“Who was it?” Gibbs asked. “Has his picture been in the paper recently?”
“Just a man who liked parrots,” Mason said casually. “Let’s wait until after a while to talk about him. Now, I want to get some information. Have there been any new parrots sold around here that you know of, recently?”
“I gave everything I had to Mr. Drake,” Gibbs said. “But when Mr. Drake was asking me about parrot food this afternoon, and whether I’d had any inquiries from any new people about how to take care of parrots, I couldn’t think of any at the time; but after Mr. Drake had left, I happened to remember Helen Monteith.”
“And who’s Helen Monteith?” Mason asked.
“She’s the librarian over at the city library, and a mighty nice girl. Seems to me I read about her being engaged to be married a short time ago. She came in a week or so ago to buy some parrot food and asked me questions about taking care of parrots.”
“How long ago?”
“Oh, a week or so... Let me see, yes, it’s been a little more than a week, maybe ten days.”
“Did she tell you that she’d bought a parrot?”
“No, she didn’t; just asked some questions about parrots.”
“Did you ask her why she wanted to know?”