“What are you getting at?” Sheriff Barnes inquired.
“I’m just checking up,” Sprague told him. “Mason has defeated his own purpose.”
“How do you mean?” Barnes asked.
“Simply this,” Sprague said. “Mason’s trying to distract our attention from Helen Monteith by dangling Mrs. Sabin in front of our noses, but if she was in court in Reno, she could hardly have been killing her husband in a mountain cabin in San Molinas County at one and the same time. Regardless of what other things the woman may have done, she couldn’t have been concerned in the murder.”
Mason stretched his arms above his head and sucked in a prodigious yawn. “Well, gentlemen,” he observed, “at least I’m putting my cards on the table.”
Raymond Sprague walked across to the door. “I think,” he said, “we’re fully capable of making our own investigations. As far as you’re concerned, Mason, you heard my ultimatum. You either have Helen Monteith before the Grand Jury at San Molinas at twelve o’clock tomorrow, or you’ll go before the Grand Jury.”
Sheriff Barnes was the last to leave the office. He seemed reluctant to go. In the corridor he said in an undertone, “Aren’t you acting a bit hasty, Ray?”
The district attorney’s answer was a rumbling undertone, drowned by the slamming of the door.
Mason grinned at Paul Drake and said, “Well, Paul, that’s that.”
“Are you keeping Helen Monteith out of sight somewhere?” Drake asked.