Mason said, “Leave this to me, Paul. You fellows stay here.”
He waited some thirty seconds, until Cuff had inserted his fingers in the pockets of the dead man’s coat, then he casually walked forward and said, “I think the coroner likes to be the one to do that, Cuff.”
Rodney Cuff jumped to his feet. Driscoll stared at Mason with the agonized expression of the landlubber who is about to be seasick.
Cuff’s face was completely without expression, but, for a moment, there was a widening of the blue eyes. Then he grinned, stretched out his hand, “Well, well,” he said, “fancy meeting you here!”
Mason took the outstretched hand, said, “You’re interested in this case, Counselor?”
Cuff met his stare steadily. “All right,” he said, “let’s quit beating around the bush. Was this man Carl Packard, or wasn’t he?”
“I never saw Carl Packard,” Mason told him.
“There’s ink on the fingers of his left hand,” Cuff observed.
“What brought you out here?” Mason countered.
“I fancy,” Cuff said, “that our mental processes were somewhat identical. Tell me, is it Packard?”