Mason asked, “Any connection between Hocksley or his housekeeper and anyone over in the Gentrie house?”
“No. The connection there is between Opal Sunley and Arthur Gentrie, Jr. That’s also something.”
“What?”
“Arthur Gentrie, the boy’s father, had been painting that night down in the cellar. I believe you’re the one who first noticed that someone who evidently didn’t know about that fresh paint had been groping for the garage door and had smeared paint on his fingertips. After you pointed this out to Tragg, he had the police look the automobiles over pretty carefully to see if they couldn’t find some trace of paint on the handles of the doors or on the steering wheels. They couldn’t find a thing, but over in Hocksley’s flat they found two fingerprints outlined in paint of exactly the same color as that used on the garage door.”
“Where were those paint fingerprints?” Mason asked.
Drake said, “On the desk telephone, and the desk telephone was on Hocksley’s desk, and Hocksley’s desk was in the room where the safe was located, and the telephone was right near the door of that room. Moreover, there’s a side door on the garage that Hocksley used to get in and out. That door opens into a little yard between the flat and the Gentrie house. It’s right near a side door leading to the Hocksley flat.”
“Were the fingerprints clear enough so the police could do anything with them?”
“Very clear. I think Tragg’s getting ready to do something there. He’s just waiting for the right time to strike.”
“Meaning he...” Mason broke off as the door from the outer office opened, and the girl who had charge of the switchboard timidly entered.
“I didn’t know whether to disturb you, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I told this woman you were in conference on an important matter, but she says that she wants to see you about the matter you’re talking over.”
“Who is she?” Mason asked.
“Her name is Gentrie, and there’s a young man with her, her son.”
Mason glanced at Drake.
Drake, consulting his notebook again, quoted: “He was in bed and asleep when the shot was fired. He came in, however, just about fifteen or twenty minutes before the shooting. He’d been out with Opal Sunley, the stenographer who handled Hocksley’s work.”
“You’re certain?” Mason asked.
“Uh huh.”
“I understood he was refusing to divulge the name of the woman...”
“Oh, sure,” Drake interrupted. “Some of that kid gallantry stuff, but Opal Sunley didn’t make any secret of it. She told the police right at the start. Young Gentrie didn’t rate the use of the family automobile, not for her, anyway. They were using streetcars. He took her to a movie, bought her a chocolate sundae afterwards, did a little mild necking in the park, and took her home about eleven-thirty. They said good night on the stairs for half an hour, and young Gentrie left about midnight. Evidently, he went right home and upstairs to bed.”
“He must have moved pretty fast if he left her home at midnight and was in bed at quarter past,” Mason said. “How far from Hocksley’s place does she live?”
“About twelve blocks. You can walk it in fifteen minutes if you’re young — and have just spent half an hour saying good night to your best girl.”
Mason said to the girl in the doorway, “Show them in. I have an idea something is weighing on that young man’s mind.”
Mrs. Gentrie entered Mason’s private office with Junior trailing along behind her, very much as though he were being led.
Mrs. Gentrie’s attitude was one of parental indignation.
“Mr. Mason,” she said, “you’ll have to help us. It’s about Junior.”
Mason looked at the young man’s sullen features, and said, “Don’t tell me anything in confidence, Mrs. Gentrie, because, in a way, I’m not a free agent. It’s quite possible I won’t be able to help you.”
“Well, I’ve got to talk with someone, and I don’t know anyone else to whom I can turn. This thing has been preying on my mind ever since I heard what Junior said to the police. I thought at first my duty was to back up my son in a chivalrous attempt to protect some young woman’s good name. Then, when I began to think of how serious it might be because — well, because perhaps that murder is linked with — well, I can’t keep quiet any longer.”
“What’s eating you?” Junior demanded. “What’s got into you, Ma?”
She kept looking anxiously at the lawyer. “Don’t you think I’m doing the right thing, Mr. Mason?”
“Go ahead,” Mason said. “I’ve warned you.”
Young Gentrie spoke up to say, “You folks go ahead and talk about me all you please, but nothing anyone can do is going to change my position, or make me change my story. I want that definitely and finally understood.”
Mrs. Gentrie said, “I wish you’d try to impress on my son the importance of telling the truth, Mr. Mason.”
“Have you,” Mason asked the young man, “been taking liberties with the truth, Junior? Perhaps just fudging the least little bit?”
“No, I haven’t,” Gentrie said sullenly.
“Arthur, I know that you have. I tell you I heard that shot and got up. I looked in your room. You weren’t in your bed. You hadn’t been in your room.”
“Then you looked in before midnight. I got into my room at midnight, or just ten or fifteen minutes after.”
“I looked at the clock. It was thirty-five minutes past twelve.”
“You read it wrong. It was thirty-five minutes past eleven, and you thought it was thirty-five minutes past twelve. You didn’t have your glasses on, did you?”
Mrs. Gentrie said, “I didn’t have my glasses on, but I didn’t make a mistake in the time. I’m certain I didn’t. And everybody else says that was when the shot was fired.”
“What do you mean, everybody else?”
“Well, the other people in the house, all of them.”
Junior said, “Well, if you ask me, that fellow Steele is a phoney. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw a loaded truck. Look at the way he’s always hanging around Rebecca, helping her with her crossword puzzles, stringing her along. What’s he really want, anyway? He isn’t supposed to be one of the family. He’s supposed to have a room rented, and that’s all. You know as well as I do Aunt Rebecca’s full of prunes, and she keeps her tongue rattling against the roof of her mouth all the time. It’s impossible to have any secrets around her. She spills everything she knows.”
“Junior, that’s not a nice way to talk about your Aunt Rebecca.”
Junior went on hotly, “The other night I was looking for my dictionary and couldn’t find it, and came downstairs to see if she had it, and she was telling him a whole lot of stuff about me. She hasn’t any right to do that.”
“You’re altogether too sensitive,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “She probably wasn’t talking about you at all.”
“The heck she wasn’t. I heard the whole business, all about how you were worried about me having an infatuation for an older woman. She said...” Junior’s voice suddenly choked up. His face changed color. “She said altogether too darn much,” he finished.
Mrs. Gentrie said, “Mr. Mason isn’t interested in our family squabbles, Junior. I came here because...”
“I’m old enough now to get out and get a job. I don’t need to work in Dad’s store. I’m worth the wages I’m getting from him and more. I can support myself. I’m a man now.”
Mrs. Gentrie turned to the lawyer, “I’m so worried,” she said. “Junior wasn’t in his room when that shot was fired. He keeps insisting that he was, but I know he wasn’t. Now, I understand that the police have found some fingerprints over in Hocksley’s flat, and I... well, I just wish Junior would tell the truth. That’s all. So I’d know what to expect.”
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