“Yes.”
“You were on your way there?” Sprague asked.
“Does it,” Mason inquired, “make any particular difference?”
“I think it does,” Sprague told him.
“Well, of course,” Mason remarked, “I have no means of knowing just what you have in mind.”
“That isn’t answering my question,” Sprague said.
“Were you asking a question?”
Sheriff Barnes interposed. “Now, wait a minute, Ray,” he said. “That’s not getting us anywhere,” and, with a significant glance toward the curious pedestrians, who had gathered on the sidewalk, “It isn’t doing the case any good. Let’s go up to Mason’s office.”
Mason kicked out the clutch and snapped the car into low gear. “I’ll see you there,” he said.
The others jumped into the police car, followed closely behind, until Mason had parked his machine. They rode up in the elevator with him and entered his private office. When Mason had switched on the lights and closed the door, Sergeant Holcomb said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you birds about this guy.”
“You didn’t warn me,” Raymond Sprague said, “you warned the sheriff.”
“Just what,” Mason asked, “is the beef about?”
“What have you done with Helen Monteith?”
“Nothing,” Mason said.
“We think differently,” Sprague announced.
“Suppose you tell me what you think,” Mason said.
“You’ve had Helen Monteith take a powder.”
Mason faced them, his feet spread far apart, his shoulders squared, his hands thrust into the side pockets of his coat. “All right,” he said, “let’s get this straight. I’m representing Helen Monteith. I’m also representing Charles Sabin. I’m trying to solve the murder of Fremont C. Sabin. I’m being paid money by my clients for doing just that. You gentlemen are being paid money by your county for solving the same murder I’m trying to solve. Naturally, you’re going to solve it your way, and, by the same token, I intend to solve it mine.”
“We want to question Helen Monteith,” Sprague said.
Mason met his eyes squarely. “Go ahead and question her, then.”
“Where is she?”
Mason pulled his cigarette case from his pocket and said, “I’ve told you once I don’t know. You’re running this show, I’m not.”
“You wouldn’t want me to charge you with being an accessory after the fact, would you?” Sprague asked ominously.
“I don’t give a damn what you charge me with,” Mason told him. “Only, if you want to talk law, remember that I can’t be an accessory after the fact, unless I give aid to the murderer. Now then, do you intend to claim that Helen Monteith is the one who committed the murder?”
Sprague flushed and said, “Yes.”
Sheriff Barnes interposed a drawling comment. “Now wait a minute, Ray, let’s not get our cart before our horse.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Sprague said.
Mason turned to Sheriff Barnes and said, “I think you and I can get along, Sheriff.”
“I’m not so certain,” Barnes said, pulling a sack of tobacco from his pocket, and spilling rattling grains to the surface of a brown cigarette paper. “You have quite a bit to explain before I’ll give you my confidence again.”
“What, for instance?” Mason asked.
“I thought you were going to co-operate with me.”
“I am,” Mason told him, “to the extent that I intend to find out who murdered Fremont C. Sabin.”
“We want to find out, too.”
“I know you do. You use your methods. I’ll use mine.”
“We don’t like having those methods interfered with.”
“I can understand that,” Mason told him.
Sprague said, “Don’t waste words talking with him.”
“If you birds want to charge him with compounding a felony, or being an accessory after the fact,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “I’ll take him into custody with the greatest of pleasure.”
Mason struck a match and held it to Sheriff Barnes’ cigarette, then lit his own. The conversation came to an abrupt standstill. After a few moments Mason said to Sprague, “Are you going to take him up on that, Sprague?”
“I think I am,” Sprague snapped, “but I’m going to get some evidence first.”
“I don’t think you’ll find much here in my office,” Mason pointed out.
Holcomb said, “I’ll take him down to headquarters, if you fellows say the word.”
Sheriff Barnes turned to face them. “Now listen,” he said, “you boys have been kicking me around because I gave Mason a break. I still don’t see any reason why we should be stampeded into going off half cocked. Personally, I’m not going to get antagonistic until I find out a few things.” He turned to Mason and said, “Did you know that the gun which killed Fremont C. Sabin was taken from a collection at the public library in San Molinas?”
“What if it was?” Mason asked.
“And the librarian, Helen Monteith, went through a marriage ceremony with a man who gave the name of George Wallman, and whom neighbors identify absolutely as being Fremont C. Sabin?”
“Go ahead,” Sergeant Holcomb said sarcastically, “give him all the information you have, and when he gets done he’ll laugh at you.”
“On the contrary,” Mason said, “I’m very much inclined to co-operate. Having gone that far, I presume you gentlemen have noticed that the caged parrot on the screen porch of Helen Monteith’s little bungalow is Casanova, the parrot owned by Fremont C. Sabin, and that the parrot which was found in the mountain cabin is a parrot which Sabin had recently purchased from the Fifth Avenue Pet Shop in San Molinas?”
Sheriff Barnes’ eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. “You’re giving us the straight goods on that?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” Mason said.
“He’s drawing a red herring across the trail,” Sergeant Holcomb said disgustedly.
“If you knew all of that,” Raymond Sprague said, “and then hid Helen Monteith where we couldn’t question her, I think I will charge you with being an accessory.”
“Go ahead,” Mason invited. “As I remember the law, you’ll have to charge that I concealed a principal in a felony case, with the intent that such principal might avoid or escape from arrest, trial, conviction or punishment, having knowledge that said principal had committed such felony, or had been charged with such felony. Now then, as I gather it, to date Helen Monteith hasn’t been charged with the commission of any felony.”
“No, she hasn’t,” Barnes admitted.
“And I don’t think she has committed any felony,” Mason said.
“Well, I do,” Sprague told him.
“A mere difference of opinion,” Mason observed; and then turned once more to Sheriff Barnes. “It may interest you to know, Sheriff,” he said, “that the parrot in the cage on Helen Monteith’s porch keeps saying, ‘Put down that gun, Helen... don’t shoot... My God, you’ve shot me.’ ”
The sheriff’s face showed his interest. “How do you account for that?” he asked.
“I don’t,” Mason said. “Of course, the obvious way to account for it is that the parrot was present when someone named Helen threatened someone with a gun, and then, after being told to drop the gun, fired a shot, which took effect. However, the shooting took place, not in Helen Monteith’s bungalow, but in a mountain cabin some miles away, while, apparently, the parrot on Helen Monteith’s porch wasn’t present at the shooting.”
“Just what are you getting at?” Sheriff Barnes inquired.
“I’m trying to co-operate with you,” Mason told him.
“Well, we don’t want your co-operation,” Sprague told him. “It’s quite evident to me that you’ve gathered a great deal of information from questioning Helen Monteith. Now, I’m going to give you twenty-four hours to produce her. In the event you fail to do so, I’m going to have you brought before the Grand Jury at San Molinas.”