Niles said hastily, “That’s the story they told me as soon as you left the room, Mason.”
Mason merely smiled.
“However,” Niles went on somewhat testily, “there’s proof of this.”
“Proof?” Mason asked.
“Exactly,” Ralph Endicott said. “Rose Keeling’s conscience began to bother her. I received a telephone call from her, stating that she wanted to see me at once upon a matter of the greatest importance. That call came in about seven-thirty this morning. I finished my breakfast and went to her apartment. I arrived there approximately at eight o’clock. I found Rose Heeling in an extremely nervous state. She said she had agreed to do something which preyed on her conscience and that she just simply couldn’t go through with it. She told me that she had received one thousand dollars from Mrs. Marlow, that she was satisfied that one thousand dollars came from the sale of jewelry which had virtually been stolen from the estate; that, inasmuch as I was one of the heirs and represented the others, she had decided to surrender that money and ease her conscience. Whereupon, she handed me her check for one thousand dollars, drawn on the Central Security Bank, and gave me a carbon copy of a letter she had sent to Marilyn Marlow.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed. “A carbon copy?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How had the letter been written? On a typewriter?”
“No. In pen and ink, but she had a clear carbon copy.”
“May I see the carbon copy of the letter?” Mason asked.
Ralph Endicott said to Niles, “How about it, Niles? Shall we show him the carbon copy of the letter?”
“I see no reason for not showing it to him,” Niles said. “Since you’ve gone this far and told him this much, I’d tell him the whole thing. Put all the cards on the table.”
Endicott opened a billfold which he had taken from his pocket while Niles was speaking, and handed Mason a sheet of note paper. “There it is,” he said.
Mason glanced through the letter. It was a carbon copy of the letter which Marilyn Marlow had received and which she probably had by this time destroyed.
“Very interesting,” Mason said, his voice and face expressionless as he handed back the carbon copy. “When did all this take place?”
“At approximately eight o’clock this morning.”
“That was at Rose Keeling’s flat?”
“Yes.”
“How long were you there?”
“Perhaps half an hour in all.”
“What did you do when you left there?”
“I see no reason to go into that. It involves purely private affairs. I assume you are only interested in Rose Keeling’s...”
“Go ahead and tell him,” Niles grunted. “You’ve admitted having seen Rose Keeling, and if she’s been killed, you’d better go on with your story.”
“It’s a lot of purely personal trivia,” Endicott protested.
“Go on with it, Ralph,” Mrs. Parsons ordered, “otherwise you seem evasive. Tell Mr. Mason where you went.”
Ralph Endicott frowned, said, “Very well. It is a lot of utter trivia. I left Miss Keeling’s place at approximately eight-forty in the morning. I went from there to the office of an automobile agency where I have had a new car on order for some time. I felt certain that they were cheating on me and letting cars out the back door. I had been twenty-fourth on the list several months ago and was advised that I was fifteenth on the list as of this date. I made something of a scene. I left there at approximately nine o’clock. I had an appointment with my dentist at nine-fifteen. I was with him until nine-fifty-five. I remember the time because I had been thinking about that check while I was in the dentist’s chair. I knew it was an important piece of evidence. If I cashed it, then it would be returned to Rose Keeling by the bank when it sent her her canceled checks. If I held it as evidence, she might change her mind and stop payment on it.
“Just before I left the dentist’s, I conceived the idea of holding the check but having it certified. I consulted my watch. It was a few minutes before ten. I hurried to the bank and reached the cashier’s window at about ten-five. When he certified the check, I asked him to be certain to note the time of certification. You can see he wrote it on the check, 10:10 a.m.
“From the bank I went to a chess and checker club. I arrived there at about ten-twenty and started playing in a tournament in which I was a contestant. I played continuously until about three-thirty. Then I had a sandwich and a malted milk and drove home in my car — a model A Ford. I have been here ever since.
“Here is the certified check, in case you wish to examine it.”
“I presume you can verify all these times,” Mason asked, taking the check Ralph Endicott handed him.
“As a matter of fact, I can very easily. As it happens, I was playing chess on a time limit, and inasmuch as I am considered one of the champions there, there was a record kept of the games and of the time consumed in the games. However, I consider all of this as absolutely beside the point and quite irrelevant.”
Mason, who had been examining the check, said, “You saw her sign this check?”
“Yes.”
“I notice there’s a somewhat smeared but still fairly legible fingerprint on the back of this check.”
“Let’s see it.”
Mason pointed out the smudged fingerprint.
“Probably my fingerprint,” Ralph Endicott said casually.
“Made in ink?”
“That’s right. I remember now I started to endorse the check, and the cashier told me that I shouldn’t endorse it. If I wanted to have it certified, the certification would show the check was good as gold. He said I wasn’t to endorse it until I was ready to cash it.”
Mason said, “Well, let’s just check on this ink-smeared print. If it’s your fingerprint, let’s find out.”
Endicott burst out, “I consider this damned impertinent!”
“So do I,” Niles said.
“I don’t,” Palmer Endicott said calmly. “If we’re going to put our cards on the table, let’s put them all on the table. Rose Keeling was murdered today. Ralph was with her. He received a check from her, and he went to the bank and presented that check to have it certified. Under the circumstances, he’s going to have to account for every minute of his time, and if he can’t do it right now, I, for one, want to know it.”
Ralph Endicott turned to him irritably. “What are you trying to do?” he said. “Casting insinuations?”
“I’m not casting any insinuations,” Palmer said calmly, his eyes still fixed on his folded hands, his outward demeanor one of extreme placidity, “I’m merely checking. I want to know, myself, just as much as Mason does.”
“My own brother!” Ralph snorted.
“And doing you a great favor,” Palmer said.
“Yes,” Ralph said sarcastically, “I know just how much of a favor you want to do me.” He drew his index finger in a circular cutting motion across the front of his throat.
Niles said hastily, “Come, come, gentlemen, remember that Mr. Mason is here, and that Mr. Mason is representing adverse interests. Frankly, I see no reason for letting him question your word or indulge in any cross-examination.”
Palmer Endicott pushed back his chair, said, “You folks can do whatever you want to, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m going to find out about that fingerprint, and I’m going to find out about it right now.”
“Ralph isn’t trying to keep anything from you, Palmer,” Lorraine Parsons said acidly. “It’s merely that we object to discussing family affairs in front of this... this lawyer.”
Palmer Endicott said, “The trouble with Ralph is he thinks he’s too smart. He’s always gilding the lily and painting the rose. If he’d only learn to confine himself to the evidence and tell the simple truth, we’d all be better off. If it hadn’t been for that time he tried to dress things up and make the evidence look better ten years ago, we wouldn’t have been dependent upon inheriting under our brother’s will. We could have been independently rich and...”