“Uncle Alden!” she exclaimed. “That’s impossible!”
Mason said, “So far we’re working on incomplete data. I’m telling you what we have.”
“But there’s some mistake. It couldn’t have been Uncle Alden.”
“All right,” Mason said, “we’ll assume that it wasn’t your Uncle Alden.”
“The way you say it sounds as though you thought it was he.”
Mason said quietly, “I think it was,” and then went on, “The last person to enter that apartment was Marcia Whittaker. She says she found the apartment locked, that she pounded on the door and got no answer. She waited around in the corridor for four or five minutes, calling John’s name and tapping on the door. When he didn’t answer, she finally left. She went back to her own flat, and, as I get the story, called police headquarters around five o’clock this morning, telling them she thought something was wrong and asking them to make an investigation. They made a very routine investigation. They keep the names of persons injured in automobile accidents and persons taken to the emergency hospitals. They checked through those lists and found no record of a Louie Conway — which was the name under which Marcia knew John Milicant. They naturally reached the conclusion that it was a stand-up and paid no further attention to it.”
“Do you mean that John Milicant was Louie Conway... the one Uncle Alden made the check to? Did...”
As her voice trailed off into silence, Mason said, “Yes.”
“I can’t believe it... Are you certain?”
“Marcia Whittaker says he was, and it looks like it. Have you heard anything from Ned Barkler?”