"Well, why not do that? They can't prove anything except by inference."

Paul Drake's code knock sounded on the exit door of Mason's private office, and Mason nodded to Della Street. "Let Paul in, Della. Let's see what he knows, if anything."

Della Street opened the door.

Paul Drake, looking as lugubrious as a poker player who has failed to fill a straight which was open at both ends, sized up the situation, said, "Hi, folks," walked over to the paper bag, abstracted a doughnut and accepted the cup of coffee that Della Street handed him.

"Well?" Mason asked.

Drake shook his head. "This is the end of the road, Perry."

"What do you know?" Mason asked.

"This time you have a client who really and truly lied to you. She's in it up to her beautiful eyebrows and she's dragged you in it with her."

"How come?" Mason asked.

Drake said, "She and Helman Ellis were really ga-ga. Anclitas is telling the truth."

"Go on," Mason said, as Drake paused as though groping for the right words in which to go on.

"You remember," Drake said, "when Ellen Robb came to you after she had been thrown out of The Big Barn and had the shiner?"

Mason nodded.

"She told you she had taken a taxi to the Surf and Sea Motel and you told her to go back there?"

Again Mason nodded.

"Well," Drake said, "when she first went to the Surf and Sea Motel, it was to meet Helman Ellis."

Mason resumed pacing the floor. "How long was Ellis there?" he asked Drake.

"About half an hour."

Suddenly Mason shook his head. "That doesn't mean necessarily that my client was lying," he said. "It means that Helman Ellis was following her."

Drake said, "This is the part that hurts, Perry. He wasn't following her. He arrived before she did."

"What?"

"That's right."

"How do you know?"

"My operative talked with the man who runs the place. Now that Ellen Robb has been arrested, he's beginning to think back in his own mind, trying to recall things that would indicate either that Ellen was an innocent young woman who is being framed or that she was guilty. He's naturally interested in the whole situation and he remembered that before Ellen Robb showed up on Tuesday night, a car drove up to the motel, turned in at the entrance, circled through the grounds and then went out, as though the driver might have been looking for someone. At first he thought the man was going to register and ask for a room, so when the car slowed down, this manager jotted down the license number on a scratch pad."

"The license number?" Mason asked.

"That's right," Drake said. "You know the way they register in motels. The man writes down his name and address and the make and model of his car and the license number.

"Nine people out of ten forget the license number and it's something of a nuisance because the manager has to go out and look at the license plate and jot down the number. So this fellow keeps a pad of scratch paper by the desk, and when a car drives in, there's a powerful light shining on the car from the porch of the office. The manager automatically jots down the license number and then when the people register he doesn't have to go out and look at the license number in case they've forgotten it. And in case they give him a phony license number, he knows it immediately and can be on his guard."

"Go on," Mason said.

"Well, the manager jotted down the guy's license number. Then the fellow didn't come in to ask for a room but turned around, drove out front and parked. So the manager tore off the sheet of paper containing the license number, crumpled it and started to put it in the wastebasket. Then he thought perhaps the man was waiting for a woman companion to show up so he smoothed the piece of paper out again and put it in his desk drawer.

"Well, about ten minutes later Ellen Robb showed up in a taxi. The manager took her registration and assigned her to a cabin."

"And then he saw Ellis come and join her?" Mason asked.

"No, he didn't," Drake said, "but he did see Ellis get out of the car and walk up to the motel, apparently going in to call on somebody, and the manager assumed it was Ellen Robb, the unescorted woman who had registered."

"And so the manager did what?" Mason asked.

"Did nothing," Drake said. "After all, motels aren't conducted along the lines of young women's seminaries, and the manager isn't in any position to censor a young woman's callers. If he tried to do that, he'd be involved in more damage suits than you could shake a stick at, and the motel would be out of business in about two weeks. Motel managers have to take things as they come. All they watch out for is that people don't get noisy and make a nuisance out of themselves or that some woman doesn't move in and start soliciting. Even in that event they're pretty cautious, but there are certain things that give them a tip-off in cases of that sort. That type of woman usually has a certain appearance that a manager can detect, and they almost invariably work in pairs."

"All right, give me the rest of it," Mason said. "How bad is it?"

"Plenty bad," Drake said, "and the worst of it is, my man is the one who uncovered it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he was trying to dig up something that would help so he went down to the manager of the motel and started talking with him and asking him questions about Ellen Robb. You see, we got a bodyguard for her, Perry, but there was almost a full day before the bodyguard got there and-well, if anything phony had been pulled, that was when it must have been pulled, so my man started asking questions about what had happened when Ellen Robb registered and what had happened right afterwards, whether she had any visitors.

"So then the motel manager recalled this man and-"

"Get a good look at him?" Mason asked.

"Apparently a hell of a good look," Drake said. "The fellow walked right past the light which shines out from the office, and the manager described the guy. The description fits Helman Ellis to a T. Moreover, after my man got to asking questions, the fellow remembered that he'd smoothed out this crumpled sheet of paper with the license number on it and had put it in the drawer of the desk. Then the next day he put in some timetables and some memos and he wondered if that crumpled piece of paper might not still be in there.

"So sure enough, he dug into the drawer and pulled out that crumpled piece of paper. There's one break in the case."

"What's that?" Mason asked.

"My man pretended that the incident didn't have any particular importance and managed to get possession of that crumpled piece of paper. We've checked the license number. It's the number of Helman Ellis' automobile."

"That little tramp!" Della Street said bitterly. "Double-crossing us like that!"

Mason said, "She swore up and down there was nothing between her and Ellis, that she hadn't seen him since before that final blowup at The Big Barn Tuesday night."

"I take it," Drake said dryly, "that leaves you behind the eight ball."

"Just as far behind the eight ball as you can get," Mason said. "Now I know my client was lying and that puts me in the position of being an accomplice."

"Perry," Drake asked, "did you actually substitute guns?"

Mason said, "I don't need any rehearsal, Paul."

"What do you mean?"

"Hamilton Burger is going to pour the questions at me and I'll be busy answering them then. If you want to know what happened, listen to me on the witness stand."

"If you did," Drake said, "the murder must have been committed during the period between-"

Mason suddenly snapped his fingers. "Wait a minute, Paul. What's the time element in this thing?"

"What do you mean?" Drake asked.

Mason said, "Our office work sheets show the time that Ellen Robb left the office. Now then, I'll tell you this much, Paul. If a bullet was fired into the body of Nadine Ellis from the gun which Ellen Robb had with her when she was arrested, it had to be fired during the interval of time between the hour she left the office here, Wednesday morning, and the time she showed up at the Surf and Sea Motel. So let's check the time element there."