“Darned if I know,” Mason said. “We’ll have to find out. Keep an eye on the road behind, Della.”
“At this rate of speed you’ll overtake some traffic officer who’s cruising along about sixty-five,” she said.
“That’s a chance we have to take. I’m watching the license numbers of the cars ahead. You help me keep an eye on the road behind.”
Three hours later Mason slowed the car to read a sign at a crossroad and then turned to the right.
Della Street said, “From the looks of this place they roll up the sidewalks at seven o’clock. You’re not going to find anyone up this time of night.”
“We’ll get them up,” Mason said.
Della Street said, “There’s the place. It’s a motel, Chief, and there’s no one up.”
“We’ll get someone up.”
Mason rang the bell at the office, and after a few minutes later a man, rubbing sleep from his eyes, shuffled to the door. “Sorry,” he said, “we’re full up. Can’t you see that sign No Vacancies? You’re...”
Mason said, “Here’s five dollars.”
“I tell you we’re full up. I couldn’t let you have a place if...”
“I don’t want a place,” Mason said. “I simply want to know what cabin is occupied by Mrs. Barnwell.”
“Mrs. B? She’s in number eleven, but she’s gone to bed.”
“Thanks,” Mason said. “Buy yourself a bottle of hooch, and I’m sorry we woke you up.”
Mason and Della Street walked rapidly down a little cement walk which bordered the patio parking place surrounded by stucco cottages.
“Here’s our cottage,” Mason said.
He looked for a bell. There was none. He tried to open the screen door. It was latched on the inside.
Mason tapped his knuckles on the door.
A woman’s voice, sharp with alarm, said, “Who is it, please?”
“A message,” Mason said, “a very important message.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll have to know who you are. I...”
“Turn on the light,” Mason said. “It’s a message. It has to do with the validity of a marriage ceremony performed in Nevada. Now are you interested?”
A light clicked on inside.
“Just a minute,” the feminine voice said.
A moment later the outer door was opened. A vague, shadowy figure of a young woman bundled in a loose wrapper stood in the doorway. The screen remained latched.
“All right. What is it please?” she said.
Mason, holding a fountain pen flashlight in his right hand, pressed the button. The beam shone through the screen in the door, full in the woman’s face.
She jerked back and said sharply, “Don’t do that!”
Mason said, “I’ve found out what I wanted to know, Miss Cadmus.”
“Mrs. Barnwell, please.”
“I want to talk with you about that.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk with you about anything,” she said sharply, and started to close the door.
“I think you do,” Mason told her. “If you don’t talk with me now, you’ll have to talk with the newspaper reporters two hours from now.”
“The newspaper reporters?”
“Yes.”
“How did they — how could they locate me?”
“Through me,” Mason said.
A masculine voice edged with irritation came from the adjoining cottage. “Oh, pipe down! Hire a hall or go get a woman that feels sociable. Don’t stand out there and argue. I want to sleep!”
Mason stood quietly at the screen door, waiting.
The figure in the doorway remained motionless for a matter of seconds, then a hand reached out and snapped off the hook.
“Won’t you come in?” she invited. “And please try not to wake the baby.”
Mason held the door open for Della Street and followed her into the cabin.
Mason carefully closed the door behind them.
“Who are you?” the woman asked.
The cottage was a spacious, comfortable affair. The small sitting room was comfortably furnished, with good rugs on the floor, and they could see through the door to a bedroom containing a double bed and a crib.
Mason said, “I’m Perry Mason, the lawyer. This is Della Street, my secretary. I’m going to put the cards on the table with you. I’m one of the attorneys representing Josephine Kempton. She’s charged with the murder of Benjamin Addicks — your husband.”
The woman sat with tight-lipped hostility. “Keep talking.
Mason said, “My connection with the case is purely fortuitous. I bought your diaries and...”
“I read about it in the papers. What did you want with them? Were you trying some kind of legalized blackmail? Did you think I’d be foolish enough to put anything in them that...?”
“You put things in them that you didn’t know you’d put in them,” Mason said. “That is, you put things in that you don’t think other people would find out.”
“Such as what?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
“I don’t know. I want to find out.”
“And how do you think I got here?”
“That I can’t understand. I took elaborate precautions.”
“I know you did,” Mason said. “The point I’m making is that there was more in those diaries than you had realized. Now then, I want your story.”
“Well, you won’t get it.”
“I think I will,” Mason said confidently.
“What makes you think so?”
“Because,” Mason said, “I have all the damaging parts of the story. I know the motels where you stayed with Benjamin Addicks. I know the entries in your diary to the effect that you were going to take happiness where you found it, and that you wouldn’t force the issue as long as there wasn’t any. And then, when you found out there was going to be an issue, you had to face the situation and you put that in your diary.
“I know what happened aboard the yacht. I know that you and Addicks fixed it up so you would pull the wool over the eyes of everyone and make it appear you had committed suicide. I don’t know why he took all those elaborate precautions. That’s what I’d like to find out.”
“If you’re so smart, go ahead and find out.”
“I know,” Mason said, “that you were married in Nevada. I know that you directed that the documents solemnizing the marriage should be mailed to you at this address. I know that Addicks’ real name was Barnwell.
“Now then, I can make some guesses. They aren’t the type of guesses that you might like to have me make. I can communicate my guesses to the newspapers. They’ve been after me for an interview.”
“Go ahead and give them one.”
“I have already given them an interview in which I have pointed out that because of certain entries in your diary I felt that you had communicated to Mr. Addicks that he was about to become a father. I have already told them about the motels where you stayed with Mr. Addicks, registered as husband and wife, and I have witnesses who have identified your picture. The newspapers have the story. They’re going to break out with it tomorrow morning.”
“Why did you have to do that to me?” she asked.
“I didn’t do it to you,” Mason said. “ I’m a lawyer. I’m engaged in a case where I had to get at the facts. I didn’t make the facts. I didn’t cut the pattern. I only discovered the facts.”
“And then you had to blab them to the press.”
“I did it because it was the thing to do. There was a reason why Mr. Addicks couldn’t marry you. What was it?”
“I don’t know why I should tell you.”
“I don’t know why you shouldn’t.”
She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Just what is your interest in this?”
“I’m trying to find out the truth.”
“And you’re representing Josephine Kempton?”
“Yes.”