“I would say it was shortly before noon.”
“Tuesday morning?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say where he was calling from?” Mason asked.
“No, sir. He didn’t.”
Mason said, “Then the last we know of…”
“Hold it,” Sergeant Holcomb said to Mason, and then into the telephone transmitter, “Yes. Hello. This is Sergeant Holcomb, Doctor. I want the dope on Albert Tidings. I want to know exactly when he died… Yes, of course, I understand you haven’t completed your examination, but you’ve certainly gone far enough to give me a pretty good guess… Well, what’s the temperature of the room got to do with it?… I see… What?… What’s that?… Now, wait a minute. That doesn’t check with the evidence… No, it couldn’t have been that early… Ten o’clock at the latest?… You’ll have to up that by three hours… Well, get busy on it… Of course, I want the exact facts, but I don’t want you to make a monkey out of yourself and the department, too… You get the chief autopsy surgeon on that.”
Sergeant Holcomb banged up the receiver.
Mason grinned at Byrl Gailord, then turned to Sergeant Holcomb and inquired courteously, “What did he say, Sergeant?”
Sergeant Holcomb said, “He doesn’t know. He hasn’t completed his examination… Those doctors are a pain in the neck. I left word they were to go to work on that the minute the body was received at the coroner’s office.”