Mason smiled at Mrs. Tump. “Well, Mrs. Tump,” he said. “I guess you won’t have to produce any alibi to show that you didn’t drag Tidings out of his club, shoot him, and drive him up to Mrs. Tidings’ house. The autopsy surgeon has just advised Sergeant Holcomb that the man has been dead since ten o’clock Tuesday morning.”
Sergeant Holcomb frowned at Mason. “You’re using a lot of imagination,” he said.
Mason picked up the telephone, and when he heard Gertie’s voice on the line, asked, “Did you listen in on that telephone conversation, Gertie?”
“Uh huh,” she said.
Mason said, “Thanks. That’s all.”
He dropped the receiver back into its cradle, and smiled at Sergeant Holcomb’s discomfiture.
“Those doctors,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “are a bunch of boobs. How the devil can a man work up a case with a lot of nitwits tying his hands?”
Mattern said, “Why, I know he was alive shortly before noon. I talked with him over the telephone.”
Mason said, “You talked with someone who said he was Tidings.”
“I talked with Tidings.”