“Palmer!” Lorraine snapped. “We won’t go into that.”
“I was merely mentioning...”
“Well, don’t.”
Palmer walked into the next room, said, “Well, there’s an ink pad in the writing desk. Can you make fingerprints from an ordinary rubber stamp ink pad, Mr. Mason?”
“I think so,” Mason said.
Ralph Endicott said, “This is all foolishness.”
Niles shifted his position uneasily in his chair. “I don’t approve of...”
Palmer Endicott returned to the room, carrying an ink pad and a sheet of paper. “Here you are,” he said to Ralph Endicott, holding the paper out in front of him. “A blank sheet of paper and an ink pad. Let’s see your fingerprints.”
Ralph Endicott said angrily, “You’re crazy, Palmer.”
“Crazy like a fox,” Palmer said. “Come on over here and take your fingerprints.”
He moved over to a small table at the far corner of the room, put down the sheet of paper and inked pad, said, “I’ll be getting a drink while you’re doing it.”
“Do I have to?” Ralph Endicott asked the lawyer.
“I would say not,” Niles said.
Palmer Endicott, standing in the door of the butler’s pantry, said quietly and forcefully, “Go over to that table and put your prints on that paper. Do you all want Scotch and soda?”
Mrs. Parsons said, “I think Scotch and soda would suit us all, Palmer, but I don’t think Mr. Mason would be comfortable drinking with us.”
Ralph Endicott walked over to the small table, inked his fingers and sullenly pressed them down on the sheet of paper.
Palmer Endicott, standing in the doorway, said, “Never let it be said that the Endicotts were remiss in hospitality. Scotch and soda, Mr. Mason?”
“Please,” the lawyer said.
Palmer Endicott left the room.
Ralph Endicott, having finished with the prints of his right hand, placed his left hand on the pad and transferred a set of fingerprints to the paper. He waved the paper in the air so that the prints would dry, then brought it over to the table and placed it in front of Mason. His face was sullen.
Mrs. Parsons said, “I, for one, bitterly resent the aspersions which are being cast upon the family. The Endicotts have at times been impecunious. They have never been dishonorable.”
There was an uncomfortable silence while Mason studied the fingerprints.
Palmer Endicott returned from the butler’s pantry with a half bottle of Scotch and glasses containing ice cubes. “How’s it coming?” he asked Mason.
Mason, comparing the fingerprints, said, “It looks to me like a thumbprint — I think — that’s right. It’s the right thumbprint. They check absolutely.”
“I’ll take a look for myself,” Niles said, and, crossing over to Mason, peered over the lawyer’s shoulder. At length he nodded. “That’s right,” he said, “they do seem to check.”
Palmer Endicott poured Scotch into the glasses. He used no jigger for measurement, and it was noticeable that he tried to conserve the Scotch as much as possible. When he splashed soda into the glasses, the resulting mixture was a very faint amber color.
“I hope you’re satisfied now,” Ralph said.
Palmer Endicott moved the tray over to offer his sister a drink. “I’m not satisfied. I’m merely convinced. Of course, Ralph,” he went on musingly, “you had no incentive to kill her. You had no motive, as far as I can see. But you sure as hell did have an opportunity.”
“I did not!” Ralph said indignantly. “She was alive and well when I left her, and I’m willing to bet the autopsy will show she was killed a long time after that.”
“Do you know the time of death, Mason?” Niles asked.
Mason said, “I think it was around eleven-forty.”
“Well, we’ll find out from the police,” Niles said.
Palmer Endicott, sipping his drink, slowly nodded.
Mason said, “I notice on this check that when Rose Keeling signs her name, she uses a very soft pen. She writes with a vertical hand and there is a good deal of shading on the strokes.”
Niles nodded. “I’d noticed that.”
“But on this carbon copy of the letter, there is none of that.”
“Naturally not,” Lorraine Parsons said. “That was written with an entirely different pen. Kindly don’t try to confuse the issues, Mr. Mason.”
Mason smiled affably. “That’s the very point I was getting at, Mrs. Parsons. This note must have been written with a ballpoint fountain pen. Otherwise so clear a carbon copy would have been impossible.”
Mrs. Parsons said acidly, “That is the same handwriting, absolutely the same vertical penmanship as the signature on the check which the bank has certified.”
Mason grinned. “Don’t misunderstand me. I was merely raising a point.”
Ralph Endicott turned to Niles. “Well, what do you think of it?” he asked the lawyer.
Niles said, “I think you have been more than frank with Mr. Mason. I think you have gone out of your way to tell him things that you certainly did not need to tell him.”
“I want him to get the whole picture,” Ralph said.
“He certainly should have it now.”
Mason pushed back his chair. “I think I have it. Thank you.”
Niles shook hands. Palmer Endicott came around the table to shake hands. Lorraine Parsons bowed a cold good night, and Ralph Endicott merely bowed without offering to shake hands.
Mason left the place, got in his automobile, drove to the first pay-station he could find and called police headquarters.
Lieutenant Tragg was out.
“I want to leave a message for him,” Mason said.
“Okay, we’ll take it.”
“Can you get him on the phone?”
“I think so. We can put out a radio call for him. What’s on your mind?”
Mason said, “Tell him that Ralph Endicott presented a check to be certified at the Central Security Bank shortly after ten o’clock today. The check was dated today, was payable to him, and had been signed by Rose Keeling. Is that important?”
“If that’s true,” the voice at the other end of the line said, “it’s important as hell.”
“Okay,” Mason said, “it’s true.”
He hung up and dialed the number of Marilyn Marlow.
After a moment or two she came to the phone.
“Are you alone?” Mason asked.
“No.”
“Boy friend?”
“No.”
“Girl friend?”
“No.”
“Police?”
“Yes.”
Mason said, “The wind’s going to blow! Within the next hour they’ll have a carbon copy of the letter you destroyed. Don’t deny you received it; say it made you so mad you...”
Mason heard a peculiar sound at the other end of the line, then a suppressed exclamation.
The lawyer hesitated a moment, then went on talking casually, “I think the murder case is as good as solved. I find that Ralph Endicott presented a check for certification shortly after ten o’clock. The check was dated today and was signed by Rose Keeling. That should put him in the position of being the last one to see Rose Keeling alive. My advice to you is to cooperate in every way you can with the police, and tell them everything, because I think the murder will be cleared up in a few hours.”
There was silence at the other end of the line.
“Are you there?” Mason asked.
Lieutenant Tragg’s voice, coming over the wire, said, “Well, thank you very much, Counselor, for your advice. I thought perhaps I’d better see what was going on when Miss Marlow had such an attack of monosyllables. I just thought it might be you asking questions.”