Della Street coughed significantly.
“That,” Mason said, “would seem to be a very definite threat.”
“That is a very definite threat,” Holcomb told him.
“All right,” Mason said, “I understand the point you’ve made, and I can’t help you. All I can tell you is that I did not substitute any guns, that to the best of my knowledge the gun that young Garvin showed me out there, the gun which he took from the drawer of his desk is exactly the same gun that he took up to Stephanie Falkner’s apartment.”
“By saying that,” Sgt. Holcomb said, “you have made yourself an accessory after the fact. You’re concealing evidence. You’re acting the part of an accessory.”
Mason shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, Sergeant. I’m telling you the truth.”
“Okay, wise guy,” Sgt. Holcomb said. “You asked for it.”
He turned on his heel and walked out.
Mason waited until he was sure the Sergeant was out of the office, then turned to Della and said, “Della, did you go out and get that bullet?”
“Why, Chief,” she said, her eyes wide with surprise, “what in the world gave you any idea like that?”
“Did you? I gathered Holcomb was trying to scare me with a bluff.”
“If I had swiped that bullet as a souvenir, would it be serious?”
“It could be very serious.”
“Then if I had done it, and told you I had done it, that would put you in a very embarrassing position, would it not?”
Mason thought that over for a minute, then said, “Have it your own way, Della.”
“Thank you,” she said demurely.
Chapter Thirteen
Shortly after two-thirty Della Street entered Mason’s private office and said apprehensively, “Junior is out there.”
“Garvin?” Mason asked.
“That’s right.”
“He wants to see me?”
“He wants to see you very much indeed,” Della Street said.
“How is his disposition?”
“His disposition as indicated by his manner is very, very bad. He has chips on both shoulders. He wants to fight.”
“Then you’d better send him in right away,” Mason told her.
“Chief, let me have Paul Drake come down, or send a bodyguard, or...?”
Mason shook his head.
“Young Garvin is big and tough and strong,” she said. “You know what it would do to the case if there was a knock-down-drag-out fist fight right here in your office.”
“Send him in,” Mason said. “I think he’ll listen to reason.”
“He doesn’t act as though he would.”
“Send him in anyway,” Mason said, “and we’ll get it over with. If he sees Paul Drake here, he’ll know that I sent for him to act as bodyguard, and then he’ll feel that I’m afraid of him. That wouldn’t be good. Let’s have it out man to man and straight from the shoulder right now. I’ll see if I can clear up some things in Junior’s mind.”
“Well, here goes,” Della Street said, “but I don’t like it.”
A moment later the door literally burst open and young Garvin came striding into the office.
“What the hell are you trying to do, Mason?” he shouted.
Mason said, “Sit down, Junior, take a load off your feet, and off your mind. Suppose you tell me what’s the reason for all this outburst.”
“I want to know what the hell you’re trying to do dragging my wife’s good name through all this muck and mire.”
“I wasn’t aware that I was dragging your wife’s good name through the muck and mire.”
“Well, everybody else is aware of it, even if you’re not.”
“Precisely what did I do?” Mason asked.
“You have made her the number one suspect in the killing of George Casselman.”
“How?”
“By getting me to take that gun up to Stephanie Falkner. Damn it, Mason, I don’t intend to stand for that. I’m going to hold you strictly responsible both as an attorney and as a man. You’re going to account to me legally and unless you can give me some satisfactory explanation, I’m going to bust you in the puss before I get out of here.”
Mason regarded the younger man with steely-eyed scorn. “So you think it would do some good to bust me in the puss, as you express it?”
“It would give me the greatest personal satisfaction,” Garvin told him.
“It might also get you a broken jaw,” Mason said. “The point is, however, would it do your wife any good? Would it do your case any good? You let the newspapers get the idea that you’re having trouble with me over this thing and you’ll really make a story of it.”
“They’ve made a story out of it anyway.”
“No, they haven’t,” Mason said. “They won’t dare to publish the full implications with the full sensational embroidery unless you give them a peg on which they can hang a lot of innuendos. Now either sit down and tell me calmly what this is all about, or else get the hell out of the office and let me try to figure the thing out.”
Garvin took a couple of steps toward Mason’s desk, paused uncertainly before the look in the lawyer’s eyes, detoured a little to the side, and propped one hip against a corner of the big desk.
“Dawn worked in Las Vegas,” he said angrily. “Casselman knew her and...”
“Now I take it Dawn is your wife?” Mason asked.
“Yes, Dawn Joyce. Casselman knew her and Casselman was always on the prowl. A girl in that kind of work gets hungry for real friendships. The tourists come and go. The transients make passes at her, and that’s all they’re thinking about.
“Casselman was a local man. He was friendly, and... well, Dawn liked him.”
“They had dates?” Mason asked.
“Apparently so.”
“Did she know he was here in town?” Mason asked.
“She knew he was here. After the write up in the paper — well, Casselman called her, just a social call, just a matter of wishing her every happiness in the world.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Mason said.
“The hell of it is,” Garvin said, “in the apartment where Casselman lived police found a notebook by the telephone with some numbers in it. He’d written down Dawn’s telephone number, and she’d written down his unlisted number. It was on a pad by her phone.”
“Anything else?” Mason asked tonelessly.
“Tuesday night, when Casselman was killed,” Garvin said, “I had to go out to interview a car dealer about taking twenty used cars off his hands. He was stuck with them and he knew it. He wanted to get his money out of the old cars so he could put it into new merchandise. It looked like a good opportunity for me to make a appointment with him.”
“You had an appointment with him?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Don’t bother about that,” Garvin said angrily. “I can prove where I was every minute of the time.”
“Carry a gun with you?” Mason asked.
“I did not. I left it in the desk drawer.”
“I see. And where was your wife?”
“Where any wife would be at that time. She was home waiting for me, and she was just a little bit angry because I broke in on a honeymoon to go out and close a business deal.”
“She was there when you got back?”
“Of course she was.”
“And what time did you get back?”
“About nine-thirty or ten. I can’t remember just what time. It was along in the latter part of the evening.”
“And all this time your gun was in the drawer of the desk at your office?”
“During my conference it was. I got it after the conference and took it home.”
“And your wife doesn’t even have a key to the office?” Mason asked.