Stewart Bedford, Della Street, Paul Drake, and Mason sat in Mason’s office.
Bedford rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Those damn newspaper photographers,” he said. “They’ve exploded so many flashbulbs in my face I’m completely blinded.”
“You’ll get over it in an hour or so,” Mason told him. “But you’d better let Paul Drake drive you home.”
“He won’t need to,” Bedford said. “My wife is on her way up here. Tell me, Mason, how the devil did you know what had happened?”
“I had a few leads to work on,” Mason said. “Your story about the hit-and-run accident was of course something you thought up. Therefore, the blackmailers couldn’t have anticipated that. But the blackmailers did know that you were at The Staylonger Motel because of blackmail which had been levied because of your wife. In order to get a perfect case against you, they wanted to bring your wife into it. Therefore, Morrison Brems, apparently as the thoroughly respectable manager of the motel, stated that he had seen a prowler emerging from unit twelve.
“When you and Grace Compton went out for lunch, Brems realized this was the logical time to drug the whisky, then kill Denham with your gun, loot the lock box which had been held in joint tenancy, and blame the crime on you with the motivation being your desire to stop a continuing blackmail of you and your wife.
“For that reason, Brems wanted to direct suspicion to your wife. Elsa Griffin hadn’t fooled him any when she registered under an assumed name and juggled the figures of her license number. So Brems invented this mysterious prowler whom he said he had seen coming out of unit twelve. He gave an absolutely perfect and very detailed description of your wife, one that was so complete that almost anyone who knew her should have recognized her.”
“But, look here, Mason, I picked that motel.”
Mason grinned. “You thought you did. When you check back on the circumstances, you’ll realize that at a certain point the blonde told you the coast was clear and to pick any motel. The first one you passed after that was a shabby, second-rate motel. You didn’t want that and the blackmailers knew you wouldn’t.
“The next one was The Staylonger and you picked that. If you hadn’t, the blonde would have steered you in there anyway. You picked it the same way the man from the audience picks out a card from the deck handed him by the stage magician.”
“But what about those fingerprints? How did Elsa Griffin get so badly fooled?”
“Elsa,” Mason said, “was the first one to swallow the story of Morrison Brems. She fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. As soon as she heard the description of that woman, she became absolutely convinced that your wife had been down there at the motel. She felt certain that, if that had been the case, your wife must have been the one who killed Binney Denham. She wasn’t going to say anything unless it appeared your safety was jeopardized.
“I sent her back down to unit twelve in order to get latent fingerprints. She was down there for hours. She had plenty of time not only to get the latent fingerprints, but to compare them as she took them. That is, she compared them with her own prints and when she did she found, to her chagrin, that she hadn’t been able to lift a single fingerprint which hadn’t been made by her. Yet she was absolutely certain in her own mind that your wife had been down there at the cabin. What she did was thoroughly logical under the circumstances. She was completely loyal to you. She had no loyalty and little affection for your wife. In spite of your instructions she had preserved those fingerprints which had been lifted from the back of the cocktail tray, so after she left the motel she drove to her apartment, got those prints, put numbers on the cards that fitted them in with the prints she was surrendering, and turned the whole batch in to me.
“She knew absolutely then that by the time her fingerprints had been eliminated there would be four prints of your wife left. She didn’t intend to do anything about it unless the situation got desperate. Then she intended to use those prints to save you from being convicted.
“I will admit that there was a period when I myself was pretty much concerned about it. Elsa, of course, thought that your wife had worn gloves while she was in the cabin and so hadn’t left any fingerprints. I thought that your wife was the one who had been in the cabin until I became fully convinced that she hadn’t been.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Then,” Mason said, “it was very simple. I had fingerprints lifted from Grace Compton’s apartment. I placed four of the best of those in my safe. I put the same numbers on the cards that Elsa had put on her cards.”
Paul Drake shook his head. “You pulled a fast one there, Perry. They can sure get you for that.”
“Get me for what?” Mason asked.
“Substituting evidence.”
“I didn’t substitute any evidence.”
“There’s a law on that,” Drake said.
“Sure there is,” Mason said, “but I didn’t substitute any evidence. I told Della Street to get me fourteen, sixteen, twelve, and nine from the safe. That’s what she did. Of course, I can’t help it if there were two sets of cards with numbers on them, and if Della got the wrong set. That wasn’t a substitution. Of course, if Elsa Griffin had asked me if those were the prints she had given me, then I would have had to acknowledge that they weren’t, or else have been guilty of deceiving the witness and concealing evidence, but she didn’t ask me that question. Neither did she really compare the prints. Since she knew these prints she had given me belonged to Mrs. Bedford she simply pretended to make a comparison, then she grabbed the prints and made for the door, where she had arranged to have Sergeant Holcomb waiting. Under the circumstances, I wasn’t required to volunteer any information.”
“But how the devil did you know?” Bedford asked.
Mason said, “It was quite simple. I knew that your wife hadn’t left any fingerprints in the cabin because I knew she hadn’t been there. Since the description given by Morrison Brems was so completely realistic down to the last detail and fitted your wife so exactly, I knew that Morrison Brems was lying. We all knew that Binney Denham had some hidden accomplice in the background. That is, we felt he did. After Grace Compton had been beaten up because she had talked with me, I knew there must be another accomplice. Who then could that accomplice be?
“The most logical person was Morrison Brems. Binney Denham wanted to pull his blackmailing stunts at a friendly motel where he was in partnership with the manager. You’ll probably find that this motel was one of their big sources of income. Morrison Brems ran that motel. When people whose manner looked a little bit surreptitious registered there, Morrison Brems made it a point to check their baggage and their registration and find out who they were. Then the information was relayed to Binney Denham and that’s where a lot of Denham’s blackmail material came from.
“They made the mistake of trying to gild the lily. They were so anxious to see that your wife was brought into it that they described her as having been down there. The police hadn’t connected up the description, but Brems certainly intended to see that they did before the case was over. Elsa Griffin connected it up as soon as she heard it, and kept pestering you to get after me to find the woman who had been down there. When I didn’t move fast enough to suit her, she decided to bring in the fingerprints.
“Because she knew they were fingerprints that had been taken from the silver platter and not from the motel where she said she found them, she only went through the motions of comparing them. She was so certain whose prints they were that she just didn’t bother to look for distinguishing characertistics.”
“But,” Bedford asked, “how did you know they were gilding the lily, Mason? How did you know my wife hadn’t been down there?”
Mason looked him in the eyes. “I asked her if she had been there,” he said, “and she assured me she hadn’t.”
“And you did this whole thing, you staked your reputation and everything on her word?”
Mason, still looking at Bedford, said, “In this business, Bedford, you get to be a pretty damn good judge of character or else you don’t last long.”
“I still don’t see how you knew that Brems had a criminal record.”
Mason grinned. “I was simply relying on the law of averages and of character. It would have been as impossible for Morrison Brems to have lived as long as he has with the type of mind he has without having a criminal record as it would have been for your wife to have looked me in the eyes and lied about having gone to that cabin.”
Knuckles tapped gently on the door of Mason’s office.
“That’ll be Ann Roann now,” Bedford said, getting to his feet. “Mason, how the devil can I ever thank you enough for what you have done?”
Mason’s answer was laconic. “Just write thanks underneath your signature when you make out the check.”