“Pete! Don’t let them!” the woman said. “You don’t understand. They’re two jumps ahead of you. They’ve... they know things you don’t... they... they’re going to frame you to save...”
Chennery said coolly, “Why the thirty-eight caliber revolver?”
Mason said, “Austin Cullens was shot with a thirty-eight caliber revolver.”
“Who the hell’s Austin Cullens?” Chennery asked.
His wife turned to look at Perry Mason with pleading anguish in her eyes. Mason said, “He happens to have been a man who was killed with a thirty-eight caliber revolver.”
“So you thought you could frame something on me?” Chennery asked.
Mason chose his words carefully. “Detectives working on the case reported a car had been parked near Cullens’ residence at about the time of his death. The car was described as a red convertible with yellow wire wheels. The license number, as given by the witnesses, may be wrong, in one figure. If it is, it coincides with your license number, and the description of the man who was seen hanging around Cullens’ place coincides with your description.”
“So you were here, trying to bully something out of my wife?” Chennery asked.
“We asked her questions.”
“And intimated I might have killed him?”