“He doesn’t have arthritis?”
“Probably, but not as bad as he wants us to believe now.”
“Wait a minute, Perry,” Drake said. “A doctor wouldn’t treat a bullet wound unless he reported it to the police.”
“That’s right,” Mason agreed, smiling.
“I don’t get you.”
“Karr,” Mason said, “is a man of varied activities. He’s very resourceful. Evidently, he carries on most of his activities under other roofs and under other names. Here in Hollywood, he’s Robindale E. Hocksley when it comes to transacting business. Up in San Francisco, he’s Carr Luceman, residing at thirteen-o-nine Delington Avenue.”
“I don’t give a damn how many names he’s got, Perry. He still can’t get a gunshot wound treated without...”
“Without making some explanation which would satisfy the doctor and the police,” Mason said. “As Elston Karr who had the flat above a flat where a murder had been committed, he naturally couldn’t have made any explanation in Los Angeles; but as Carr Luceman, living in San Francisco in a neighborhood where there hadn’t been any murders, he had no difficulty in thinking up a story which would hold water with the police.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Make him admit the whole business. I’m hardly in a position to put the screws on him. You are.”