“Just in case that’s right,” Mason said, “I wanted you to see what a price you’d have to pay for making that alibi. That question’s going to come up. Either Jimmy Driscoll has to swear he was in the bedroom with you while you were changing your dress, or he’s going to have to place you in that bedroom alone.”
“But wait a minute,” Rosalind said, “that was after Jimmy’d given me the gun. Mrs. Snoops will have to admit that.”
Mason nodded. “Yes, you changed your clothes afterwards. But how about Walter, was his body lying in his bedroom at that time, or wasn’t it?”
“Why— why, I don’t know.”
“How long since you’d been in his bedroom?”
“I hadn’t been in all the morning. His bedroom is separated from mine by my dressing room and a bath. I met him that morning at breakfast. He was particularly offensive. He’d found a letter Jimmy had written me. He’d just been waiting for something like that. He’d taken twelve thousand dollars of my money, and I didn’t have a thing to show for it. He was afraid I was going to demand it back and he was just looking for an opportunity to put me in the wrong and file suit for divorce, so it would look as though I’d thought up the money business after he’d filed and in order to save my own reputation by putting him in the wrong.”
“I suppose you know,” Mason told her, “this is going to sound like hell in front of a jury.”
She nodded.
“According to Mrs. Snoops,” Mason went on, “you were trimming the claws of the canary when Driscoll came into the solarium and took you in his arms.”
She nodded.
“Mrs. Snoops,” Mason went on remorselessly, “had been watching you for several minutes before Driscoll came in. Driscoll wasn’t in the solarium with you, but he’d already been in the house for some forty-five minutes. Mrs. Snoops saw him come in and noticed the time.”
“She would!” Rosalind exclaimed bitterly.
“That,” Mason said, “isn’t the point. The point is, Driscoll wasn’t in the solarium with you. Where was he?”
“Telephoning,” Driscoll said quickly.
“To whom?”
“To my office. Rosalind’s telephone call had caught me at my apartment. I dashed out to see her, and I had some orders which had to be executed first thing in the morning, so I telephoned my office.”
“How long were you telephoning?”
“I don’t know exactly, perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten minutes.”
“And it was while he was telephoning,” Mason asked, turning to Rosalind Prescott, “that you went into the solarium to clip the claws on the canary?”
“Yes.”
“And prior to that time Driscoll hadn’t gone in for affection?”
“He hadn’t taken me in his arms, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“No.”
“So that’s another period of time while Driscoll was in the house that you can’t account for what he was doing?”
“No,” she said, “I guess not.”
“If you want to put it that way,” Driscoll said hostilely.
“It’s the way I want to put it,” Mason remarked, without taking his eyes from Rosalind Prescott. “And it was while this telephone conversation was going on that the automobile accident took place outside?”
“Yes.”
“And you let go of the canary and dashed to the front of the house?”
“No, wait a minute. I let go of the canary when Jimmy took me in his arms. Then Jimmy let me go, and I was all flustered, and Jimmy said he was going to call and make reservations for me on the next plane to Reno. So he went out to telephone, and I was getting ready to catch the canary, and then the accident took place.”
“And, before that, Driscoll had been telephoning his office?”
“Yes, I believe so. It’s all confused in my mind. I was pretty much upset by the quarrel with Walter, and then finding myself running away with Jimmy — well, I just can’t remember things in detail. There are a lot of blurred impressions in my mind.”
“But, all in all, Driscoll was at the telephone for several minutes, and on at least two occasions?”
“Yes.”
“But you can’t swear he was at the telephone?”
“No.”
“What time did the accident happen?”
“I can tell you that. It was right at noon. The twelve o’clock whistles had just started to blow when I heard the crash.”
“Then Driscoll went out, helped lift the unconscious man from the coupe, and returned to the house. By the time he returned you were back in the solarium, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“When did you first know Mrs. Snoops was watching you?”
“After Jimmy had given me the gun.”
“And that was when you decided that he was going to leave the house and you’d join him later?”
“Yes. I was going to the airport. He’d write me at Reno.”
“And he went out, ran into the officers, had to give them his name and address, and then came back to tell you that the fat was in the fire and that you’d better let him go to Reno with you?”
“Not exactly like that. He told me what had happened. We realized it put us in an awful spot, so we sat down and tried to figure out some way of getting around it. Then Jimmy thought of having Rita come in and finish clipping the canary’s claws where Mrs. Snoops could see her. She could put on my dress and go stand in the window.”
Mason, looking across at Driscoll, said, “A clever idea — only rather tough on Rita.”
Driscoll said, “At that time, Mr. Mason, you will kindly remember, I didn’t know anyone had been murdered. I thought it was simply a question of saving Rosalind from having her name dragged through a lot of legal mud because of my impulsiveness and because I couldn’t help showing my love.”
Mason said disinterestedly, “Save it for the jury, Driscoll. They’ll want to hear it more than I do. Now then, does either of you know what caused that automobile accident?”
Driscoll disdained to say anything, but Rosalind Prescott shook her head.
“I’ll tell you what I’ve found out,” Mason said. “Harry Trader, driving one of his big vans, was making a turn into Fourteenth Street, to deliver some stuff Walter Prescott had ordered him to put in the garage. He swung wide to make the turn. Packard, driving the coupe, came dashing up on the inside without looking where he was going. The first thing he knew, he sensed the van looming ahead of him and on his left. By that time, it was too late. The van was swinging in for the curb. Packard couldn’t change the course of his car, and they struck. Now then, the reason Packard wasn’t looking where he was going was because he’d seen something in a window of one of the houses on his right, which had arrested his attention. It couldn’t have been the Anderson house, because Mrs. Anderson was the only one in that house and she was standing at her dining room window, looking into your solarium. Therefore, it must have been something which he saw in your house, Mrs. Prescott. Now then, have you any idea of what that something could have been?”
“None whatever,” she said promptly.
“It couldn’t have been in the Prescott house,” Driscoll said positively, “because Rosalind and I were alone in the house. She was in the solarium and I was telephoning.”
“That,” Mason said moodily, “is what you say. What do you suppose Packard will say when they find him?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care— What’s the matter? Can’t they find him?”
Mason shook his head. “He wandered out of the hospital and disappeared. Now then, Driscoll, where were you when Packard left the hospital?”