Mason nodded to her, and she crossed the office toward the door, then turned and said, “My eyes are a sight; let him in, will you, and let me go splash some cold water on my face?”
Mason nodded. As she glided through the door into the law library, Mason opened the corridor door. “Hi, Paul,” he said.
Drake’s shoulders were slumped forward, his manner lugubrious. “H’lo, Perry,” he said, walking across to the big leather chair, and sliding into it sideways in his favorite position.
“What’s new?” Mason asked.
“Plenty,” Drake said.
“Good, bad, or indifferent?” Mason asked.
“It depends on what you consider indifferent,” Drake said, mustering a slow grin. “To begin with, Perry, your certified copy of the divorce decree is an absolute forgery, and that was a damned clever stroke of genius, good enough for a cool one hundred thousand bucks.”
“You’re certain?” Mason asked.
“Absolutely certain. Mrs. Sabin probably had some Reno lawyer helping her, but we’ll never find out who it was, of course, because it’s a slick scheme of obtaining money under false pretenses. They had the regular printed blanks all in proper form, the signature of the clerk, and the deputy, and quite apparently they managed to get a genuine imprint of the court seal. That could have been done, the clerk admits, by sneaking around behind the counter sometime when he was occupied, but they don’t let every Tom, Dick and Harry go behind the counter; so, evidently, it was pretty carefully worked out in advance.”
“Then there wasn’t any case of Sabin vs. Sabin ever filed?”