Golding said, “All right, Mason, he came here. He said he wanted to see me. He came in and pulled that stuff about me having picked up some stones from George Trent. I told him he was nuts, that George Trent hadn’t been in here for two months. We argued for a while, and then he got up and went out.”
“That was all?” Mason asked.
“That was all.”
“That doesn’t coincide with the facts the way I have them,” Mason said.
“All right,” Golding told him, “suppose you tell your story.”
“Cullens,” Mason said, “found out that you had some stones that you’d picked up from Trent. He told you they didn’t belong to Trent. You had an argument about whether you could hold them if Trent didn’t have title to them. You had about six thousand tied up in them. Cullens offered to pay off half the indebtedness and take over the stones. You didn’t like that. So Cullens showed you you were in a spot because Trent didn’t own the stones. You didn’t want any lawsuits. You took the money and gave Cullens the stones. Cullens went out and someone bumped him off.”
“Where’d you get that pipe dream?” Golding asked.
“A little bird told me.”
Golding said, “They have open seasons on birds some times.”
“Do you make the game laws?”