“I know it doesn’t,” Drake told him, “but that’s why the police paid attention to the report that came in about Driscoll giving a gun to the girl to hide.”
Mason said thoughtfully, “I wonder if he thought Jimmy Driscoll was going to be hanging around the house, and he could lay a foundation with a complaint to the police, and then spray Driscoll full of lead.”
“If we’re guessing,” Drake said, “it sounds like a good guess.”
Mason smoked in silence for half a dozen blocks, then said meditatively, “Well, we’re guessing... Paul, there’s something phony about Walter Prescott. I can’t put my finger on just what it is, but somehow he doesn’t ring true. This business of taking money from his wife to invest in the business, and salting it away — the large deposits which he apparently made in the bank, notwithstanding the relatively small amounts he took out of his business— By the way, Trader mentioned he was delivering some stuff to Prescott’s garage. I wonder just what that stuff was. Suppose you check into that angle?”
“But he had the accident and went right on to the hospital,” Drake said “—No, you’re right, at that, Perry, he did make the delivery later. I remember now. He said he left the hospital to come back to the garage.”
“Prescott, you’ll remember,” Mason told him, “had given Trader his keys.”
“That’s right.”
“So Trader had a key to the garage door.”
“I wonder what happened to those keys,” Drake remarked. “Trader’s never accounted for them, as far as I can find.”
“Might be a good plan to give him a little more shakedown.”