“Go ahead and spill it,” Mason said. “Or do you want to be mysterious about that, too?”
“Now, take it easy, Perry,” the detective cautioned. “I’m just trying to be fair all around. You’ll understand my position when—”
“Forget it,” the lawyer interrupted savagely. “Tell me what you can tell me and quit beating around the bush.”
“Well, about Eves,” Drake said. “I think Eves was planning some sort of a big bunco game, and this murder knocked him out of it.”
“Go ahead, ” Mason told him impatiently.
“Well, when I looked up Roger P. Cartman in Honolulu,” Drake said, “I found he’d been injured in an automobile accident, all right, and had suffered a broken neck. But that was three months ago. He was a wealthy visitor from the Mainland who was caught in a skidding car on the Pali, and—”
Mason interrupted, to say to the driver, “For God’s sake, get some speed out of this bus. I’ll pay the fines.”
The driver lurched the car into speed. Drake glanced apprehensively through the rear-view mirror and said, “A car tagging along behind, Perry. It may be a prowl car.”
“I don’t care if it is,” Mason said irritably. “I said I’ll pay the fines. You were talking about Eves and Cartman. What about him?”
“Well,” Drake said, “Cartman had a lot of money. Doctors put a brace on him, which held his head absolutely rigid and he came over to the Mainland—”