
“The girl doesn’t remember who called for the package?”
“No. She remembers Burr, but she doesn’t remember the package particularly. It was just a small package done up in brown paper. She thinks it was about the size of a cigar box, but she can’t be certain. They have quite a few packages checked in and out.”
“The girl who waits on that parcel-checking counter has other duties?” Mason asked.
“Yes. She also runs the magazine stand and acts as cashier at the soda fountain.”
“No chance someone sneaked around the counter and got that package without presenting a claim check, is there?”
“None whatever,” Drake said. “They’ll swear to that. They keep a pretty close watch on those packages — and a person would have to raise up a section of the counter to get in and out.”
Mason said, “Well, I guess that gives me an out, but I don’t mind telling you, Paul, it was a close squeeze.”
Drake watched the lawyer drawing on his trousers, said, “You don’t need to be so darn smug about it. What are you holding out on me?”
“Nothing,” Mason said. “The cards are all on the table. Find out anything about Burr having a Winterburg City background?”
Drake said, “That’s another thing you were right on. Burr lived in Winterburg City.”
“When?”
“I don’t know exactly when, but it was several years ago. He was in the insurance business there.”
“What did he do after that?” Mason asked.
“Went out to the coast and got in on a big parking-station deal, getting some leases, and that stuff. He ran the parking station for a while afterwards. Since then, he’s been in half a dozen things. There’s a gap in his life. I can’t find anything from about 1930 to 1935. I don’t think he ever went back to Winterburg City, though.”
Mason said, “Get his fingerprints, Paul. Find out if he ever did time. The coroner’s office probably took his fingerprints.”
“Come on,” Drake said. “You were playing something more than hunch in this thing. Kick through and give me the low-down.”
Mason said, “There isn’t any low-down yet, Paul. I’ll tell you though some of the things which made me get those hunches. Understand, when I start work on a case, I act on the assumption my client is innocent. Therefore, it was no trick at all to get the hunch that Corine Hassen might have gone to Reno. Now then, if Adams was telling the truth and Latwell had intended to run away with her, and if she had gone to Reno, then it’s obvious that something must have intervened to change the entire picture. That something resulted in the murder of David Latwell. Wasn’t it reasonable to suppose that that same something could have resulted in the murder of Corine Hassen?”
“There were no marks of violence on the body,” Drake said. “A canoeing party happened to glimpse the body in the clear waters of the lake. They sent in an alarm to the sheriff’s office, and the body was recovered. There was evidence indicating she must have come from Reno. The body was taken back to Reno, photographs were made, and a coroner’s jury returned a verdict of death by drowning.”
“It still could have been murder,” Mason said.
Drake thought that over. “Well, as I get the picture, Milter wasn’t playing the blackmail angle. That must have been Burr and his wife who had moved in on Witherspoon and were planning to collect from him. But I don’t see how that helps us any, Perry. It simply builds up an added motive for murder. Witherspoon’s got himself in a spot, and...”
He broke off as knuckles tapped on the door. Della Street called, “How about it, Chief? Are you decent?”
“Just,” Mason said. “Come on in.”
Della Street slipped into the bedroom, said, “She’s out there.”
“Lois Witherspoon?”
“Yes.”
“What does she want?”
“She wants to see you immediately,” Della said. “She’s reached a decision. I think she’s going to tell it all right now.”
Mason said, “Okay, we’ll have it over with.”
Lois Witherspoon got to her feet as Mason entered the sitting room of his suite in the hotel. She said, “I want to talk to you alone.”
“That’s all right,” Mason said, indicating Paul Drake and Della Street. “You can say what you have to say in front of these people.”
“It’s about that duck you had me plant in Marvin’s car,” she said. “It looks now as though they’re going to be successful in dragging the Milter murder into it. That means the duck becomes important. I’m not going to sit by and let my father get smeared with that...”
“I don’t blame you,” Mason said.