She nodded slowly. After a moment, she heaved a deep sigh.
Mason said, “Life is like that. We can only see from birth to death. The rest of it is cut from our vision.”
Drake stared up at Mason. “I shall be doggoned,” he said.
“What’s the matter, Paul?”
“I never knew you were a mystic!”
“I am not a mystic,” Mason said, smiling. “It is simply the application of what you might call legal logic to the scheme of existence, and I don’t ordinarily talk that way. I am doing it now because I think Mrs. Greeley needs it.”
Mrs. Greeley said with feeling, “Mr. Mason, I can’t begin to tell you how much better you have made me feel. Your words carry conviction. I... I guess I am getting my faith back.”
Mason said, “I don’t think you had ever lost it, Mrs. Greeley. Now this is going to be disagreeable. Do you want to get it over with as quickly as possible?”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I... Oh, Mr. Mason, I can’t tell you how much you have comforted me. After all, death is only a sleep. It has to be. I am ashamed of myself, Mr. Mason. I was doubting the whole scheme of things. I was... Is this someone coming?”
“Should be Lieutenant Tragg,” Mason said. “You know him.”
“Oh, yes.”
There were quick steps in the corridor, then the tapping of knuckles on the door. Mason nodded to Drake, who opened the door, and Tragg came in. “Sorry I was detained,” he said. “Good evening, Mrs. Greeley. I hope you don’t think we are entirely unfeeling.”
“No, I understand. I want to show you these things.”
She took the suitcase which Mason handed her, placed it on the floor at her feet, opened the lid, and took out a crumpled shirt. A vivid crimson streak was slashed across the front of the stiffly starched bosom, a streak perhaps five inches long. Above it was the smudged imprint of red lips, partially opened.
The men bent over the smear.
Tragg said, “Notice here. You can even see where the finger was first pressed against the shirt. Then follow the mark to the place where it vanishes. She was trying to push him away.”
Mason nodded.
Tragg looked down at the suitcase. “You have some other things, Mrs. Greeley?”
She said, “After Mr. Mason asked me about his tuxedo, I looked it over. There aren’t any spots on it.”
Tragg took the suit to hold it under the light. After a few moments, he looked up at Mason. “Nothing I can see,” he said.
“Wouldn’t there have been some spots on the suit,” Mrs. Greeley asked, “if — if that girl is telling the truth?”
“Perhaps,” Tragg said.
“She was cut in several places, wasn’t she?”
“There were some gashes, yes.”
“And if my husband had been driving the car, he would have been on the left-hand side. That would have been on the lower side. She would have been above him. In order to have squirmed out from under the steering wheel, got past that unconscious woman, and crawled out through the window — well, it seems to me there would have been some spots on his suit.”
“Yes,” Tragg said, “you would think so. What are you getting at?”
She said simply, “I brought the shirt to you because I found it, because it was evidence. I suppose it was my duty, but — well, you will understand. My husband and I were very close. I don’t want to be sentimental. I don’t want to get to feeling sorry for myself, and I don’t want to impose my own private, individual grief on you people, but I would like a fair deal.”
“You will get it,” Mason said.
She smiled her thanks.
Tragg said, “I don’t understand, Mrs. Greeley. In the face of this evidence, do you still think that your husband wasn’t driving the car?”
“Yes.”
Tragg said, “I am afraid I don’t understand, Mrs. Greeley.”
She said, “Adler wouldn’t have done the things this man who was driving the car did.”
Tragg indicated the shirt. “You mean he didn’t try to kiss...”
“Oh, that,” she interrupted. That is nothing. He had been drinking. He was feeling good. This girl has a butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth manner, now that she is telling about it but in the car, she was probably kidding him along. They all do. I don’t care about that. Adler was no saint. But what I mean is he wouldn’t have climbed out of the car and left the girl behind the steering wheel. Adler didn’t do that. That isn’t his way of doing things.”
“But he must have,” Mason said.
She shook her head stubbornly.
“There is something else that we don’t know about, Mr. Mason. If Adler was at the wheel of that car and he got out and left the girl to take the responsibility, there was someone who forced him to do it, someone who was hidden in that car, either down on the floor in back, or in the trunk, or somewhere. Or perhaps someone who was following along behind.”
“Wait a minute,” Tragg said. “That is a theory. The evidence shows a lot of cars stopped almost at once. There was quite a mix-up.”
“Someone,” Mrs. Greeley said with calm sincerity, “forced Adler to get out of that car. Someone took him away from the scene of the accident, and that someone forced him to keep quiet. When you have found who that someone was, you will have found who killed my husband, and... and...” She began to sob — after a few moments got control of herself and said, “I am sorry. I am pretty much unstrung.”
Mason glanced at Tragg. “I don’t think we need her any more, do we, Lieutenant?”
Tragg shook his head.
Mrs. Greeley gave Mason her hand. “When I first met you — well, I found myself liking you, and yet you made me very angry. I... I hope we understand each other better now.”
She gave his hand a quick pressure, smiled at Tragg, nodded to Drake, and left the office, walking rapidly down the corridor.
Drake, listening to the sound of her diminishing footsteps said, “If I had been Greeley, I wouldn’t have been playing around. Gosh, Perry, you certainly talked a sermon.”
“Did I miss something?” Tragg asked.
“Did you miss something? I shall say you did. A five-minute talk on the philosophy of life and death I will never forget.”
Tragg glanced at Mason, elevated his eyebrows quizzically.
Mason said apologetically, “She had had an overdose of this all-for-the-best business. I tried to give her a little of my own philosophy about life and death.”
Tragg said, “Well, I have got some news. I couldn’t get up here sooner because I was camped in a telephone booth down in the restaurant. I had headquarters half crazy, but I got action. A man wearing a tuxedo suit chartered a plane to go from San Francisco to Fresno early on the morning of Wednesday the nineteenth. Two o’clock to be exact. Get that, Mason? At two in the morning.”
“What time would that have put him in Fresno?” Mason asked.
“Oh, within an hour or so.”
“And then what?”
“We are tracing him from Fresno,” Tragg said. “We should be able to get a line on him.”
“Get the name under which the ticket was sold?” Mason asked.
Tragg grinned. “L. C. Spinney.”