There was a long moment of silence. Then Sergeant Holcomb said, in a voice that was almost meditative, "So you think Thelma Benton knew Clinton Foley was going to be murdered?"

"I don't know anything at all about what Thelma Benton knew or didn't know," Perry Mason remarked. "I merely told you that a person who has a perfect alibi usually has a reason for it. In the ordinary run of a day's business, a person doesn't have an alibi for every minute of the time. He can't prove where he was, any more than you can prove it. I'll bet there isn't a man in the room who can prove, absolutely, by witnesses, what he was doing every minute between seventhirty and eight o'clock tonight."

"Well," Holcomb remarked wearily, "it's a cinch you can't."

"Sure," said Mason, "and if you weren't so dumb, that would be the best proof of my innocence, instead of an indication of my guilt."

"And you can't prove that you went to the house at eightthirty. There's no one who saw you go there; no one knows you had an appointment? No one who let you in? No one who saw you there at all at eightthirty?"

"Sure," said Perry Mason, "I can prove that."

"How?" asked Sergeant Holcomb.

"By the fact," Perry Mason said, "that I called police headquarters shortly after eightthirty and told them about the murder. That shows I was there at eightthirty."

"You know that isn't what I mean," Sergeant Holcomb told him. "I mean can you prove that you just came there at eightthirty?"

"Certainly not, we've already gone over that."

"I'll say we've gone over it," Sergeant Holcomb said. He scraped back his chair and got to his feet.

"You win, Mason," he said. "I'm going to let you go. You're pretty well established here in town, and we can put our finger on you whenever we want you. I don't mind telling you that I don't really think you did the murder, but I sure as hell think you're shielding some one, and that some one is a client of yours. I'm just going to tell you that in place of shielding your client, your conduct has made me all the more suspicious."

"Suppose you tell me just how," Mason said.

"I believe," said Sergeant Holcomb slowly, "that Arthur Cartright ran away with Foley's wife; that she told him a story of abuse, and that Cartright came back and shot Foley. Then I think that Cartright called you and told you what he'd done, and wanted to surrender himself; that you told him not to make a move until after you got there; that you went out and started Cartright going some place in a hurry, while you waited fifteen or twenty minutes, and then telephoned the police. In fact, there's no reason why you couldn't have been the one to have wiped off the dead man's face, and put the towel with the lather on it under the bathtub, near the dog chain."

"What's that make me? An accessory after the fact, or something of the sort?" asked Perry Mason.

"You're damn right it would," said Sergeant Holcomb, "and if I can ever prove it, I'm going to give you the works."

"I'm glad to hear you say so," said Perry Mason.

"Glad to hear me say what?" rasped Sergeant Holcomb.

"That you're going to give me the works if you can prove it. The way you've been acting, I thought you intended to give me the works whether you could prove any thing or not."

Sergeant Holcomb gestured wearily. "Go ahead," he said, "and get out of here. Hold yourself in readiness so we can get you for further questioning, if we want to."

"All right," Perry Mason said, "if that's the way you feel about it, and if the interview's over, switch out this damned light. I've got a headache from it now."

Chapter 10

Perry Mason sat in Paul Drake's office. Paul Drake teetered in a creaky swivel chair, behind a small, battered desk. Against the far wall of the office two men sat, uncomfortably, in stiffbacked chairs.

"What," asked Paul Drake, "was the idea?"

"The idea in what?" Mason wanted to know.

"The idea in having me call the men off."

"I simply had everything that I wanted, and I didn't want the men to be found in the neighborhood."

"What was happening in the neighborhood?" Drake inquired.

"I don't know," Perry Mason said. "I didn't even know anything was going to happen, but I thought it might be a good idea to have the shadows called in."

"Listen," said Drake querulously, "there's a lot about this thing you're not telling me."

"Is that so?" asked Perry Mason, lighting a cigarette. "I thought you were supposed to find out things to tell me; not that I was supposed to find out things to tell you. Are these the two men who were on the job?"

"Yes. The man on the left is Ed Wheeler, and the other one is George Doake."

Perry Mason looked over at them.

"What time did you boys go on?" he asked.

" Six o'clock."

"Both of you were there all the time?"

"Most of the time. One of us would go and telephone every fifteen minutes."

"Where were you fellows? I didn't see you when I came up."

"We saw you all right," said Wheeler with a grin.

"Where were you?" Mason repeated.

"We were quite a distance from the house," Wheeler admitted, "but we were where we could see everything that went on. We had night glasses, and we were out of sight. There's a vacant house half way down the block, and we were in a room in the vacant house."

"Don't ask how they got in," said Paul Drake in his slow drawl. "That's a professional secret."

"All right," Mason said, "we'll each of us keep our professional secrets. What I want you boys to do is to tell me exactly what happened."

Ed Wheeler took out a leatherbacked notebook from his coat pocket, thumbed the pages and said, "We went on duty at six o'clock. At about sixfifteen, the housekeeper, Thelma Benton, went out."

"Did she go out the front door or the back door?" asked Mason.

"Out the front door."

"All right, where did she go?"

"There was a man called for her in a Chevrolet car."

"Get the license?" Mason asked.

"Sure. It was 6M9245."

"What kind of a car — coupe, sedan or roadster?"

"A coupe."

"Go ahead. What next?"

"Then things were quiet. Nobody came and nobody left, until seven twentyfive. It was really a little past that — almost seven twentysix, but I called it seven twentyfive. A Checker taxicab came to the place, and a woman got out."

"Did you get the number of the cab?"

"I didn't get the license number. The cab number was painted on the side of the car, and was easier to get than the license number, so I got that."

"What was it?"

"86C."

"There's no chance that you're mistaken on that?"

"None. We both of us had night glasses and we both of us checked it.

"That's right," rumbled the other detective. "We're positive about the license numbers and all that stuff."

"All right, go on," said Mason.

"A woman got out and went into the house, and the cab went away."

"And it didn't wait?"

"No, it didn't wait. But it came back after twelve minutes. Evidently, the woman had sent the driver some place, and told him to do something and then come back."

"Go ahead," Mason said. "How about the woman? What did she look like?"

"We can't tell exactly. She was well dressed, and had on a dark fur coat."

"Did she wear gloves?"

"She wore gloves."

"Did you see her face?"

"Not plainly. You see, it was dark by that time. The street light showed the taxicab pretty plainly, and that made a shadow right where the woman got out. Then she walked rapidly up the walk, to the house, and went in."

"Did she ring the bell?"

"Yes, she rang the bell."

"Was she a long time about getting in?"

"No, she went in in just a minute or two."

"Looked as though Foley had been expecting her?"