“How strong will this eyewitness go?” Drake asked.
“I don’t know,” Mason told him. “We’re having a preliminary examination tomorrow. I think I can use a technicality which will force the district attorney to put on all of his evidence at the preliminary. That’ll give me a chance to rip his witnesses wide open and shoot the case full of holes. By the time that Fell girl gets into the Superior Court she’ll have rehearsed her testimony so much in her own mind that it’ll be impossible to shake her. By catching her now, I may be able to find a weak point. In fact, I think I have one — if your men can get that photograph.”
“What’s that photograph got to do with it?” Drake asked.
“That’s a secret, ” Mason said.
“Well, we can tell when we get to the office, ” Drake told him. “I have men working on it.”
The taxi deposited them at Drake’s office. Mason sat in a cubbyhole office while Drake received reports from his subordinates.
Drake skimmed through a typewritten report and said, “Okay, Perry, Aileen Fell is going to be at a party tonight in a formal. Operatives so far haven’t been able to locate Evelyn Whiting. The ambulance companies all say they didn’t have an ambulance at the dock yesterday.”
“Well, an ambulance was there,” Mason said. “I saw it.”
“I saw it too,” Drake said, “but I didn’t pay particular attention to it. I saw the word AMBULANCE written on the side under the driver’s window. I have an idea it was a private ambulance.”
“Well, we can chase down that angle, can’t we?”