“How did you do it?” Rita Swaine asked.
“It’s a secret,” Mason told her. “Where can we talk?”
“Rossy’s room at the Riverside,” Rita said. “—Oh, there’s Miss Street. Good evening, Miss Street.”
Della smiled. Mason introduced her to Rosalind Prescott and Jimmy Driscoll. As though they had been casual tourists, sauntering from place to place in search of entertainment, they strolled out of The Bank Club and walked to the Riverside Hotel.
Mason dropped behind and said, “I’m sorry, Della, but you’re not going up with us. This thing is loaded with dynamite. Stay here in the lobby and keep one of the house phones in your hands. If anyone comes in who looks like an officer, and who asks for Rita Swaine or Rosalind Prescott, get a call through to the room and tip me off.”
She nodded.
“And don’t let the others know what you’re doing,” he warned.
As they entered the lobby of the hotel, Della Street said, “Chief, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll run into the dining room and see if I can get a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I haven’t eaten anything, and I’ll have a terrific headache if I don’t get something.”
Mason nodded, said casually, “Okay, Della. Come up when you get through. What’s your room number, Mrs. Prescott?”
“Three thirty-one.”
“Let’s go,” the lawyer said.
It was Jimmy Driscoll who carefully closed and locked the bedroom door, after first making certain no one was loitering in the corridor. Then he opened his arms to Rita Swaine, and said, “Never mind, sweetheart, we’ll see it through together.”
Mason walked across the room, sat on the bed, flung an elbow over the brass rail at the foot, crossed his long legs and said casually, “You folks don’t need to keep that up, you know.”
“Keep what up?” Rita Swaine asked, spinning around to face him.
“That phony love act,” Mason said, “Your sister might get jealous, Rita.”
“What do you mean?” Rita Swaine demanded.
“You know what I mean,” Mason told her, and then kept them waiting while he fished a cigarette case from his pocket, went through the motions of offering a cigarette to the others, selected one, sat back, lit it, and said, “After all, you know, I’m not Mrs. Snoops.”
Driscoll said ominously, “I’m not certain that I like that crack, Mason.”
Mason locked eyes with him. “No one asked you to, Driscoll.”
“Well,” Driscoll said, “suppose you explain — or apologize.”
“Bosh!” Mason said. “What do you people think you’re pulling?”
Rosalind Prescott, standing very straight, said, “I think Mr. Mason’s right.”
“Rossy!” Rita exclaimed.
Driscoll didn’t take his eyes from the lawyer. “I don’t think he’s right,” he said, “and I don’t like his manner.”
“You,” Mason told him, “can go to the devil! I suppose because you’re good-looking, women have been easy for you all your life. Now you’re in a jam and you find it a lot easier to hide behind petticoats than to come out in the open.”
Driscoll started for Mason. The lawyer raised himself ominously from the bed. Rosalind Prescott, jumping forward, grabbed Driscoll’s arm, clung to it and said, “Jimmy, stop it! You hear me? Stop it!”
Mason said, “Go ahead, you young fool. Start something. That’ll bring in the house detective, and then the cops. It’ll be about on a par with the bonehead moves you’ve made so far.”
Driscoll said with quivering lips, “I don’t have to take this from you, you know.”
“The hell you don’t,” Mason said easily, “You just think you don’t. You’ll take it and like it. Sit down!”
“Please, Jimmy,” Rosalind Prescott pleaded.
Rita Swaine, staring across at the lawyer, said, “Why are you talking like that?”
“You should know. There are two reasons. One of them is that I don’t like to be double-crossed by clients.”
“No one tried to double-cross you,” she said.
“Oh, certainly not,” Mason observed sarcastically. “When you told me that you were the one Mrs. Snoops saw with Jimmy, you weren’t trying to play me for a sucker. You were just giving your imagination a few indoor calisthenics.” He turned moodily to survey Rosalind Prescott and said, “I think you’ll tell the truth.”
“Shut up, Rossy,” Driscoll warned in a low voice. “This is serious.”
Mason appraised him with hostile eyes and said, “It’d be different if you could get away with it, but you can’t get away with it. You didn’t get away with it with me, and, in the long run, you won’t get away with it with the district attorney. But, trying to get away with it is playing right into his hands. Why the devil didn’t you folks tell me the truth in the first place, and let me tell you what to do? But no, you had to go on the amateur hour, and try and dress the window so it would look all nice and pretty. So Rosalind skips out and leaves her dress where Rita can put it on. Rita catches the canary, goes up to the window so as to make sure Mrs. Snoops can see her, and finishes clipping the canary’s claws. Where she makes her mistake is in being too excited to notice that the claws on the right foot have already been clipped once. It’s the left foot which was left unfinished. But Rita painstakingly cuts the right claws twice, and leaves one of the left claws untouched.”
Rita Swaine said indignantly, “Why, I never—”
“You’re right, Mr. Mason,” Rosalind Prescott announced.
Mason shifted his eyes to her and said, “I think I’m going to like you. Tell me what happened, and tell it fast. We may not have much time. Your sister left a wide back trail. I followed it, and someone else may follow it.”
Driscoll took a deep breath and started to say something. Mason said, “Shut up, Driscoll.”
Rosalind Prescott said, “I fought with my husband.He was going to divorce me. He found a letter Jimmy had written. The letter was capable of two interpretations. He chose the worst. He left the house to go see a lawyer. I became panic-striken and did the worst possible thing. I telephoned for Jimmy, to tell him what had happened, and to tell him I was leaving. Then Jimmy got hotheaded and came tearing out to the house. And, to cap the climax, carried a gun, with some fanciful idea of protecting me from Walter. Walter’d threatened to kill me if I tried to claim any share of his business.”
“You’d told Driscoll that?” Mason asked.
“Yes, over the telephone.”
“Okay,” Mason said, “remember it. Driscoll thought you were in actual danger. You probably were in actual danger. He carried a gun only for the purpose of protecting you. Now go ahead.”
“Jimmy came out there. We were in the solarium. I tried to talk things over sensibly with him. Jimmy — well, Jimmy lost his head and took me in his arms, and I—”
“Yes, I know,” Mason said. “Mrs. Snoops described the scene to me.”
“How did it sound when she described it?”
“Passionate,” Mason said tersely.
She met his eyes frankly and said, “All right, it was.”
Mason nodded. “Good girl. Go ahead.”
“Jimmy told me I must leave, and he was going to get plane reservations. Then there was this automobile accident. Jimmy ran out and helped lift the man out of the coupe and put him in the van. Then he came back, and I suddenly realized he might be called as a witness; that the man who was driving the van might come back and try to get his name and address, and Jimmy’s car was standing outside, parked down on the side street. So I told Jimmy he must leave at once, that I’d pack and go later. Jimmy didn’t want to go. I insisted. So then Jimmy told me that I must take his gun, for protection, in case Walter should come back. I told him I didn’t want a gun, and would never use one, but he insisted — I must have one somewhere in the house where I could get it if I had to. So I took the gun and hid it back of the drawer in the desk, where I knew Walter would never find it. I never did intend to use it, not even as a last resort. I just took it in order to make Jimmy feel better and so he’d quit arguing and get out of there. He’s obstinate at times — and this was one of the times.”