“You!” he said.
“In person,” Mason assured him.
A grin suffused Holcomb’s features as he said, “Well, isn’t that nice. You knew that these people were wanted by the police. You smuggled them across the state line and—”
“Wait a minute,” Mason interrupted. “I had nothing to do with their crossing the state line.”
“That’s what you say,” Holcomb sneered.
“It’s what I say,” Mason said, “and it’s what I can make stick.”
“Okay. Anyway, we catch you here, plotting with them, avoiding the police.”
“That wasn’t what I was doing at all.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, try and tell that to the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association.”
Mason said, “As it happens I don’t have to tell anything to the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association. I came here because I had reason to believe a person registered in this hotel as Mildred Owens was, in fact, Rosalind Prescott, who I happened to know is wanted by the police for murder. The fact that she happens to be my client in connection with another matter has nothing to do with it.”