The officer said, “I don’t suppose it would make the chief bust out crying if you actually had something on him, but I’d go pretty easy, Mr. Cutter. He’s the lawyer who defended that woman in the lame canary case, and tried that case where there was a murder about a howling dog.”
Cutter looked at Mason and frowned. “Perhaps, Mr. Mason,” he said, “you’ll be good enough to explain.”
Mason said, “As I understand the situation, it hinges entirely on the identification of a watch. Now, suppose we go at this thing in a businesslike manner and definitely identify that watch.”
“It’s been identified,” Cutter said.
“Only by your recollection of the appearance of the watch. Suppose you identify it by numbers. You may save yourself a lawsuit.”
Cutter hesitated a moment, then pressed a button. A young woman opened the door from an adjoining office. The clack of typewriters and the clatter of adding machines poured sound into the room. “Get me the account of Custer D. Rooney,” Cutter said.
The girl nodded, vanished, came back in a few moments with a card. Cutter laid the card on the desk, pried back the cover on the wrist watch, adjusted a magnifying glass to his eye, and nodded his head. “This,” he said, “is the same watch.”
Mason said, “I think there’s been a mistake somewhere,” and leaned across the desk, but didn’t pick up the wrist watch. Instead, he picked up the card. He studied it a moment, then turned to Marjory Trenton and said, “Did you know he was married, Margie?”
Rooney jumped to his feet and said, “Look here, I don’t see what the hell...”
“And,” Mason said, fixing him with a cold eye, “you’ve purchased four thousand, six hundred and fifty-two dollars and twenty-five cents’ worth of jewelry within the last two months at this place alone. Now, then, Mr. C. Denton Rooney, would you mind telling us where you secured the money with which to pay for these purchases?”