She smiled. “Where do we get the rabbit?”

“Back in the office,” he said, “studying those photographs, looking for a clue, and—” Suddenly he snapped to attention.

“What is it, Chief?”

“I was just thinking. The glass on the table in 702—there was a little whiskey and soda in the bottom of it, just a spoonful or two.”

“Well?” she asked.

“What happens when you drink whiskey and soda, Della?”

“Why—you always leave a little. It sticks to the side of the glass and then gradually settles back.”

Mason shook his head. His eyes were glowing now. “You leave ice cubes in the glass,” he said, “and then after a while they melt and leave an inch or so of water.”

She matched his excitement. “Then there was no ice in the woman’s glass?”

“And none in Carver Clements’s. Yet there was a jar of ice cubes on the table. Come on, Della; we’re going back and really study those photographs!”

Judge Randolph Jordan ascended the bench and rapped court to order.

“People versus Fay Allison.”

“Ready for the defendant,” Mason said.

“Ready for the Prosecution,” Stewart Linn announced.

Linn, one of the best of the trial deputies in the district attorney’s office, was a steely-eyed individual who had the legal knowledge of an encyclopedia, and the cold-blooded mercilessness of a steel trap.

Linn was under no illusions as to the resourcefulness of his adversary, and he had all the caution of a boxer approaching a heavyweight champion.

“Call Dr. Charles Keene,” he said.

Dr. Keene came forward, qualified himself as a physician and surgeon who had had great experience in medical necropsies, particularly in cases of homicide.

“On the tenth of this month did you have occasion to examine a body in Apartment 702 at the Mandrake Arms?”

“I did.”

“What time was it?”

“It was about two o’clock in the morning.”

“What did you find?”

“I found the body of a man of approximately fifty-two years of age, fairly well fleshed, quite bald, but otherwise very well preserved for a man of his age. The body was lying on the floor, head toward the door, feet toward the interior of the apartment, the left arm doubled up and lying under him, the right arm flung out, the left side of the face resting on the carpet. The man had been dead for several hours. I fix the time of death as having taken place during a period between seven o’clock and nine o’clock that evening. I cannot place the time of death any closer than that, but I will swear that it took place within those time limits.”

“And did you determine the cause of death?”

“Not at that time. I did later.”

“What was the cause of death?”

“Poisoning caused by the ingestion of cyanide of potassium.”

“Did you notice anything about the physical appearance of the man’s body?”