“I don’t know,” Sergeant Holcomb admitted. “That’s what I want to find out.”
“Don’t you think you’d get farther if you started investigating from that end before you browbeat Miss Trent simply because she happened to know that a gun was in that drawer and knew how to use it?”
“I’m not browbeating anyone.”
“The girl had hysterics last night,” Mason said. “You carried her up to headquarters and shot questions at her until she had to be put under the care of a doctor.”
“All right, we got a doctor and sent her home when she had hysterics the second time,” Holcomb said. “She’s all right this morning.”
Mason said, “I have reason to believe that the first and only gambling place George Trent went to was The Golden Platter on East Third.”
“All right, what of it?”
“Something happened there to make him go back to his office. Don’t you think it would be a good plan for you to try and find out what that something was?”
“I’m running my investigation,” Sergeant Holcomb said.
“Moreover.” Mason went on smoothly, “if you neglect this end of it, and the charge should be made that the officers are deliberately overlooking that angle because it suited their policy to close their eyes to a gambling establishment running wide open, don’t you think...”