“Where’s he now?”
“Apparently,” Mason said, “he’s on a toot.”
“Well,” Tremont said, “it’s going to be mighty fortunate for her if it turns out these diamonds are ones which were legitimately left in her possession. Just how did you enter in on it, Mason?”
“I didn’t particularly,” the lawyer said. “I was more entered against than entering. Having invited her and her niece to have lunch with me, the niece showed up later on in the afternoon with the report that her aunt was missing and would I please try to locate her. Then some people who had some entirely different business with the niece followed her to my office and insisted on having their business conference there.”
The sergeant nodded to the property clerk. “The shoes, Bill,” he said. The property clerk passed up a pair of gray kid shoes, with medium high heels and pointed toes. Sergeant Tremont picked up the left one and said, “Now these were her shoes, Mason. Take a look at this left one.” Mason examined the thick, reddish-brown stains which adhered to the leather of the shoe, and which had turned the sole a rusty brown. “How’d the blood get on that shoe?” the officer asked.
Mason shook his head. “You can search me, Sergeant. I’m telling you, the last I saw of the woman was when I paid her lunch check at the department store. That must have been about one-fifteen or perhaps one-seventeen, to be exact. I had a one-thirty appointment at my office, and had to get back for it.”
“That still doesn’t explain the blood on the shoe.”
“Well,” Mason said, “she was in an automobile accident, wasn’t she? Her leg was broken.”
“The bone was broken,” Sergeant Tremont said, “but the skin wasn’t. Moreover, you’ll notice the blood on the sole of this shoe... Now then, Mason, your client wouldn’t by any chance have stuck up someone and lifted these sparklers, would she?”
Mason decided it was time to show his impatience. “How the devil do I know?” he asked. “In the first place, she isn’t a client of mine. In the second place, I know nothing whatever about her, and in the third place, I was only trying to accommodate a string-bean girl with pop eyes and a lantern jaw, who has very definite ideas about the conventions.”