“You saw this?”

“Very clearly.”

“How do you fix the time?”

“By the clock which was by my bed.”

“What time was it?”

“Quarter after twelve o’clock. I couldn’t get back to sleep for a long time.”

Blaine asked Edna, “Are you Miss Edna Hammer?”

“Yes.”

“What do you know about this?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you see anyone enter your room last night?”

“No.”

“Was your door locked or unlocked?”

“Locked. I’m nervous at night. Almost a month ago I had a new spring lock put on my bedroom door. I have the only key to it.”

“Did you know someone had been murdered this morning?”

“Certainly not.”

“Did you leave your room last night?”

She hesitated and said, “Where I was last night doesn’t have any bearing on the matter.”

Blaine asked, “Where is Peter Kent?”

“Ask Perry Mason,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “he seems to know.”

Mason said, “My client, Mr. Kent, is absent on a business matter which has nothing whatever to do with the present situation.”

“When did he leave?”

“I can’t answer that question without betraying the confidence of a client.”

“When’s he coming back?”

“I think I can promise that he’ll return either late tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

“Where is he now? This is a serious business, Mason. Don’t try to stall. We want to question your client.”

Mason shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

“Look here,” Blaine threatened, “if you don’t dig up your client now, we’re going to find out where he is and drag him in.”

“Go ahead,” Mason remarked, “drag him in.”

“Who knows where he is?” Blaine asked.

For a moment there was silence, then Maddox said, “I happen to know that Mr. Jerry Harris, Miss Edna Hammer, and Miss Helen Warrington, Mr. Kent’s secretary, all left last night upon a mysterious errand. I think they went to Santa Barbara. There’s a chance Mr. Kent went with them.”

“ Santa Barbara, eh? What are they doing in Santa Barbara?” Blaine asked.

“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.”

Blaine turned to Sergeant Holcomb, said in a low voice, “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere this way. We’d better talk with these people one at a time and we’ll want the servants as well. Will you please have everyone leave the room but remain available for questioning?”

Sergeant Holcomb nodded importantly. “The patio,” he announced, “is the proper place. You folks all go out in the patio and don’t start talking among yourselves… Hadn’t we better finish with Perry Mason and keep him away from the rest? He’s representing Kent. We might find out a lot more if we get through with Mason first.”

Blaine said, “Good idea. What do you know about this, Mason?”

Mason waited until the shuffling confusion of moving feet had ceased, then said, “I was negotiating an agreement between Kent and Maddox. For certain reasons, which I won’t bother to discuss at present, it became advisable to postpone the negotiations. I remained here last night. I slept in a room in the upper floor with Dr. Kelton. This morning Peter Kent left on a business trip. I may say that that trip was taken at my suggestion. I have no intention of disclosing his destination. After he left, Miss Hammer called my attention to the fact that the carving knife was missing from the sideboard. I happened to know that Peter Kent had previously walked in his sleep. I believe it is a matter of record that he picked up a carving knife on that occasion.”

“Where’s the record?” Blaine interrupted.

“In a divorce case filed against him by his wife, Doris Sully Kent.”

“Where?”

“In Santa Barbara.”

“Go on. What did you do?”

“I went with Miss Hammer to Mr. Kent’s bedroom. I raised the pillow on his bed and found the knife under his pillow.”

“Under his pillow!” Blaine exclaimed.

Mason nodded coolly. “The knife was, and is now, under the pillow of Peter Kent’s bed. I didn’t touch it. But as soon as I saw it, I suspected what had happened. Therefore, I aroused Dr. Kelton, and, in company with Miss Hammer, we made a round of the guests. We found Mr. Rease lying in bed, the covers up around his neck. Apparently he had been stabbed through the covers. I didn’t make a close investigation. As soon as I found the body I left the room and telephoned police headquarters.”

“Why the devil didn’t you tell Sergeant Holcomb about this before?”

“He wouldn’t let me. He was in examining the body. I tried to go in and he told me to stay out.”

Blaine said to Sergeant Holcomb, “Send a couple of men up to look under that pillow. Don’t let anyone touch that knife until we have a fingerprint man go over the handle… How long have you been here, Sergeant?”

“About ten minutes before I telephoned you,” Holcomb answered.

“And I got here in ten or fifteen minutes,” Blaine said. “That makes less than half an hour… What’s this lawyer’s name… oh, yes, Duncan, I’ll get him and take a look at that coffee table.”

Blaine walked out toward the patio. Sergeant Holcomb called two men and ran up the stairs to Kent’s bedroom. Mason followed Blaine, saw him speak to Duncan. They walked toward the center of the patio. Duncan paused uncertainly, went to one of the coffee tables, shook his head, moved over to the one under which Edna Hammer had placed the coffee cup and saucer. “This the table?” Blaine asked.

“I believe it is.”

“You said the top came up?”

“It seemed to. He raised what looked like the top and then let it drop back with a bang.”

Blaine looked the table over and said, “There seems to be an oblong receptacle under this table top… Wait a minute, here’s a catch.”

He shot the catch and raised the top of the table.

“Nothing in here,” he said, “except a cup and saucer.”

“Nevertheless, this is the place,” Duncan insisted.

Edna Hammer said very casually, “I’ll take the cup and saucer back to the kitchen.”

She reached for it, but Blaine grabbed her wrist. “Wait a minute,” he said, “we’ll find out a little more about that cup and saucer before we take it anywhere. There may be fingerprints on it.”

“But what difference does that make?” she asked.

The voice of the butler from the outskirts of the little group said, “Begging your pardon, sir, but I happen to recognize that cup and saucer… That is, at least I recognize the saucer. You see, it has a peculiar chip out of it. I knocked that chip out this morning.”

“What time this morning?”

“Shortly after five o’clock.”

“What were you doing with a saucer shortly after five o’clock?”

“Serving breakfast to Mr. Kent, Miss Lucille Mays, and Mr. Mason.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Then I brought up the Packard and Mr. Kent, Miss Mays and Mr. Mason drove off. After an hour or so, Mr. Mason returned the car.”

“You don’t know where they went?”

“No, sir, but I think they were going to get married.”

“And what have you to say about this cup and saucer?”

“This saucer, sir, went with the cup out of which Mr. Mason was drinking his coffee. I didn’t have time to replace the chipped saucer. They seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, and Mr. Kent had told me to see that breakfast was ready to serve at twenty minutes past five on the dot. He was most punctual.”

“So you drank out of this saucer, Mason?” Blaine asked.

Mason shook his head and said, “Certainly not.”

“You didn’t?”

“No,” Mason said. “I never drink out of a saucer when I’m visiting.” Blaine flushed and said, “I meant, you had the cup and saucer. If you want to be technical, you drank out of the cup.”

“That’s what the butler says,” Mason said. “Personally I wouldn’t be able to tell one cup from another. I admit that I drank out of a cup this morning.”

“Then what happened?”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” the butler said, “Mr. Mason walked out with the cup and saucer. I couldn’t find it afterwards and asked him what he’d done with it and he said he couldn’t remember; that he thought he’d set it out in the patio some place.”