After several minutes of futile search, Sergeant Dorset rejoined Mason, said, “I don’t see a thing in the car except a burnt match on the floor.”
“Drake probably lit a cigarette,” Mason said casually.
“Yes, I remember that. He did for a fact,” the officer on guard admitted readily enough. “He walked over to the car just as though he’d been going to drive off, lit a cigarette and sat there and smoked for awhile.”
“Probably he just wanted a place to sit down,” Mason observed, yawning, “and thought that was a good place to take a load off his feet.”
“So you thought he was going to drive off,” Sergeant Dorset said sarcastically to the officer.
“Well, I sort of thought... well, you know...”
“And I suppose if he’d driven that car off you’d have stood there with your hands in your pockets while this guy got away with what may be an important piece of evidence.”
In the embarrassed silence which followed, Mason said placatingly, “Well, Sergeant, we all make mistakes.”
Dorset grunted, turned to the officer and said, “Jim, as soon as they get done with those fingerprints in the bedroom and bathroom, tell the boys I said to go over that automobile for fingerprints. Pay particular attention to the steering wheel and the gear shift lever. If they find any fingerprints, lift them and put them with the others.”
Mason said dryly, “Yes, indeed, Sergeant, we all make mistakes.”
Once more Sergeant Dorset merely grunted.
8
Mason had started his car motor and was just pulling away from the curb when he saw headlights behind him. The headlights blinked significantly, once, twice, three times. Then the car slowed almost to a crawl.
Mason drove rapidly for a block and a half, watching the headlights in his rearview mirror, then he pulled in to the curb and the car behind him promptly swung in to a position just behind Mason’s automobile and stopped. Paul Drake slid out from behind the steering wheel and walked across to Mason’s car, where he stood with one foot on the running board.
“Think I’ve found something, Perry.”
“What?”
“The place where Mrs. Faulkner was parked, waiting for you to show up.”
“Let’s take a look,” Mason said.
“Of course,” Drake added apologetically, “I haven’t a lot to go on. When a car is parked on a paved roadway it doesn’t leave many distinctive traces, particularly when you take into consideration the fact that hundreds of automobiles are parked every day.”
“What did you find?” Mason interrupted.
“Well,” Drake said, “when I gave that car the once-over I did everything I could in the short time I had available. I noticed the choke was out, almost as soon as I got in; and then I lit the match to light my cigarette, turned on the ignition, and that gave me a chance to look at the gasoline gauge and the temperature gauge. The gasoline gauge didn’t tell me anything. The tank was half full of gas and that of course just doesn’t mean a darn thing. The temperature gauge showed the motor was barely warmed up and that was all I could find from the gauges, but I thought I’d better take a look in the ash tray, so I pulled it out and the darn thing was empty. At the time, it didn’t register with me. I just saw the ash tray was empty and let it go at that.”
“You mean there wasn’t a single thing in it?” Mason asked.
“Not so much as a burnt match.”
“I don’t get it,” Mason said.
“I didn’t get it at first, myself. It wasn’t until I had driven away from Faulkner’s house that the thing began to register with me. Ever sit in a parked automobile waiting for something to happen and being a little nervous — not knowing what to do with yourself?”
“I don’t believe I have,” Mason said. “Why?”
“Well, I have,” Drake told him, “lots of times. It usually happens on a shadowing job when the man you’re tailing goes into a house somewhere and you just have to stick around and wait, with nothing in particular to do. You begin to get fidgety, and after a while, you begin to play around with the dashboard. You don’t care to turn on the radio because a parked car with a radio blaring out noise is too noticeable, so you just sit there and fiddle around.”
“And empty the ash tray?” Mason asked, his voice showing keen interest.
“That’s right. You’ll do it nine times out of ten, if you sit there long enough. You start thinking of all the little chores there are around a car and the ash tray is one of the first things you think of. You take it out and dump it out of the window on the left-hand side of the car, being sure you’ve got it all clean.”
“Go ahead,” Mason said.
“So,” Drake told him, “after I drove away from Faulkner’s place, I started looking for some place where you could park an automobile and still see the entrance to the Faulkner house.”
“Some place straight down the street?” Mason asked.
“I looked there at first,” Drake said, “but didn’t find anything, so I swung around the corner and found there’s a place on the side street where you can look across a vacant lot and see the front of the Faulkner house, and also the driveway to the garage. Just about as far up the driveway as the point where Mrs. Faulkner parked the car. You’re looking across a vacant lot and between two houses but you can see the place all right. And that’s where I found a pile of cigarette stubs and some burnt matches.”
“What brand of cigarettes, Paul?”
“Three or four. Some with lipstick, some without. Different kinds of matches, some paper matches, some wooden ones.”
“Any identifying marks on the paper matches?”
“To tell you the truth, Perry, I didn’t stay there long enough to look. As soon as I found the place, I beat it back to tip you off. I thought perhaps you’d like to look at it. You were just pulling away from the curb, so I blinked my lights and tagged along behind. I was afraid to pull up alongside because I didn’t want the cop in charge to think I’d discovered something important within four or five minutes after I’d driven away from the place. Not that I think the idea would have registered with him, but it might have, you never can tell. Want me to go back and make a more detailed examination?”
Mason tilted back the brim of his hat, moved the tips of his fingers through the wavy hair on his temple. “Hang it, Paul, if you can see the house from the place where the ash tray was emptied, then anyone standing in the front of the house or on the driveway can look back and see the place where we would be looking the stuff over. Your flashlight would be something they couldn’t overlook.”
“I thought of that,” Drake said.
“Tell you what you do, Paul. Go back and mark the place some way so you can identify it. After that, get a dustpan and brush, sweep up the whole outfit and drop it in a paper bag.”
“You don’t suppose Dorset will think that’s concealing evidence, do you?”
“It’s preserving evidence,” Mason pointed out. “It’s what the police would do if they happened to think of it.”
“But suppose they happen to think of it and the stuff is gone?”
Mason said, “Let’s look at it from the other angle, Paul. Suppose they don’t happen to think of it, and a street-washing outfit comes along and sluices the stuff down into the sewer. Then what?”
“Well,” Drake said dubiously. “Of course, we could tell Sergeant Dorset.”
“Dorset has taken Sally Madison out to Staunton’s place. Don’t be so damned conscientious, Paul. Get busy and get that stuff in a paper bag.”
Drake hesitated. “Why should Mrs. Faulkner have been waiting there for you to drive up, and then come scorching around the corner as soon as she saw your car stop?”