“Was he angry?” Mason asked.
“No, he was pleased. He said I’d done exactly what he wanted. He told me that I was to stay with it, that if Rankin went to a lawyer and they asked me to make an affidavit that I was to tell exactly what had happened and swear to it.
“He said he wanted Rankin to see a lawyer. He was tremendously pleased — that is, at first.”
“Go ahead,” Mason said.
“Well, of course my talk with Rankin started things. The next thing I knew you were sending for me and asking me questions and wanting me to sign an affidavit.”
“And then what happened?”
She said, “Your secretary, Della Street, may not remember it but while she was preparing the affidavit I said I wanted to call a friend of mine. The person I called was Collin Durant. I told him that I found myself in your office and that your secretary was preparing an affidavit for me to sign.”
“And what did he say?”
“He laughed and told me that was exactly what he wanted and to go ahead and sign it. He said he wanted me to be a witness.”
“Then what?”
“Then the suit was filed and there was that newspaper publicity and then Durant came to me and told me I had to get out of the country.”
“Now, that was last night?” Mason asked.
“Yes. Things have been happening so fast it seems like a week ago. Yes, it was last night.”
“Now then,” Mason said, “this is important. It’s very important. What time was it that he came to you?”
“It was about six o’clock.”
Mason said, “Then that would have been an hour or an hour and a half before he came to me.”
“He saw you yesterday?”
“That’s right. He came to me in a restaurant and told me that you were a publicity seeker, that you were trying to stir up trouble in order to further your own interests, and that no little trollop, as he expressed it, was going to bounce her curves off his reputation just in order to bask in the limelight.”
“And that was when?”
“That was no later than seven-thirty.” Mason said.
“But I can’t understand it,” she said. “He wanted me to tell Rankin.”
Mason said, “Let’s get this straight. He came to you yesterday and told you you had to leave the country, didn’t he?”
“He told me that I had to disappear, yes. That I had to get out of town so that no one could find me. He said that I mustn’t be available so that my deposition could be taken and that I mustn’t be a witness, and that I would have to go where you couldn’t find me.”
“And you started right away?”
“No, no. He was coming back.”
“What was he coming back for?”
“To give me money.”
“To give you money?”
“That’s right.”
“As a bribe?”
“No, no. As traveling expenses. I was to get started and I was to go down to Mexico and just disappear.”
“And he was going to give you your traveling expenses?”
“That’s right.”
“When?”
“Well, he came there about six o’clock and told me that he’d be back within an hour with money if he could get it. If he wasn’t back in an hour with the money, I was to leave the apartment, go to the bus terminal and wait for him there. He said he’d be there if he missed me at the apartment.”
“He didn’t come back to the apartment?”
“He never came.”
“So what did you do?”
“I waited for a good hour and then left the place and went to the bus terminal, just as he had told me to. I was in a panic. I didn’t really have money enough to travel, but Collin had told me to get out — and he meant it.”
“He told you he wanted you to be where I couldn’t find you?”
“Yes. He said you’d try to take my deposition and he couldn’t have that happen.”
“Yet in spite of that you got in touch with me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you see? I couldn’t call you from my apartment or from anyplace where he’d know I was calling. But you’d been so nice... I hated to let you down. So I went to the bus terminal. I was to meet him there if he didn’t get to the apartment in an hour. He said to wait there at the terminal until eight o’clock.”
“And you decided to risk a call to me?”
“Yes. I wanted to let you know I was leaving — I felt you were entitled to that much. I remembered what you’d told me about getting in touch with the Drake Detective Agency after office hours and I called them and told them I simply had to get in touch with you.
“I felt you’d protect my confidence and Durant would never know I had called you... Well, then it got past eight o’clock and he didn’t show up at the terminal as he had promised. I was desperate. I left the number there — and then you called. I just wanted to tell you I was leaving — but you wanted to see me — and by that time I’d made up my mind Durant wasn’t going to meet me or give me any money and that I’d have to get out on my own... So I decided to meet you and explain as much as I dared, and then drive up to my sister’s place. I knew Durant could locate me there if he really wanted... and give me the money to go to Mexico.”
Mason said, “Maxine, I’m not your attorney, but I do feel that I should tell you one thing in fairness to you.”
“What?”
“The police are going to look at things in an entirely different manner than you do.”
“Oh, I suppose so,” she said wearily.
“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said, “pay attention. The police are going to think that Durant had some hold on you, that he was trying to get you to do something that you didn’t want to do.”
“Well, they’re right. I told you that, Mr. Mason. I’d admit it.”
“And,” Mason went on, “that Durant told you he was coming back to your place with money — not at six-thirty, not at seven-thirty, but at about eight o’clock. That he came up there at eight o’clock. That you had an argument. That he was telling you what you had to do and you didn’t want to do it. That he was a shrewd chiseler who was holding something over you and he had an idea that perhaps you had a detective concealed in the apartment somewhere so he decided to reassure himself as to that before he committed himself by making any statements.
“He looked in the kitchenette, then he looked in the bathroom, jerked the curtains of the shower aside to see if you had someone planted there, and that as he stood there with his back to you, you whipped a gun out of your purse and shot him in the back. Then you dashed out, tried to communicate with me, made up all this story about what he was doing, and all this song and dance about the canary and gave Della Street the key to your apartment with the idea that she was to go and get the canary; that you did all this simply so you could get out of the state and have a head-start; and that when Della Street went to the apartment and discovered Durant’s body and notified the police, you’d have a story to tell and an alibi of sorts.”
“Good heavens, Mr. Mason, I didn’t kill him. I—”
“I’m telling you what the police are going to think,” Mason said, “and the assumption on which they’re going to work.”
“They could never prove anything like that,” she said, “because it isn’t so, not any of it. I didn’t kill him.”
“Can you prove you didn’t?” Mason asked.
She looked at him with dawning apprehension on her face.
“After all,” Mason said, “he was killed in your apartment and while they haven’t found the murder weapon yet, there’s always a chance that...”
The lawyer broke off at the look on her face.