Sergeant Tremont grinned. “Well,” he said, “that’s that. We were hoping you could help us.”
“Well, I can’t,” Mason told him shortly, snapping the stub of his cigarette into a cuspidor.
The man at the table said, “Have you any idea when I can go, Sergeant?”
“Pretty quick,” Tremont told him, without shifting his eyes from Mason.
Mason turned to Diggers. “Just how did the accident happen?” he asked.
Sergeant Tremont said, “This man is a lawyer, Diggers. You’ve already made your report. You don’t have to tell anyone anything.”
“I most certainly have nothing to conceal,” Diggers said. “I was driving my car along St. Rupert Boulevard. I was in a thirty-mile zone, and don’t believe I was going more than twenty-five or twenty-six miles an hour. In any event, I was keeping right along with the stream of slow traffic. I was well over on the right, in the right-hand lane. Traffic on the outside whizzing past anywhere from five to twenty miles an hour faster than I was. There was a big blue sedan parked at the curb. That car started out from the curb all of a sudden, and I swerved to the right to keep on the inside because I was going pretty slow. This was just after I’d passed Ninety-First Street. I guess I was about the middle of the block. Well, just as soon as I swung in toward the curb, this woman jumped out right in front of my headlights — just about where the blue sedan had been. When she saw me, she got rattled and flung up her hands. I slammed on the brakes, gave her the horn, and swerved the car. the running-board on the right-hand side struck her leg and broke it below the knee. She fell down and hit her head. This bag was lying on the pavement right near where she fell. I was going to load her in my car and bring her to the emergency hospital, but some people who had stopped told me they’d already telephoned for an ambulance, and I’d better let the ambulance move her... let them take the responsibility.”
“You were driving alone?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“How long before you hit this woman did you first see her?”