“I know,” Mason said. “Just how did they find the gun and just where did they find it?”
“Anders stood on that highway and threw it as hard as he could throw it,” Drake said. “The gun evidently hit the high tension post on the side of the road and dropped back into the ditch. It started to rain a short time later, and quite a bit of water gathered in the drainage ditch. During wet weather, water stands in there two or three feet deep. The water went down this afternoon, and some smart photographer who had been sent out to photograph your footprints happened to notice it lying there in the water.
“It’s a thirty-eight calibre Colt, police positive. Police rushed a test bullet through it, and compared it with the fatal bullet. They were both fired by the same gun.”
Mason said, “What does Anders have to say to that?”
“I don’t know,” Drake said. “It doesn’t make very much difference what he does have to say to it. It puts him in an awful spot.”
“Numbers on the gun?” Mason asked.
“I guess so. Remember, Perry, this is last minute news, hot off the wire. My friend on the newspaper handed it to me as a flash.”
“Well,” Mason said, “I guess they’ll turn Mae Farr loose now. I filed habeas corpus on her.”
“They’ll want to hold her as a witness,” Drake said.
“They will and they won’t. She cuts, both ways. Once they can pin the kill on Anders, it’s up to him to show the circumstances which would justify or extenuate his actions. That means it’s up to him to keep Mae Farr where he can put his finger on her. She’s more important to the defence than to the prosecution.
“Listen, Paul, get busy on that Tooms girl, find out all you can about her. Keep men on Marley and see if you can scare up anything more on Eversel. How about Mrs. Wentworth? I presume the police have been checking on her?”
“I guess so. She went up to the D.A.’s office shortly after noon, was in there for about an hour. As I get it, she took it right on the chin, said that it was a shame that it had to happen, that naturally she regretted it, that she and Wentworth were estranged, that she wasn’t going to pretend they were good friends any longer, that differences over property affairs had become very bitter, that naturally his death came as a shock to her.
“My newspaper friend slipped me a bunch of photographs. Among them is a swell one of Juanita Wentworth just leaving her automobile in front of the courthouse.”
“Why leaving the automobile?” Mason asked.
Drake said, “These newspaper photographers are instructed to get lots of leg in the pictures. You can’t very well pose a widow that way. It’s in poor taste. So they got a ‘candid camera’ shot just as she was getting out of the automobile.”
“I see,” Mason said, and then added, after a moment, “How about her story, Paul? Did the D.A.’s office ask her for more particulars, or did they just hit the high spots?”
“I don’t know just what,” — Della Street slipped through the door from the outer office. Drake broke off to glance up at her for a moment, then finished quickly — “what they talked about, Perry.”
Della said, “Mae Farr’s in the office.”
Mason jerked his head toward the door. “Beat it, Paul,” he said. “I want to get the lowdown on some stuff. Anything she tells me is privileged unless a third party like yourself overhears it. Then it is no longer privileged communication and we might all be in a spot later on. Keep working on things and dig up all the information you can.”
“I will,” Drake said, “and you’d better work fast with Mae Farr, Perry.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that she’s outside now, but I have a hunch she won’t stay out long.”
“Why Paul?”
“Just the way things are looking,” Drake said. “I’m on my way, Perry.”
“So long,” Mason said, and nodded to Della Street.
Della went out and brought Mae Farr into the office. She crossed over to Perry Mason, her head held high, a defiant smile on her lips. “Hello,” she said. “Are we speaking or aren’t we?”
“Why not?” Mason asked. “Sit down and have a cigarette.”
“Do you want me?” Della asked.
Mason shook his head. “And see that we’re not disturbed, Della.”
“I’m closing up the office now,” she said, and walked swiftly through the door to the outer offices.
“Why,” Mason asked Mae Farr, “shouldn’t we be speaking?”
“I’m afraid I got you in something of a spot.”
“That’s nothing. I’m accustomed to spots. What did you tell the police?”
“Not a thing.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. I told them nothing.”
“Did they read Anders’ statement to you?”
“They told me about what he’d said first — with a lot of variations of their own, and then they let me see their signed statement, which differed quite a bit from what they’d said it was.”
“And you told them absolutely nothing?”
“Not a thing. I said that I was a working girl with my reputation to think of, and I didn’t care to make any statement whatever.”
“What did they say to that?”
“They said that I’d get in more deeply than ever by adopting that sort of an attitude. I told them that was fine. They’ve given me a subpoena to appear before a grand jury. They say I’ll have to talk then. Will I?”
“Probably,” Mason said. “If you didn’t kill him, you’d better talk.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Did Anders kill him?”
“I can’t believe he did, but if he didn’t, who did?”
Mason said, “Let’s go back to last night. You started back to town with me. Then you went on ahead. Now then, what did you do after that?”
“Kept right on going to town,” she said.
“To your apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“Then this morning detectives from the Homicide Squad came and got me out of bed, and held me for questioning.”
Mason said, “You didn’t, by any chance, turn around after you left me and double back to the Yacht Club, did you?”
“Good heavens, no! Why?”
“Someone tried to tell me you did.”
“Who?”
“A man by the name of Marley Do you know him?”
“Oh, Frank,” she said scornfully, and then, after a moment, “What does he know about me?”
“Don’t you know him?”
“Yes. I mean, what does he know about me being down at the Yacht Club?”
“He says you were. He says you were the one who took his cruiser out.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “He was out himself, and he’s trying to cover up.”
“What makes you say he was out in the boat?”
“Because he has one of those devious minds that never approaches anything directly. He works around in a circle. If you want to know where he’s going, you never look in the direction in which he’s headed.”
“I see,” Mason said with a smile.
“He’s clever,” she added hastily. “Don’t overlook that.”
“You know him fairly well?”
“Yes.”
“Seen a good deal of him?”
“Too much,” she said.
“You don’t like him?”
“I hate the ground he walks on.”
Mason said, “Let’s get things straight, Mae. How well did you know Penn Wentworth?”
“Too damn well.”
“His wife?”
“I’ve never met her.”
“Was Frank Marley playing around with Wentworth’s wife?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said.