"And just what is your surmise, Mr. Mason?"
"My surmise," Mason said, "is that regardless of whom he may be contacting, Harrison Boring tied Dianne Alder up in a contract by which he was in a position to collect a full fifty per cent of any gross income from any source whatever which Dianne might receive during the period of the next few years. He then dropped Dianne and repudiated the contract, indicating he had opened up a more lucrative market for any knowledge he might have."
Winlock stood very stiff and very still. Then said, at length, "You know that he made such a contract?"
"Yes."
"May I ask the source of your information, Mr. Mason?"
"I've seen the contract and know of its subsequent repudiation. If, therefore, you are not being frank with me, Mr. Winlock, you should realize what the repudiation of Dianne's contract means. It means that Boring feels he could get more than half of what Dianne is entitled to. This means he has opened up a new source of income which he intends to use to the limit."
"I think," Winlock said, "you had better come back here and sit down, Mr. Mason. The situation is a little more complex than I had anticipated."
Winlock walked back to the chair he had just vacated, seated himself and indicated that Mason was to seat himself in the other chair.
Mason sat down and waited.
There was a long period of silence.
At length Mason took out his cigarette case, offered one to Winlock, who shook his head.
"Mind if I smoke?" Mason asked.
"Go right ahead. There's an ash tray there on the table."
Mason lit the cigarette.
Winlock said, after a moment, "What you have just told me, Mr. Mason, is very much of a shock to me."
Mason said nothing.
"All right," Winlock said. "I see that you are starting an investigation, Mr. Mason, and I may as well forestall some of the results of that investigation. I had hoped that it never would be necessary for me to tell anyone the things I am going to tell you.
"My true name is George Alder. I was married to Eunice Alder. A little over fourteen years ago I started for Catalina Island in an open boat with an outboard motor. The boat ran out of fuel when we encountered head winds and heavy tide currents. We drifted about for a while, then a storm came up and the boat capsized. The accident happened at night. I am a good swimmer. I tried to keep in touch with my companion, but lost him in the darkness. I managed to keep myself afloat for some two hours. Then, as it was getting daylight, I saw a boat approaching. I managed to wave and shout and finally got the attention of one of the girls on the boat. She called out to the man at the wheel and the boat veered over and picked me up.
"I was near exhaustion.
"My married life had not been happy. My wife, Eunice, and I had, as it turned out, very little in common other than the first rush of passion which had brought about the marriage. When that wore off and we settled down to a day-by-day relationship, we became mutually dissatisfied. She evidenced that dissatisfaction by finding fault with just about everything I did. If I drove a car, I was driving either too fast or too slow. If I reached a decision, she always questioned the decision.
"I evidenced my dissatisfaction by staying away from home a great deal and in the course of time developed other emotional interests.
"During the long hours I was swimming I felt that the situation was hopeless. I reviewed my past life. I realized that I should have separated from her while she was still young enough to have attracted some other man. An attempt to sacrifice both of our lives simply in order to furnish a home to a young daughter was, in my opinion, poor judgment."
"It's difficult to judge a matter of that sort," Mason said, "because the judgment is usually made in connection with the selfish interests of the person considering the situation."
"Meaning that you don't agree with me?" Winlock said.
"Meaning that I was merely making a marginal comment," Mason said. "However, all that is in the past. If you want to justify your course of conduct I'm very glad to listen to you, but I feel that in view of what you have said we're getting to a point where time is short."
"Exactly," Winlock said. "I'll put it this way. The boat that picked me up was headed for Catalina. I explained to them that I had been on a somewhat drunken party on another boat; that I had made a wager that I could swim to Catalina before the boat got there and had been drunk enough and foolish enough to plunge overboard to try it and the others had let me go, with a lot of jeering and facetious comments.
"I told my rescuers that I had a responsible position and that I certainly couldn't afford any publicity. So they fitted me out with clothes, which I agreed to return, and put me ashore at Catalina and said nothing about it.
"Now then, recently Harrison T. Boring found out in some way what had happened and that I was actually George Alder."
"And he has been asking money?"
"He has been paid money," Winlock said. "I gave him four separate payments, all of which represented blackmail. Boring came to Riverside in order to collect yet another payment. This time it was a very substantial payment and it was represented to me it would be a final payment."
"How much?" Mason asked.
"Ten thousand dollars in cash," Winlock said.
"Can you afford blackmail of that sort?" Mason asked.
"I can't afford not to pay blackmail. This man is in a position to wipe me out. Because I didn't dare to answer the questions in connection with the vital statistics required on a marriage license, I persuaded my present wife that there were reasons why I didn't want to go through with another marriage and, because she was a divorced woman and the interlocutory degree had not become final, we simply announced to our friends that we had run away and had been married in Nevada over a week end.
"I may state that at that time the circle of my friends was much more limited than is the case at the present time, and what we did-or rather, what we said we had done-attracted very little attention. There was, I believe, a small article in the society column of the local newspaper."
"But how do you feel about Dianne?" Mason asked. "You simply walked out of her life. You deprived her of a father, you never let her know-"
"I couldn't let her know," Winlock said. "I had to make a clean break. There was no other way out of it. However, I may state that I have kept in touch with Dianne without her knowing anything at all about it. If she ever had any real need for money, I'd have seen that she had it.
"She had a very good job as a secretary with Corning, Chester and Corning of Bolero Beach. She has perhaps no realization of just how she secured that job. If it hadn't been for the influence of a firm of attorneys here in Riverside, who, in turn, were indebted to me, I doubt very much that Dianne would have secured such a good job so early in her career.
"However, that's neither here nor there. I am not trying to justify myself to you, Mr. Mason. I am simply pointing out that your statement to me is a great shock, because it is now apparent that Boring is not interested in a lump sum settlement as he told me, but plans to bleed me white.
"This would kill my wife. To have a scandal come out at this particular time, to have it appear our relationship was illicit, to lose her social prestige- Well, I can't even bear to think of it."
"Your wife has a son by another marriage?"
"That's right. And as far as he is concerned, I- Well, I am not talking about him. If something happened that would- If that young man had to go out and stand on his two feet- Oh, well, that's neither here nor there. There's no use discussing it."
Mason said, "May I ask what Boring told you when he solicited this last ten-thousand-dollar cash payment?"