“No — what’s more,” Driscoll said calmly, “I can prove that I didn’t kill him, and that I didn’t have anything to do with his death.”
Cuff got to his feet belligerently and said, “I demand that my client be given an opportunity to prove his innocence.”
“No one’s stopping him,” Scanlon said good-naturedly.
Overmeyer said, “I want the record to show, and Counsel to understand, the attitude of the district attorney’s office is that of making an impartial, independent investigation. We’re not trying to pin this crime on anyone. We want the facts, that’s all.”
“Go ahead,” Rodney Cuff said to Driscoll.
Perry Mason stirred uneasily in his seat, started to say something, then lapsed into silence.
Driscoll said, “Walter Prescott was alive at eleven fifty-five. He telephoned his partner at that time. Five minutes later, just as the noon whistles were blowing, there was an automobile accident in front of Prescott’s house. I ran out and helped remove the injured man from the coupe. I then returned to Prescott’s house and gave Rosalind Prescott the gun with which, the evidence shows, the murder must have been committed. That gun was placed back of the drawer in the desk, and was subsequently found there by the police. Now, from that time until the time I left the house the witness, Stella Anderson, was watching that room. She didn’t see anyone take the gun out from behind the drawer in the desk. At quarter past twelve Rosalind Prescott and I left the house by the side door — that’s the one which opens on Fourteenth Street, and went to the airport, where we took the next plane out and went to Reno.”
Emil Scanlon said very seductively, “That, of course, leaves a gap between eleven fifty-five and twelve o’clock. Not a great deal of time, to be certain, but one, nevertheless, within which a shot could easily have been fired.”
Driscoll said, “During that time, I was engaged in telephoning.”
“Could you prove that?” the deputy district attorney asked.