Mason said, “I’d like to know more about Chennery, Paul. I want a description. I’d particularly like to find out if there’s any chance Chennery was also known as Austin Cullens.”
“I’m sending some more men out there,” Drake said. “I’m going to pick up everything we can without making her suspicious. You don’t want her to know she’s being tagged, do you?”
“No,” Mason said. “She mustn’t...”
His desk phone rang and Della Street picked up the receiver, listened a minute, turned to Mason and said, “Dr. Gifford.”
Mason took the telephone. Dr. Gifford, speaking with close-clipped, professional rapidity, said, “Try and get this all at once, Mason. I won’t have an opportunity to repeat. Mrs. Breel is fully conscious. Actually she was conscious but sleeping most of the night. She had a concussion. No fracture, no internal injuries, the fracture in the right leg has been reduced, the leg’s in a cast, she’s been placed under arrest, with an officer on guard at the door of the room, no one is allowed to visit her. She refuses to make any statement except in the presence of her attorney, says you’re her lawyer, Sergeant Holcomb is on his way over here. It might be a good plan for you to come down. She’s in six twenty.”
“You’re at the hospital now?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“What’s she under arrest for?”
“Charged with the murder of Austin Cullens.”
“She hasn’t made any statement, not even to the nurses?”