“In any event, I’ll be going,” Tragg said. “I trust it won’t be necessary to bother you again, Mr. Karr.”
Mason watched him out of the room, then frowned and lit a cigarette. He was still frowning at the cigarette smoke when the sound of the lower door closing seemed to ease the tension.
Karr said, “What was the idea telling him about two shots, and making the time later, Mason?”
Mason said, “It would have been a good gag if it had worked.”
“Don’t you think it did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why was it a good gag?”
“Because when an officer’s working up a case, he talks with a lot of witnesses. From them he gets a pretty good idea of what happened and when it happened. Naturally, an officer likes to get newspaper publicity, so he stands in pretty well with the newspaper reporters. Otherwise he doesn’t stay on the force. The newspapers see to that. So when you tell a man like Lieutenant Tragg to keep your name out of the newspapers, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. But if you give him testimony which is at variance with the facts in the case he’s working up, then he’s certain to see your name is kept out of the newspapers.”
“Why?”
“Because if the newspapers state you don’t recollect things just as the other witnesses do, or that your testimony is at sharp variance with theirs, it means that the person who actually committed the murder, and whom the police are after, is encouraged. It means that when that person is arrested, the lawyer he retains will know immediately where to go to find a witness who will contradict the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses.”