“Within a very few minutes. I left the canary at the pet store I’d asked you about, then took a cab and went directly to the airport.”
“And you didn’t know Walter Prescott’s body was lying in the upstairs bedroom of that house?”
“You mean Rosalind’s house?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t, and I don’t think it was or is.”
Rosalind Prescott abruptly sat down, stared wide-eyed at the lawyer.
“You didn’t know it?” Mason asked her.
“No, of course not— it’s— it’s a shock to me. Not that I cared for him. I didn’t. I hated him. You’ve no idea how cold-blooded, how scheming, how utterly petty he was! There wasn’t a spark of affection in his make-up— Whether he’s dead or alive, I still hate him — but this is a shock, just the same.”
“Your husband,” Mason said, “was found in his bedroom upstairs. He was fully clothed, ready for the street. He had been shot three times with a .38 caliber revolver. The police found the gun in back of the drawer in the desk where you’d hidden it, and they figure, so far, it’s the fatal gun. If anything has turned up to change their opinion I haven’t heard of it.”
Mason turned to Jimmy Driscoll. “What was the gun you gave Rosalind?”