"Gardner, Erle Stanley - Perry Mason 067 - The Case of the Blonde Bonanza" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Earle Stanley)

"All right," Mason said. "Now, let's get this straight. You have been watching this place ever since--what time?"
"Ever since the guy got in here, or right after he got in."
"You know every person who went into that motel. You saw everyone."
"Sure, I saw them."
"There's no back entrance?"
"Just the one door. That is, we may have to check it, but I'm sure there's just the one door because that's the way the places are laid out . . . and Sid was going to send someone in with some eats for me. - . . Boy, I'm famished!"
"Never mind that," Mason said. "This blonde was in there for how long?"
"About fifteen minutes."
"And she was the last one in?"
"That's right. This guy was hurt. If it was a fist fight, it was the man. If it was a shot or a stab, it could have been the girl--probably was, because she was the last one in."
Mason took Nye to one side, said in a low voice, "We'll peg the first man definitely as Montrose Foster. We'll peg the next man tentatively as Marvin Harvey Palmer, and the third visitor could have been Mrs. Winlock. Then the man with the dark glasses we can be pretty certain was George Winlock. . . . What time did we leave the Winlock residence, Sid?"
"Right around eight-twenty-five," Nye said.
"And it's how far from the Winlock residence here?"
"Not over five minutes if you're driving in a hurry. Both the motel here and the Winlock residence are on the same side of town."
"All right," Mason said. "As soon as we left the place, George Winlock jumped in his automobile and drove here. He found his wife's car parked out in front.
"Now, if that second visitor was Marvin Harvey Palmer, he must have left the house to come out here a short time _before_ we left the house. You told me a sports car left the place."
Nye said, "Would it be in order to ask if your interview with George Winlock exploded a bombshell?"
"It exploded a bombshell," Mason said.
"All right," Nye said, "the answer is simple. The room was bugged. The kid found out what was going on and wanted to beat everybody to the punch, so he came tearing out here."
"Then what happened?" Mason asked.
"Then the wife followed. She was ready to start at about the same time but she wanted to put on her face and take the shine off her nose.
"Her husband left immediately after we did. He drove out here and--well, that's it."
They moved over to join Dillard.
"Whatever happened," Dillard repeated, "is the result of what the blonde did."
"Now, wait a minute," Mason told him. "You're getting out of orbit, Dillard. The blonde in all probability is my client."
"Oh-oh," Dillard said.
"It's one thing for you to say what time she came and what time she left," Mason went on, "but it's quite another thing to have you making any big fat surmises as to what happened while she was in that cabin."
"I'm sorry," Dillard apologized, "I guess I spoke out of turn, but--well, the way I looked at it, there was no other way of figuring it."
"There may be another way of looking at it," Mason said. "Let's suppose that this young man tried to get something from Boring and got a little rough. He left Boring lying unconscious on the floor. The woman could have been the boy's mother. She went in and found the man lying on the floor, dying. She also found some weapon that tied the crime in with her son. She paused long enough to straighten certain things up, remove certain bits of evidence, including the weapon; then she took off.
"The man could have been her husband. He was waiting for her to come out so he could go in. He'd spotted her car as soon as he drove up."
"And the minute he spotted the car," Nye said, "he knew that the room in his house had been bugged and that his wife had been listening in on whatever conversation it was that you had with him."
"Well," Mason said, "let's suppose that the boy had hit Boring with the butt of a revolver, and that his mother found Boring unconscious and got out; then the husband, coming in as soon as his wife had left, found the man in a dying condition. He looked around just long enough to make certain his wife hadn't left any clues that would indicate she had been there--that meant _he_ could have been the one who picked up the revolver--and then _he_ got out."
Dillard asked, "Have you fellows got names to put on these tags of son, mother and husband?"
"We _think_ we have," Mason said. "I'm talking in terms of tags instead of names because you're going to be a witness. If you haven't heard any names, it'll be that much better for you."
Dillard said, "You fellows figure it up any way you want to. All I know is that the blonde was the last one in the room. If she's your client, I'm not going to start guessing what she was doing in there for fifteen minutes, but you know what the police are going to think. You may sell your idea to a jury, but the police won't buy it. They'll feel that if she found the man lying on the floor badly injured or dying, she wouldn't have stuck around for fifteen minutes."
Nye said, "Let me ask you a straight question, Dillard. Do you ever lose pages out of your notebook?"
"Not in a murder case," Dillard said. "I've been in enough trouble."
"You have, for a fact," Mason told him.
"But," Dillard went on, "I don't have to tell all I know if I haven't anyone to tell it to."
"What do you mean?"
"I could be hard to find."
Mason thought things over and said, "I don't think that's the answer, Dillard."
"Well, what is the answer?" Dillard asked.
"I'll be darned if I know," Mason said, "but I've got to talk with my client before the police talk with her and before the police get wise to you."
"Well, you've got to move plenty fast," Dillard said, "because the police are going to get wise to me."
"How do you figure that out?"
"I checked in here right after Boring. I got the place across the parking lot where I could have a good view of his unit."
"You say you got it?" Mason asked.
"That's right."
"How did you get it?"