Mason leaned back in his swivel chair and closed his eyes as though trying to reconstruct something from the past. “Go right ahead. Keep on talking, Mrs. Dangerfield.”
“It’s a terrible thing to be in love with somebody and have that person killed. It comes first as a numbing shock, and then — well, I had an overpowering, terrific hatred for Horace Adams, for his wife, and I guess if I’d thought of it, even for the little boy. There wasn’t a particle of sympathy or charity in my make-up. When the jury brought in a verdict against Horace that meant he would hang, I was wild with joy. I went out and celebrated all by myself.”
“You didn’t feel any sympathy for Mrs. Adams?” he asked, still keeping his eyes closed.
“None whatever. I tell you, I hated her. I didn’t feel any sympathy for anyone. I could have pulled the rope that hung Horace Adams, and been glad to do it. I tried to get them to let me be present at the execution, but they wouldn’t.”
“Why did you want to?”
“I just wanted to scream, ‘You murderer!’ at him when the trap opened, so that he could have my words ringing in his ears as his neck broke. I–I tell you I was savage. I’m rather an emotional animal, Mr. Mason.”
The lawyer opened his eyes, looked at her, and said, “Yes, I can appreciate that.”
“I’m telling you all this so you’ll understand my present position.”
“What is your present position?” Mason asked.
“I realize something of how terribly wrong I was.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Not for the way I felt toward Horace,” she said hastily. “I could have killed him with my bare hands. I’m glad that his lawyer bungled his defense all up so that they hung him. As I say, if he’d told the truth, he’d probably have gotten off with manslaughter or second-degree murder, but the way he tried to cover up and everything — well, we won’t talk about that, because I want to talk about Sarah.”
“What about Sarah?”
“I suppose that I persecuted Sarah. I tried to keep her from getting her share of the money out of the business. I was nasty in every’ way I could be. Sarah took what cash she could get, and disappeared. It was, of course, the only thing for her to do, on account of the boy. She didn’t have much money, just a little. I never knew where she went. No one did. She covered her tracks pretty carefully. The boy was too young to remember, and she felt that she could bring him up so he would never know his father was executed for murder.”
“Do you know where she went?” Mason asked.
She laughed at him and said, “Don’t be so cagey, Mr. Mason. Of course, I do, now. She went to California. She worked and worked hard — too hard. She gave the boy a pretty good education. He always thought his father had been killed in an automobile accident, that they didn’t have any other relatives. She carefully kept him from knowing anything at all about his past life or having any contacts which would reveal it to him. It was a splendid thing. She sacrificed her entire life for that.
“Well, she worked too hard. She got run down and got tuberculosis. Four or five years ago she went to the Red River Valley. She was well thought of there. She kept on working even when she should have been resting. If she’d gone to a hospital and had absolute quiet, she might have cured herself, but she was putting her boy through school, so she worked until — until she couldn’t work any more.”
“And then?” Mason asked.
“Then she died.”
“How do you know all this?” Mason asked.
“Because I made it my business to find out.”
“Why?”
“Because — believe it or not, I developed a conscience.”
“When?”
“Quite a while ago. But it didn’t really hit me until someone employed a detective who started investigating the case.”
“Who employed him?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was Sarah at first. It was someone living in El Templo. I couldn’t find out who.”
“Why did you come to me?”
“Because I think you know who was back of it all and why.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because I’ve located Marvin Adams. I find that he’s unofficially engaged to the Witherspoon girl and that you were seen out at Witherspoon’s house.”
“How did you know that?” Mason asked.
“By accident. To tell you the truth, Mr. Mason, I was in El Templo because I thought the detective agency was located there. This detective was telephoning reports to El Templo. I found that out through the girl at the switchboard in the Winterburg City Hotel. They were station-to-station calls. I didn’t get the number.”
“And how did you find out about me?”
She said, “By a chance remark that was dropped by Mrs. Burr.”
“Mrs. Burr?” Mason asked.
“Don’t be so mysterious. You’ve met her out there at Witherspoon’s.”
“And you know her?” Mason asked.
“Yes. I’ve known her for years.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“In Winterburg City.”
“Indeed?”
“She used to live there.”
Mason picked up a pencil from his desk, slid his thumb and forefinger up and down the polished sides, slowly and thoughtfully. “That,” he said, “is very interesting. She must have been rather a little girl at the time of the murder.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Wasn’t she?”
Mrs. Dangerfield averted her eyes and frowned as she made an effort at concentration. “No,” she said, “she wasn’t. She was at least seventeen or eighteen — perhaps nineteen. How old do you think she is now, Mr. Mason?”
Mason said, “I’m afraid I’m not much of a judge of ages. I thought she was in the late twenties or early thirties — and I would have said that you couldn’t possibly have been more than thirty-eight or thirty-nine.”
“Flatterer!”
“No, I really mean it,” Mason said. “I’m not trying to flatter you. I’m really interested in seeing how a woman can continue to be young, regardless of the actual number of birthdays she may have had.”
She said, “I’m not going to tell you how old I am, but Diana Burr is — let me see — she was... yes, she’s between thirty-eight and thirty-nine.”
“And you recognized her after all these years?” Mason asked.
“What do you mean, after all these years?”
“When did you see her last?”
“Oh, about three years ago.”
“Then you know her husband?”
Mrs. Dangerfield shook her head. “I don’t think so. Diana’s name originally was Diana Perkins. She was quite a problem to her mother. Mrs. Perkins used to talk with me. They lived in our block. Then Diana ran away with a married man. She came back after four or five years, and claimed the man had divorced his wife and married her.”
“What did the wife have to say about it?”
“Oh, she’d left. People had lost track of her. Perhaps Diana was telling the truth. Perhaps not. Well then, Diana left town again for a while and showed up with a brand-new husband.”
“Burr?” Mason asked.
“No,” she said, smiling. “Not Burr. Diana, I am afraid, is inclined to trade the old ones in on the new models as fast as they come out. Let’s see. What was her husband’s name? Radcliff, I think it was, but I’m not certain about that. I think he divorced her. She was back in Winterburg City for a little while, and then left for California. She married Mr. Burr in California.”
“So you met her on the street and talked with her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she mention anything about that old murder case?”
“No. She was very tactful.”