“By the homicide squad?” Mason asked.
“No, by an irate husband. He’s crocked to the eyebrows. Some guy’s given him a beautiful licking. His face is patched, bandaged and bruised, and now he’s looking for someone he can lick. The woman is nice. I don’t think she knows very much about what happened, but this Anderson woman gave her an earful about seeing a girl named Swaine and some unidentified man hiding a gun. And Mrs. Weyman got to thinking it over and decided to call the cops.”
Mason stared through the windshield in frowning concentration and said, “I don’t like this thing, Paul. Why should a woman call up the cops just because she’s heard that a next door neighbor and a boy-friend were hiding a gun? And why should the cops come out and start searching the house on a tip like that? Usually, you could phone things like that to headquarters until you were black in the face and get nothing more than a stall out of the desk sergeant.”
Drake motioned toward the house and said, “Well,there’s your answer. Mrs. Weyman got more than a stall out of them.”
“Tell me some more about her,” Mason said.
“She’s in the late thirties, rather slender, and sounds nice. She talks in a quiet, refined way, but there’s a lot of determination about her. Her face shows unhappiness and character. Looking at her, you’d say she’s been through some great tragedy and it had made her — oh, you know, sort of sweet and gentle and patient.”
“Any idea what the tragedy was?” Mason asked.
Drake chuckled and said, “Take a look at her husband when you get a chance.”
“What’s he like, a big bully?”
“No. Medium sized. He’s about her age, but he’s an awful soak, probably all right when he’s sober, but he isn’t sober now. You know the kind I mean, Perry, four drinks and they’re wonderful fellows, five and they’re quarrelsome. And from then on they just get more quarrelsome. Well, I should judge he’s had about fifteen drinks.”