“Go on,” Mason said.
“Whoever was driving that car hadn’t figured on the fact that the open door gave him a pretty narrow target. His first shot missed. He didn’t expect to have to shoot. When the waitress jumped forward she got out of the line of fire. The driver stepped on the throttle to speed up so he could get abreast of her. When he did that, the right-hand door jerked back shut. The fellow fired a second bullet, and, according to the story of witnesses, that bullet, which was fired just as the door was swinging closed, went through the right-hand door of the car.
“The girl screamed and gained the street. The bullets had missed her. A motorist knocked her down. The mouth of the alley was blocked by stalled traffic, by gawking pedestrians.
“The man in the car really knew his way around with an automobile. It isn’t an easy job to back an automobile at high speed. There wasn’t any room in the alley to turn around. The man was trapped. He had to get out of there fast. He could have abandoned the car and mingled with the pedestrians, but for some reason he didn’t dare to do that. He threw the car into reverse and went backing out of the alley just as fast as the reverse gear could propel the car backwards.”
“You found that out?” Mason asked.
“We found that out,” Tragg said. “A couple of witnesses saw the car backing up. They assumed that the driver was going to get out. The driver never got out. The car picked up speed. It went back in a straight line, without any wobbling or weaving. You know what that means, Mason. That means the man was an expert. The ordinary motorist doesn’t get to drive like that. A man who’s accustomed to running a squad car might do it, and a fellow who had been educated in the bootlegging or the dope-running business could do it. That’s part of their stock in trade, taking a car and whipping it around alleys and through traffic faster than other people can drive.”
“All right,” Mason said, “let’s come to the payoff.”
“The payoff,” Tragg said, “is that you asked me as a special favor to see that this woman was put in a private hospital. I did it. In a private hospital she had a better chance of walking out. She walked out. She took a powder, vanished.”
“Am I responsible for that?” Mason asked.
“I’m damned if I know,” Tragg said. “Wait until you get the punch line.”
“What’s the punch line?”
Tragg said, “Naturally, when she took a powder like that we became interested. It was a traffic department case. They went around to Morris Alburg’s place. They asked questions. Alburg didn’t seem to be trying to cover up particularly, but he certainly didn’t know much about this particular woman. He certainly was dumb.”
Mason nodded. “Go ahead.”
“However,” Tragg said, “the boys found the waitress’s purse. They looked in it. There was a pawn ticket on a Seattle pawn shop. The boys got in touch with the Seattle pawn shop detail and they went down and picked up the article that was on the ticket. It was a diamond ring, flanked with two small emeralds, a pretty good job. She’d got a hundred and a quarter on it. It was worth a thousand.”
“And?” Mason asked.
“And,” Tragg said, “naturally the boys got to asking questions, getting a description, finding out anything they could, and the pawnbroker remembered that there had been two transactions made at the same time. She’d pawned the diamond ring, and she’d pawned a gun.
“We didn’t have the pawn ticket for the gun so the Seattle police didn’t know about it, but the pawnbroker remembered it. He got the gun and the Seattle police telephoned a description down to us, just in case. They gave us the serial number.”
“And?” Mason asked.
“And,” Tragg said, “it was Bob Claremont’s gun — the gun that had been missing ever since the night someone jerked it out of Bob Claremont’s holster, held it against his head, pulled the trigger and snuffed out his life, then fired five more shots into his twitching body, and callously dumped him out of the car like a sack of meal.”
Tragg stopped talking. He looked at the end of his cigar, seemed surprised to find that it had gone out, took a match from his pocket, scraped it into flame on the sole of his shoe, rotated the cold cigar carefully while he nursed the end into flame, then dropped the match into an ashtray, settled back in the overstuffed leather chair and started smoking, apparently concentrating on his thoughts and the aroma of his cigar.
Mason and Della Street exchanged glances.
There was a thick, ominous silence in the office.
Mason pinched out his cigarette, started drumming slowly on the edge of his desk, using only the tips of fingers, making almost no sound.
Tragg kept on smoking.
“When did you find this out?” Mason asked, at length.
“About half an hour before I started up here.”
“Where were you during that half-hour?” Mason asked.
“Where the hell do you suppose? I was trying to find Alburg.”
“And where is Alburg?”
Tragg shrugged his shoulders, made a little gesture with spread palms and went on smoking.
“And just why are you telling me this?” Mason asked.
“For one thing,” Tragg said, “I like you. You’ve cut corners before. You’ve managed to get away with it because they were cases where you were in the right. If you’d been in the wrong you’d have been lashed to the mast. As it was, you wormed out. You’re smart. You’re damned smart. You’re logical, you’re a two-fisted fighter. You stick up for your clients... You’ve never been in a case before where an officer was killed in the line of duty. Take my advice and don’t get in one. Things happen in cases of that sort. You could get hurt. You will get hurt.”
Tragg ceased talking, went on smoking his cigar. Then he turned to Mason and said, “I want that fur coat.”
Mason gave that problem frowning consideration, while his fingertips once more drummed on the edge of the desk.
“Do I get it?” Tragg asked.
Mason, still drumming with his fingers, said, “Let me think it over for a minute.”
“Take your time,” Tragg said. “This isn’t tiddlywinks you’re playing.”
There was an interval of silence. Della Street’s apprehensive eyes were on Mason’s granite-hard face.
Abruptly Mason stopped drumming. “No question about it being the same girl?” he asked.
“Sure, there’s a question,” Tragg said. “There’s a question about everything. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk with Alburg again... But the girl who pawned that ring was the same girl who pawned Bob Claremont’s gun.”
Mason resumed drumming with his fingertips, then said abruptly, “The thing that I simply can’t understand, Tragg, is why the hell she would do anything like that. Whoever killed Claremont knew that gun was hot as a stove lid. That gun would put somebody right in the gas chamber. The lawyer doesn’t live who could get an acquittal in the case of the person who showed up with Claremont’s gun. Not if there is the faintest scintilla of other evidence to hang anything on.”
“Are you telling me?” Tragg said.
“How much did she get for the gun?”
“Eighteen dollars.”
“In good shape?”
“Just as perfect as the day Bob Claremont kissed his wife and kids good-by and put it in his holster for the last time.”
Mason said, “The murderer simply wouldn’t have been that dumb, Tragg.”