“Oh, fine,” Drake said sarcastically. “I was down there for all of fifteen minutes, I guess, and then I got your message to come back.”
“Well,” Mason told him, “it turned out that the case I had down there wasn’t terribly important after all.”
“Yes,” Drake said dryly, “I read about it. The taxicab driver blew up on the witness stand and couldn’t identify anyone, so there was really no need of my going in the first place.”
“I didn’t say that,” Mason told him. “The case you were sent down to La Jolla to work on had nothing to do with the taxi driver.”
“Oh, I know, I know,” Drake said. “Just one of those coincidences. Isn’t it funny how they’ll trap you, Perry? It wouldn’t be any trouble at all to reach an entirely erroneous conclusion in a matter of that sort, just judging from circumstantial evidence.”
“Never mind all that,” Mason told him. “What have you all found out about the people on that list I gave you, Paul?”
“Well,” Drake said, “at four-thirty on the afternoon of the third, Herbert Doxey was at home with his wife. He’d been there since shortly before four o’clock. He was taking a sun bath in a screen enclosure in the back yard. He’s got a sunburned back to prove it, too. Enright Harlan and Roxy Claffin were together.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, they were out at Roxy’s house. Roxy answered the telephone. She was talking on the phone a little before four o’clock and she was talking again at four-fifteen. Enright Harlan got there a little before four-thirty. They had an appointment for a little after five o’clock with an attorney named Arthur Nebitt Hagan, and they left Roxy’s place shortly after four-thirty.
“Now then, you come to Neffs, and, believe it or not, Neffs was at the Sunbelt Detective Agency, hiring a detective to shadow certain people. It was his theory that your client had to be one of half a dozen possible individuals, and he wanted to find out who.
“Cleve Rector was closeted with Jim Bantry of the Bantry Construction and Paving Company.”
“At four-thirty?” Mason asked.
“Well, there we run into a little trouble. Apparently, he left Bantry at around four o’clock. He says that he stopped in at a bar for a cocktail and then went to his office, getting there around five o’clock.”
“You can’t verify his story as to where he was between four and five o’clock?” Mason asked.
“Well, we know he was at the contractors at four and we know he was at his office at five, and we know the driving time between the two is about twenty-five minutes. He couldn’t have gotten into very much mischief in that time. Of course, when you come right down to it, Perry, we don’t have the type of evidence that would give him an alibi.”
“I don’t want to give him an alibi,” Mason said. “Let him furnish his own alibi. I just want to know how much evidence he can bring to bear.”
“Well, apparently that’s it. He gave the name of a bar where he stopped in for a cocktail. The guy who was tending bar at the time was busy. Rector’s picture doesn’t mean a damn thing to him. Rector may have been there, or he may not as far as the bartender is concerned.”
“All right,” Mason said, “that leaves Ezekiel Elkins. What about him?”
“Now then,” Drake said, “I’ve been saving that choice titbit until the last. There is something very, very mysterious about Ezekiel Elkins. He’s not talking.”
“Not with anybody?”
“Not with any of my men. We’ve used all of the known tricks on him, and he’s not talking. Incidentally, Mr. Elkins has a nice black eye.”
“Where did he get it?” Mason asked. “Did he run into a door in the dark of the night?”
“He ran into somebody’s fist in broad daylight.”
“Who is Elkins talking to — anyone?”
“He’s had a chance to talk.”
“To whom?”
“To the district attorney.”
“You don’t know whether he talked or not?”
“No, naturally the district attorney isn’t going to tell me.”
“What does the district attorney tell the newspaper reporters?”
“That he had several witnesses in who could explain matters somewhat, and Elkins was among them. He didn’t say whether Elkins talked or what they talked about. Just smiled and let it go at that.”
“Well, that’s a thought,” Mason said.
“With the finding of that second bullet,” Drake pointed out, “it turns out that the gun must have been fired at least twice inside the house up there, and the third empty shell indicates that it may have been fired three times. Now what had it been fired at?”
“I wish I could tell you that,” Mason said.
“Did your client hear the shots?” Drake asked.
“What makes you think my client was anywhere around there?” Mason asked.
“Your client could help one hell of a lot if she would co-operate. It would shorten the investigation.”
“How come, Paul?”
“She could tell us exactly when the murder was committed. The autopsy surgeon can place the time within twenty minutes — and twenty minutes is twenty minutes.”
Mason nodded.
“The other thing your client could do is tell how many shots were fired and how those shots were spaced. In other words, whether there was one shot and then quite an interval and then another shot. Whether two shots came close together. Or even, perhaps, if there was a third shot fired.”
“But what in the world would my client have been doing out there... how did she get out there and—?”
“Now wait a minute,” Drake said. “Don’t blow a gasket over this thing, Perry. I’m simply asking you. I’d like very much to have that information. It would simplify my investigative work.”
Mason said, “Paul, no one has proven that my client was out there — yet. But if my client had been out there, she would have been sitting in Lutts’ car, listening to the radio, and the radio would have been playing so loud that she couldn’t have heard the shot.”
“Shots,” Drake corrected, “plural.”
“All right, plural — shots.”
“Della Street and I have been conducting experiments out there at the scene of the murder,” Mason said. “Anyone who might have been in Lutts’ car, waiting for him to come downstairs, was bound to have heard the two shots that were fired unless the radio in the car was on.”
“Was the radio on when you and Doxey went out there and Doxey discovered the body?”
“No.”
“Who had the car keys?” Drake asked.
“To Lutts’ car?”
“Yes.”
“Why, he did, of course.”
Drake shook his head. “They weren’t in his pockets when the body was searched.”
“The devil!” Mason exclaimed.
“Makes a difference?” Drake asked, his eyes searching the lawyer’s face.
“Perhaps. What would the murderer have wanted with car keys?”
“He may have wanted to borrow the car.”
“And the police didn’t search the car for fingerprints?”
“Not then. They’re doing it now. Here are some pictures of the car, for what they’re worth.”
Drake pulled out some eight-by-ten glossy photographs. Mason studied them.
“That’s just the way the car was found?”
“That’s right.”
Mason studied the ignition switch.
“What’s wrong?” Drake asked.
Mason said, “Call up the agency that sells this car. See if it’s possible to turn on the radio when the ignition is locked and the key removed.”
“Oh, oh!” Drake exclaimed.
“Get busy,” Mason told him.