“At fivetwenty this morning?”

“That would have been approximately fivethirty, or fiveforty.”

“What was he doing out in the patio at fivethirty?”

The butler shrugged his shoulders.

Blaine turned to Mason, and asked, “What were you doing out here at fivethirty?”

“I may have been out here,” Mason said slowly, “but I have no independent recollection of it.”

“Did you put that cup and saucer under the top of the table?”

“I did not.”

“Do you know who did?”

“I think,” Mason said, “you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Here’s a saucer with a chip out of it, and you’re wasting valuable time inquiring how I happened to drink my coffee and where I was standing when I did it, when the crying need is for a solution of this murder. It isn’t a question of who drank the coffee. The question is who stuck the knife…”

“That’ll do,” Blaine interrupted, “I’m thoroughly capable of carrying on this investigation.” Mason shrugged his shoulders. “It may be well for you to remember,” Blaine said significantly, “that, according to the testimony of this disinterested witness, Mr. Peter Kent, who apparently is your client, deposited something in this receptacle at around midnight. Now then, we find that thing is gone, and in its place a cup and saucer which, concededly, had been in your possession.”

“I haven’t conceded it,” Mason replied. “It may or may not have been the cup and saucer I was using. As I mentioned, cups look alike to me, and Duncan didn’t identify the sleepwalker as Peter Kent, either.”

“It’s the saucer that has the distinctive chip out of it,” Blaine pointed out. Mason shrugged his shoulders, lit a cigarette and smiled. Blaine said, “Very well, Mr. Mason. I think we’ll take your statement in front of the Grand Jury. I know you only too well. We won’t get anywhere by trying to interrogate you when we haven’t any power to make you answer questions. You’re trying to stall things along. You’re just leading us around in a circle.”

“You mean that you’re finished with me?”

“Do you know anything more about the murder?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes, we’re finished with you. When we want you we know where to get you, and,” he added significantly, “we know how to get you with a subpoena.”

Mason bowed and said, “Good morning, everyone.”

He caught Edna Hammer’s eye and saw that she was pleading with him, trying to express some unspoken message. He moved toward her and Blaine interposed. “I said that you could be excused, Mason,” he said. “I think this inquiry will progress a lot faster and a damned sight more efficiently if we examine the witnesses before they have had the benefit of your very valuable suggestions.”

Mason smiled and bowed mockingly. “I wish you luck,” he said.

Mason found Paul Drake seated in a car parked at the curb half a block away from the Kent residence. “I tried to get in,” Drake said, “but they turned me back. I’ve got a couple of men ready to go to work on the witnesses as soon as the cops quit keeping the place sewed up. What happened?”

“Plenty,” Mason told him. “A fellow by the name of Rease was killed. He was stabbed in bed, evidently while he was asleep. The covers were up around his neck. The night was rather warm. There were only two light blankets over him. The knife was shoved down through the blankets.”

“Any motive?”

Mason lowered his voice and said, “There’s damn near a case of circumstantial evidence against Peter Kent. He’s my client.”

“Where’s he now?”

“Gone byebye.”

“You mean he’s running away?”

“No, he’s on a business trip.”

“Are you going to surrender him, Perry?”

“It depends. I want to find out first whether he’s guilty. If he is, I don’t want to handle the case. I think he was walking in his sleep. If he was, I’m going to try to get him.”

“What kind of a man was the chap who was killed?”

“Sort of a crank. He was always worrying about his health.”

“Did Kent have some particular motive for killing him?”

“No, but he had plenty of motive for killing the man in whose bed the victim was sleeping!”

The detective gave a low whistle. “Got the wrong man, eh?” he asked.

“I don’t know. You stick around and see what you can uncover.” Mason looked at his watch, then opened the door of Drake’s car and said, “You can drive me down to the boulevard. I’ll pick up a cab there.”

“Headed for your office?”

“I don’t know.”

“You were there,” Drake said, starting the car; “didn’t you have a chance to do anything before the police came down on the place?”

“Nothing. There’s another attorney there, a bird by the name of Duncan.”

Drake deftly avoided a car which cut in, stepped on the throttle to beat a traffic signal and said, “ Duncan cramped your style, eh?”

“I’ll say he did. I wanted to find out something more about the murder, but that old fossil started messing around. Moreover, he claims he saw my client prowling around about midnight.”

Drake said, “Watch your step, Perry.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just the look in your eye. You look to me as though you were pulling a fast one.”

Mason grinned. “I’m pulling half a dozen fast ones,” he replied. “I’m like a juggler on the stage who’s got six billiard balls in the air all at once, only I’m not juggling billiard balls, I’m juggling dynamite bombs. I’ve got to keep moving.”

“I’ll find out all I can,” Drake promised. “By the way, you wanted me to put a man on duty in Santa Barbara to relieve some chap who’d been watching a house up there. I got one of my men on the job, and everything’s all fixed up. Just thought I’d let you know, in case you were worrying about it.”

Mason nodded and said, “Good work, Paul. You’d better send another man up to work with him. I want her shadowed now, and I want as smooth a job as possible. And put a tail on anyone who leaves Kent’s place after the officers get finished with their investigation… This is a good place, Paul. There’s a taxicab. I’ll take it. You can telephone from the cigar store there on the corner.”

Mason flagged the taxi as Drake swung in close to the curb. The driver was alert and efficient, and Mason reached his office by ten minutes after nine. Della Street, as crisply fresh as a chilled lettuce leaf, perched informally on the corner of Mason’s desk and rattled a barrage of information into his ears while he was washing his hands, combing his hair, and adjusting his necktie in front of the mirror. “ Jackson telephoned just a few minutes ago. One of the judges had a jury trial scheduled at half past nine, and a default matter which he had to take up. So he called court at eightthirty and Jackson explained the circumstances to him and got his signature on the final decree of divorce. I called the Winslow Hotel at Yuma to talk with Mr. Kent and Mr. Kent hadn’t arrived. I called the courthouse. They hadn’t heard anything of Kent. No marriage license had been issued for him this morning, and…”

“Wait a minute,” Mason said, looking at his watch, “that information doesn’t have any particular significance. The courthouse hasn’t been open but a few minutes. It’s just after nine and…”

Her calmly efficient voice interrupted him incisively. “It’s after ten o’clock there. Yuma is on Mountain Time.”

Mason closed the door of the closet which contained the washbowl and medicine cabinet, made her a little bow, and said, “You win, Miss Efficiency. What else?”

“I called up the airport, found the number of the plane Kent chartered to take him to Yuma, and got Drake’s office to rush a Yuma detective down to the airport there to see if that plane had landed. I’m expecting a call any moment.”

“I don’t know why I don’t stay out of the office and let you run the business,” Mason told her. “You’ve handled things more quickly and efficiently than if I’d been here.”