“Understand,” Mason said, “I am not now referring to the time you came up from the street in the custody of the radio officer. I am now referring to the time when you first entered that apartment house on the morning of the tenth of this month.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. You let us in.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, because you and your secretary were in Carver Clements’s apartment, and—”

“You, yourself, don’t know we were in there, do you?”

“Well, I surmise it. We met you just after you had left the apartment. You were hurrying down the hall toward the elevator.”

Mason said, “I don’t want your surmises. You don’t even know I had been in that apartment. I want you to tell us how you got past the locked street door.”

“We pressed the button of Carver Clements’s apartment, and you—or, at any rate, someone—answered by pressing the button which released the electric door catch on the outer door. As soon as we heard the buzzing sound, which indicated the lock was released, we pushed the door open and went in.”

“Let’s not have any misunderstanding about this,” Mason said. “Who was it pushed the button of Carver Clements’s apartment?”

“I did.”

“I’m talking now about the button in front of the outer door of the apartment.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And having pressed that button, you waited until the buzzer announced the door was being opened?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long?”

“Not over a second or two.”

Mason said to the witness, “One more question: Did you go right up after you entered the house?”

“We—no, sir, not right away. We stopped for a few moments there in the lobby to talk about the type of poker we wanted to play. Miss Payson had lost money on one of these wild poker games where the dealer has the opportunity of calling any kind of game he wants, some of them having the one-eyed Jacks wild, and things of that sort.”

“How long were you talking?”

“Oh, a couple of minutes.”

“And then went right up?”

“Yes.”

“Where was the elevator?”

“The elevator was on one of the upper floors. I remember we pressed the button and it took a little while to come down to where we were.”

“That’s all,” Mason said.

Della Street’s fingers dug into his arm. “Aren’t you going to ask him about the key?” she whispered.

“Not yet,” Mason said, a light of triumph in his eyes. “I know what happened now, Della. Give us the breaks, and we’ve got this case in the bag. First, make him prove we were in that apartment.”

Linn said, “I will now call Miss Shirley Tanner to the stand.”