“So bad it hurts, Paul. On all the other stuff we’re tagging along behind. On this one thing, we’re ahead of the police, or will be, if we can find Packard. What he saw in that window may save the life of an innocent man or woman.”
“Or,” Drake said dryly, switching on the headlights and starting the motor, “may hang a murder around the neck of your client. Have you thought of that, Perry?”
“No,” the lawyer said, his face grim, “and what’s more, I won’t let myself think of it.”
Chapter six
Mason fitted a latchkey to the exit door of his private office and entered, to find Della Street seated at her secretarial desk, telephoning. She said into the transmitter, “Okay, I’ll tell him. He’s coming in the door now,” hung up, smiled and said to Mason, “Well, your lame canary seems to have brought you a mystery after all.”
“I’ll say. Who was on the line?”
“Drake’s secretary. She said to tell you operatives hadn’t been able to contact Jimmy Driscoll, Rita Swaine, or Rosalind Prescott. And, of course, the police are looking for all three, so they must have skipped out.”
“All right,” Mason said, “what did she tell you about the murder?”
“Nothing new. Prescott was found in the upstairs bedroom, shot three times with a .38 caliber revolver. The revolver the police found, where Rita Swaine had hidden it, was also a .38. Drake’s men haven’t been able to find out whether the rifling marks on the bullets are identical. The probabilities are the police haven’t the information themselves yet. Tell me, Chief, if Rita had been mixed up in the killing, why didn’t she say so frankly when she came in here? She must have known it would all come out. Having you working in the dark didn’t help her any.”
Mason crossed the room, sat on the corner of his desk and lit a cigarette. “Do you know what Paul Drake’s men have discovered, Della?”