“So you think the murderer was the one who picked up the receiver to make the telephone quit ringing?” Drake asked.
“I can’t figure any other explanation right at the present time. Do you know whether the police noticed any cigar ashes on the floor of Rose Keeling’s bedroom, Paul?”
Drake shook his head. “If they noticed them, they’re keeping quiet about it. They haven’t told the newspaper men — I don’t think they found any.”
“Have your men looked around, Paul?”
“Naturally we couldn’t get into the flat. There’s a vacant lot on the south. The police looked around it a bit, thinking perhaps the murderer had tossed the knife out of a window in Rose Keeling’s flat after the crime had been committed. They didn’t find anything. My men looked around in the lot after the police left. I was with them. We searched every inch of it.”
“No dice?” Mason asked.
“No dice.”
Mason paced the floor for a few moments, then asked, “You didn’t happen to notice any half-smoked cigar out there in the vacant lot while you were searching for the knife, did you?”
Drake shook his head, then said, “Wait a minute. I remember Kenneth Barstow poking a half-smoked stogie with his foot. Barstow is quite a cigar smoker and claims to be a connoisseur of good cigars. He poked a half-smoked cigar with his foot and said, ‘That just goes to show, even the cops can’t finish the nickel cigars they sell nowadays.’ ”
Mason’s eyes narrowed. “It was half smoked, Paul?”
“Just about half smoked.”
“A stogie?”
“A regular rope,” Drake said. “One of those black stogies the cops chew on. It takes a man with a strong stomach to smoke more than half of one.”
“And Barstow likes good cigars?”
“That’s right, the best,” Drake said.
Mason again started pacing the floor.
“Of course,” Drake pointed out, “insofar as that inheritance is concerned, there’ll be a lot of public sympathy on behalf of the brothers and sisters.”
“Why?” Mason asked, snapping the question over his shoulder.
“After all, they’re — well, the rightful heirs."
“What do you mean by that, Paul?”
“They’re the blood relatives.”
“And they didn’t give a damn about George Endicott until after he died. There’s altogether too much sloppy thinking about the ‘natural’ relatives being entitled to inherit. The only real protection an elderly man or a sick man has in this world is the power to dispose of his property the way he wants to. That enables him to reward special service and special attention if he gets it, and it enables him to hold his relatives in line. If a man couldn’t make a will leaving his property to whomever he wanted, relatives would simply crowd him into the grave as fast as they could — that is, lots of them would.”
Drake said, “Of course, if your theory is correct, Perry — about the murderer being the one who lifted the receiver off the telephone-well, in that case the fingerprints on the receiver would have been the most important bit of evidence in the whole case.”
Mason said nothing.
“Just how did Marilyn Marlow get into the apartment?” Drake asked.
“She says Rose Keeling gave her a key.”
“How come?”
Mason said, “Marilyn went to see Rose. Rose wanted to play tennis. Marilyn went back to her apartment to get her things. Rose gave Marilyn a key so Marilyn could get in when she came back. Marilyn went home, came back and found Rose murdered. However, Marilyn says that she didn’t get in with the key. She says the door to the street at the foot of the stairs was actually open an inch or two when she returned, so she just pushed it open and walked in.”
“That’s Marilyn’s story?”
“That’s her story.”
“When did she leave Rose?”
“Right around eleven-thirty-five. Perhaps a few minutes earlier.”
“When did she get back?”
“She wasn’t in any particular hurry. She had some things to do. She bought some groceries and stopped by her bank. She got back about twelve-five or twelve-ten.”
“And in that time the murder had been committed?”
“That’s right. Marilyn phoned me right around twelve-fifteen.”
“You figure right around eleven-forty was the time of the murder?”
Mason nodded.
“When did Marilyn get to the bank?”
“Not in time to give her an alibi. No one remembers seeing her in the grocery store.”
“And Rose gave Marilyn a key?”
“Right.”
Drake said, “You aren’t going to like this, Perry, but after we gave Marilyn Marlow a green light to go ahead with Kenneth Barstow she told him she’d fix up a tennis game with Rose Keeling and she wanted him to get her a key to Rose’s flat, either by hook or crook. She said Rose had sold out and Marilyn said if she could get in and search the place at a time when she knew Rose would be playing tennis or something that would keep her occupied so Marilyn could have the time to search the way only a woman could... She quit there. She didn’t tell Kenneth exactly what she expected to find.”
Mason said, “Keep Kenneth out of circulation for a while, Paul.”
“He’ll be discreet, Perry.”
“Unless they ask him too much. Caddo knows about him.”
“That’s right.”
“Of course you can’t blame Marilyn.”
“You mean you can’t,” Drake said, grinning.
“Well, what the hell, Paul, Rose Keeling had sold her out. She simply had to get evidence one way or another.”
There was silence for a few moments. Then Mason said, “That ink-stained, torn playsuit is a clue.”
“What about it?”
“I have a theory on it.”
“Mrs. Caddo?”
“Could be.”
“Want us to do anything there, Perry?”
“No, not yet, anyway. I’m going to have a talk with Dolores Caddo, just for the fun of the thing.”
“If you can get any fun out of that,” Drake said, “go to it.”
“You have Caddo’s home address, Della?” Mason asked abruptly.
She nodded.
“You’ve made a complete check on Ralph Endicott?” Mason asked.
“His story checks absolutely,” Drake said.
Mason said, “I hate to dismiss him from the list of suspects, but I guess we’ll have to. My own hunch is that the murder was committed right on the dot of eleven-forty. That’s the time we telephoned and someone lifted the receiver off the hook.”
Drake said, “Well, so far they can’t prove that anyone has wiped fingerprints off the telephone receiver, Perry.”
“That’s so far,” Mason said grimly. “Only my prints were on that receiver. That makes it look as if I’d tried to save my client by wiping her prints off the receiver and when I did that, I wiped the murderer’s prints off.”
“Some people would think it looked that way,” Drake said tonelessly.
“I didn’t do it, Paul.”
Drake raised his eyebrows.
“Marilyn did it,” Della said.
Drake’s face showed relief. “That’ll let you out, then, Perry. Gosh, I was worried. The minute Tragg can show the murderer must have picked up the receiver at eleven-forty, that Marilyn telephoned you around twelve-ten and that you phoned the police, but that only your prints were on the receiver — well, that gives him quite a case against you, Perry. It’s pretty strong circumstantial evidence that you sent Marilyn home and tried to save her by wiping her prints off the telephone receiver. But if you and Della can both swear Marilyn did that, it’ll put you off the spot.”