Della Street kept shaking him, gently slapped his face. “Wake up, Chief,” she said. “Wake up. Tell me, are you all right?”
She dropped to her knees by his side, took his hand. Her voice was edged with anxiety. “Tell me, are you all right? — Are you all right? — Get that nurse someone, please. He’s sick.”
It was, Mason decided, a superb job of acting. Even he would have sworn there was almost a note of hysteria in the increasing anxiety manifested in Della Street’s voice.
He opened his eyes wider this time, gave Della Street a groggy smile, said thickly, “ ’S all right. Le’me sleep.”
She was on her feet at his side again now, shaking him. “Chief, you’ve got to wake up. You’ve got to snap out of it. You’ve—”
Mason yawned prodigiously, opened his eyes, looked at her. “Full of drugs,” he announced, running the ends of his words together. “You all right?”
“Yes, yes. I’m all right. What are you doing in here?”
Mason, apparently shaking off the chains of slumber, looked around at the other occupants of the room in bewildered surprise. “What’s the matter? Has something happened?”
“No, no, everything’s all right. But how did you get in here? What are you doing here, Chief?”
He appreciated the quick-witted technique by which Della was giving him the opportunity to make explanations in advance of questions. “Came up to see how you were getting along,” he said. “You certainly were sleeping. I spoke to you but you didn’t even hear me, so I decided to wait until you awakened to tell you we’d start driving back as soon as you felt up to it. — I left your door open and sat down in the hall for a while. It was drafty there. I saw this door was open. It looked like an office so I came in and sat down in the swivel chair so I could hear you as soon as you moved. Guess I still have some of that drug in my system. — What’s new, Tragg?”
Tragg turned to his brother-in-law, made a little gesture with the palms of his hands. “There you are, Sam,” he said. “It’s always like that. You never can tell whether he’s thrown one across the center of the plate for a strike so fast that you can’t see it come, or whether he’s just winding up for practice.”
Greggory said ominously, “We don’t like to have fast ones pitched at us here in this county. When that happens we disqualify the pitcher.”
Mason yawned once more. “I don’t blame you, Sheriff. I’d feel that way myself. Well, come on, Della. If you feel like traveling, we’ll get started back. What’s the excitement here? Did someone think I’d passed out?”
“No,” Sheriff Greggory said. “We are taking steps to see that there are no more murders committed.”
Nell Sims, from the outskirts of the group, chirped almost impersonally, “Locking up the horse after the stable has been stolen.”
From outside came the raucous bray of a lonely burro.
Mason took Della Street’s arm. His eyes met those of Mrs. Bradisson. She alone knew and could prove, if she chose, the falsity of Mason’s story. To betray him, however, would of necessity force her to admit her own nocturnal intrusion into the room of the dead man.
“Good morning, Mrs. Bradisson,” Mason said, bowing.
“Good morning!” she snapped.
Chapter 14
Lieutenant Tragg made himself at home in Mason’s private office. “How you feeling?” he asked, his eyes hard and shrewd as he surveyed the lawyer.
“A little wobbly,” Mason admitted, “but we’re all right. I’ve got to take some depositions this afternoon. How’s the doctor?”
“Coming along all right.”
“How’s the case?”
Tragg grinned. “That’s out of my jurisdiction. That’s up to brother-in-law, Sammy. However, Sammy’s asking for assistance down here, and if he gets it the Chief will probably put me on the job.”
“It has some local angle?” Mason asked, curiously.
Tragg nodded.
“Can you tell me what it is?”
“Not now.”
“What have you found out about the murder of Clarke?”
“It’s one of those things,” Tragg said. “The story told by Salty Bowers is a weird procession of coincidences. And yet, it may be true.”
“What’s the story?” Mason asked.
“Clarke had told him a situation might arise where they’d have to take a quick trip to the desert. He swore he was feeling well enough to make such a trip if Salty would get everything all packed and ready to go as soon as he gave him a signal.”
“And he gave him a signal last night?”
“Apparently so. Salty started out with his girl. He never even took her home. He dropped her down at the foot of the hill and told her she’d have to take a bus home. He doubled back and then packed everything into that old jalopy. And he made a quick job of rolling up the bedrolls, putting the pots and pans into the pack boxes. I guess he’s done it often enough. He knows how to go about it. Claims it only took ten minutes.”
“And the burros?”
“For a while,” Tragg said, “they apparently figured on taking the burros, in a trailer. Then Clarke got afraid he might find the trip a little too much for him. So Salty investigated the possibilities of a house trailer, found Clarke could simply crawl aboard and go to bed just as though he were on a yacht. So it was arranged that Salty would make two trips, first to take Clarke out in a house trailer, and then come back, pick up the horse trailer, load in the burros and take them.”
“What started all of this, anyway?” Mason asked.
“That’s what I want to see you about. You did!”
“Me!” Mason raised his eyebrows in a gesture of elaborate surprise.
“Salty says that you gave Clarke some signal to get out, and Clarke tipped him off that now was the time to start.”
Mason grinned “I guess it was over that subpoena.”
“What subpoena?”
“This lawyer, Moffgat, started talking about taking depositions, and I had an idea from the way he was beating around the bush he was going to make an excuse to take Clarke’s deposition, apparently only in connection with that fraud case, and then go on a general fishing expedition to see if he couldn’t dig out some information about an entirely different matter.”
“What matter?”
Mason merely grinned.
“How did you know about this plan of Moffgat’s?”
“Well, Della caught a glimpse of a subpoena in his brief case when he pulled out a stipulation to take the deposition of Pete Sims.”
“That deposition you’re going to take this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you have it postponed?” Tragg asked solicitously. “You’re not feeling well and...”
“Thanks very much indeed for your consideration — I may say your rare consideration — of my health,” Mason grinned. “But I’d like to have the deposition taken and get it over with. The longer Moffgat waits, the more questions he’ll think of. I seem to have done quite a bit of passing out — what with sickness and drugs. Where was everyone during the course of the evening?”
“Various places,” Tragg said evasively. “We’re checking on them.”
“Apparently Salty is the only one you want to talk about.”
“I think he’s the only one you can assist me on.”
“What do you want to know?”
“The exact reason Clarke started for the desert.”
“What does Salty say?”