“Yes.”
Drake said, “Well, I’ll bet you five to one your client’s dead, then, Perry.”
Mason said, “I think I’ll leave my car here, Paul, and ride out with you. That’ll give us a chance to talk. Just how do you figure it’s Mrs. Prescott who’s killed?”
“It’s a cinch,” Drake said. “According to Mrs. Anderson, the murder must have been right around noon, just before that automobile accident. Now, at that time of day, Walter Prescott, as a business man, would be at his office, but Mrs. Prescott would be playing housewife.”
“Prescott may have slept late,” Mason pointed out.
“No. Remember that he got Harry Trader to take some things up to his garage, and gave Trader a key to the garage. That shows that he was not only up this morning, but that he didn’t intend to be home when Trader made the delivery, and Trader was coming to make the delivery just about the time the Swaine girl and her boy-friend were hiding the gun.”
Mason nodded as Drake started the car. “Good reasoning, Drake,” he said.
“It’s a gift,” Drake grinned.
“Then,” Mason told him, “you might try this one: Rita Swaine and her boy-friend are at the back of the house, in the solarium, at the time of the accident. But Packard saw something in a window. He could only have seen the front of the house. Now, then, who else was in that house, and what or whom did Packard see in that window? And remember, Mister Wise-Guy, it must have been something interesting enough to send him crashing into a moving van.”
Drake said ruefully, “You would bring that up. Okay, Perry, your clients have an alibi — if Packard saw what you think he saw in the front of the house — only don’t forget it might not have been any crime at all, perhaps some woman who’d forgotten to pull down the shades — perhaps she’d got blood stains on her clothes when she killed someone, and was—”