“When did the murder take place?” Mason asked.
“In January of 1924.”
“And what happened to Adams?”
“As though you didn’t know!”
“Did you come to give information, or to try and get some?” Mason asked.
She thought that over for a moment, then turned to him frankly, and said, “A little of both.”
“Suppose you change the purpose of your visit and simply try to give me information.”
She smiled, “The murder was committed in the early part of 1924. Horace Adams was hanged in May of the year following.
“Horace had a wife — Sarah. Sarah and Horace, David and I, made a foursome on occasions. Horace and Sarah had a boy, Marvin. He was about two years old at the time of the murder, about three when his father was executed. I don’t think Sarah ever liked me or fully trusted me. Sarah was a mother. She devoted her entire life to her husband and to her child. I couldn’t see things that way. I was childless and — I was attractive. I liked to step around and see the night life a bit. Sarah didn’t approve of that. She thought a married woman should settle down in a rut.
“That was some twenty years ago. Ideas of marriage have changed some since then. I’m mentioning this to show that Sarah and I didn’t always get along too well, although, because our husbands were partners, we made things seem very smooth and harmonious on the surface.”
“Did the men know you didn’t get along?” Mason asked.
“Good heavens, no! It was too subtle for men to get, just the little things that women can do. The raising of an eyebrow at a proper time, or just the way she happened to look at the length of some skirt I’d be wearing; or when her husband would compliment me on my appearance and turn to her to ask her if she didn’t think I was getting younger every day, she’d agree with him. with just that cooing touch of sweetness which is entirely lost on a man but means so much to a woman.”
“All right,” Mason said, “you didn’t like each other. So what happened?”
“I’m not saying that,” she said. “I’m saying that Sarah didn’t approve of me. I don’t think Sarah ever liked me. I didn’t dislike her. I pitied her. Well, then the murder took place, and I could never forgive Horace Adams for the things that he said in trying to cover up that murder.”
“What were they?” Mason asked.
“He had killed David, and, as it turned out, had buried the body in the cellar of the manufacturing plant, and then cemented over the floor again. All I knew was that David had disappeared rather abruptly. Horace telephoned me there had been some trouble in connection with one of the patents, and David had had to go to Reno very hurriedly on business, that he’d write me just as soon as he got located there and found out how long he was going to have to stay.”
“Did the fact that he was going to Reno make you at all suspicious?” Mason asked.
“To tell you the truth, it did.”
“Why? Because he had been interested in some other woman?”
“Well, no — not exactly. But you know, how it is. We were childless, and — I loved my husband. Mr. Mason. I loved him a lot. As I’ve grown older, I realize that love isn’t everything in life, but at that age things seemed different to me. I made myself attractive because I knew we were never going to have any children and because I wanted to hang onto my husband. I tried to give him everything that any other woman could possibly offer. I tried to be just as attractive as the girls he’d meet who might want to flirt with him. I tried to keep his attention centered on me. I — oh, in my way, I lived my life for my husband just as well as Sarah lived her life for her husband, only Sarah had a child. That made things a lot different somehow.”
“Go ahead,” Mason said.
She said, “I’ll be absolutely frank with you, Mr. Mason. I think perhaps there was a little jealousy on my part — of Sarah Adams. She could afford to let her hands get rough and harsh. When we’d go to a nightclub on a foursome, she’d look out of place. She looked just like what she was, a housewife who had spent the afternoon with her child and then, at the last minute, fixed herself up and put on her best bib and tucker to go out. She didn’t look like — like a part of the scheme of things, like a part of the night life, like she was really fitting the clothes she was wearing. But she was holding Horace Adams’ love. You could see that.”
“Despite his comments on how nice you looked?” Mason asked.
“Oh, that!” and she snapped her fingers. “He saw me just as he saw every other woman, as so much scenery. He’d appreciate a good-looking woman just as he’d appreciate a good-looking painting or something; but his eyes were always coming back to his wife. He’d keep looking at her with that expression of being settled and comfortable and secure and happy.”
“And your husband didn’t look at you that way?” Mason asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He was built differently. He — I’m not kidding myself a bit, Mr. Mason. My husband would have stepped out on me if someone had come along who was physically more attractive than I was. I made it my business to see that I led the procession, that’s all.”
“I see.”
“I’m not certain that you do. You’d have to know how a woman feels about those things in order to understand. It was an effort, and somewhere in the background was a fear, a fear that my foot might slip and I wouldn’t head the procession any more.”
“So when you thought your husband had gone to Reno, you...”
“I was scared stiff,” she admitted, “and then when I didn’t hear from him, I became frantic. I happened to have a friend in Reno. I wired that friend to check over all the hotels and find out where David was staying and find out — well, find out if he was alone.”
“And then what?” Mason asked.
“When I found David wasn’t registered in any hotel in Reno, I went up to have a showdown with Horace; and then Horace acted so evasive and so completely uncomfortable that I knew he was lying or trying to cover something up; and then he told me that David had run away with another girl.”
“Who?” Mason asked.
“I don’t think her name needs to enter into it.”
“Why?”
“Because, of course, David hadn’t run away with her. He hadn’t had anything to do with her. It was just something Horace had made up to try and cover up the murder.”
“Where is this woman now?” Mason asked.
“Good heavens, I don’t know. I’ve entirely lost track of her. I don’t think I ever even knew her. She was just a name to me. I would, of course, have found out more about her if it hadn’t been for the way Horace acted. I called in the police, and it wasn’t long before the police found out that he was lying and that David had been murdered. I don’t know. I suppose that if Horace had told the truth, he could have escaped the death penalty.”
“What was the truth?”
“They must have had some terrible quarrel over something there in the plant, and Horace struck my husband down in a fit of anger. Then he was panic-stricken and knew he had to do something with the body. In place of calling in the police and confessing, he waited until night, broke a hole in the cement, dug a grave, buried David, covered the place over with cement, put a lot of rubbish and shavings over the new cement until it could harden, and, of course, had me thinking all the time that David had gone to Reno very unexpectedly on business.”
“How long before you began to get suspicious?” Mason asked.
“It must have been three or four days. I guess it must have been five days before Horace told this story about David having run away with the woman... after my friend reported David wasn’t in Reno.”