They all laughed, without knowing exactly what they were laughing at, but knowing that the tension had been broken and that the line of inquiry had been blocked — temporarily.
Abruptly Witherspoon appeared at the door. “Mr. Mason, I’d like very much to talk to you for a few moments, if the others will consent to spare you.”
Witherspoon was a poor actor. His attempt at being casual and polite merely emphasized the apprehension of his voice and manner.
Mason pushed back his chair, made his excuses, and followed Witherspoon into a big drawing room.
A man of about fifty-five was standing with his back to them, studying a shelf of books, and quite apparently not even seeing the titles. It wasn’t until Witherspoon spoke that he apparently realized they had entered the room. He turned quickly.
“Mr. Dangerfield,” Witherspoon said, “this is Mr. Mason. Mr. Mason is an attorney who happens to be familiar with the matter about which you wished to talk. I’d like to have him hear what you were starting to tell me.”
Dangerfield shook hands with Mason with the automatic courtesy of one acknowledging an introduction. He seemed completely preoccupied with his own worries as he mumbled, “Glad to meet you, Mr. Mason.”
He was a chunky man of small stature, heavy set, but hard. There was no sag to his cheeks or his stomach. His back was straight as a board, and he kept his chin up, his head balanced alertly on a thick neck.
His eyes were dark, with a reddish brown tinge deep in the background. Worry lines were stamped on his forehead, and there was a gray look of fatigue about his skin, as though he hadn’t slept the night before.
“Go right ahead,” Witherspoon prompted. “Tell me what it was you wanted to see me about.”
“About those detectives you hired,” Dangerfield said.
Witherspoon glanced at Mason, saw only the lawyer’s profile, cleared his throat, asked, “What detectives?”
“The detectives to investigate that old murder of David Latwell. I was hoping it would be all over when they hung Horace Adams.”
“What’s your interest in it?” Mason asked.
Dangerfield hesitated for a perceptible instant. “I married David Latwell’s widow.”
Witherspoon started to say something, but Mason interposed, quite matter-of-factly, “Indeed! I presume the murder was quite a shock to her.”
“It was... Of course. Naturally.”
“But, of course,” Mason went on, “she’s entirely over it by now. How about a cigarette, Mr. Dangerfield?”
“Thank you.” Dangerfield extended a hand to Mason’s proffered cigarette case.
“We may as well all sit down,” Mason said. “Nice of you to come out here, Dangerfield. You live in the East?”
“Yes. At the present time, we’re living in St. Louis.”
“Oh, yes. Drive out?”
“Yes.”
“How did you find the roads?”
“Fine. We made a quick trip. Came through very fast. We’ve only been here a day or two.”
“Then you didn’t get in today?”
“No.”
“Staying here in El Templo?”
“Yes. At the big hotel there.”
“Then I take it your wife’s with you.”
“Yes.”
Mason held a match to Dangerfield’s cigarette. He asked casually, “How did you learn that Mr. Witherspoon had hired any detectives?”
Dangerfield said, “People began to show up asking guarded questions. Some of our friends were interviewed. Well, Mrs. Dangerfield heard about it.
“The original affair was, of course, as you have pointed out, a great shock to her. Not only was there the shock of her husband’s disappearance, but there was a period during which she thought he had run away with another woman; then the body was found, and then the trial took place. You know how it is with a trial of that sort. Everything is dug out and rehashed and aired, and the newspapers give it a lot of publicity.”
“And now?” Mason asked.
“By a little clever detective work on her own part, she discovered the detective who was working on the case was making reports to someone in El Templo. She didn’t get that person’s name.”
“Do you know how she found out about the El Templo angle?”
“Generally. It was through a girl at the switchboard of a hotel where one of the detectives was stopping.”
“How did you happen to come here — to this house?” Mason asked.
“I was a little more successful than my wife in getting information — because I started from a different angle.”
“How is that?”
“I sat down in my armchair one night, and tried to figure out the reason why anyone would be making an investigation.”
“And the reason?” Mason asked.
“Well, I wasn’t certain, but I thought that it might be connected with Horace Adams’ widow, or with his son. I knew that they had moved somewhere to California. I thought perhaps she had died, and someone wanted to straighten out property matters. There might have been an attempt to reopen the old probate of the manufacturing business.”
“So you looked Mr. Witherspoon up?” Mason asked.
“Not in that way. As soon as we arrived in town, my wife tried to trace the detective. I started looking up Mrs. Horace Adams. Sure enough, I found just what I expected to find — that she had been living here, had died, and that her son was going with a rich El Templo girl. Then, of course, I put two and two together.”
“But you didn’t know,” Mason said.
“As a matter of fact,” Dangerfield admitted, “that’s right. I ran a little bluff on Mr. Witherspoon here as soon as I came in. He convinced me I was on the right track.”
“I didn’t admit anything,” Witherspoon said hastily.
Dangerfield smiled. “Perhaps not in just so many words.”
“Why did you come here?” Mason asked.
“Don’t you see? All my wife knows is that someone who lives in El Templo is trying to reopen the case. It worries her, and it’s getting her emotionally excited. If she knows young Adams is here, she’ll denounce him as a murderer’s son. I don’t want that, and you shouldn’t. She thought hanging wasn’t good enough for Horace Adams.”
“You knew her then, at the time of the trial?”
Dangerfield hesitated for only a moment, then said, “Yes.”
“And I presume that you knew Horace Adams?”
“No. I’d never met him.”
“Did you know David Latwell?”
“Well... I’d met him, yes.”
“And what do you want us to do?” Mason asked.
“My wife will find out where the office of that detective agency is any day now. See what I’m getting at? I want you to see that she gets a runaround.”
Witherspoon started to say something, but Mason silenced him with a warning glance.
“Exactly what do you want us to do?” Mason asked. “Can you be a little more specific?”
Dangerfield said, “Don’t you get it? Sooner or later, she’ll locate this detective agency and start making inquiries about the name of the client.”
“The detective agency won’t tell her,” Witherspoon said positively.
“Then she’ll find out the name of the detective who was working on the case, and get the information out of him, one way or another. Once she’s started on this thing, she’ll see it through. It’s building up on her. She’s getting intensely nervous. What I want you to do is to tip the detective agency off. Then, in place of refusing to give her information, they’ll give her the information we both want her to have. We’re really all in the same boat.”
Witherspoon asked, “What information?”
“Tell her the client who employed them is an attorney. Give her his name. Let her go to him. He can give her a runaround with some likely stall, and she’ll go back home and forget it.”