“Where?”
“Up on the third floor, sneaking along on tiptoes. First, I heard a board creak. Then another board creaked. And then I saw this gun and a hand holding it and a part of an arm.”
“Man or woman?” Mason asked.
“Good heavens, Mr. Mason, don’t ask me. When I heard those boards creak, my knees just turned to water, and when I saw that gun, I guess I let out the loudest scream I ever let out in my life and I went down those stairs so fast I don’t think I even touched the stairs. I went out through that door — I must have all but taken it off the hinges.”
“Did you scream after that?”
“I screamed two or three times going down the hill. Then I saved my breath for running.”
“No one came after you?”
“No one. I looked back and no one was coming. Believe me, Mr. Mason, I sure was running.”
“All right, then what?”
“I ran until I was out of breath, and I was so frightened and my heart just seemed to quit beating. I had to slow down to get my breath, and then, as soon as I got a little wind, I ran some more and... well. I just went plunging down the hill, until I hit the road near the bottom.”
“Why didn’t you take Lutts’ car?”
“He had locked the ignition and had taken the keys in with him when he went in. Believe me, he wasn’t taking any chances on having me take his car and drive off and leave him out there. He was after information. He wanted to know what I know about that stock that he didn’t know, and minutes were precious to him. He was planning on making some more stock purchases this evening if he could.”
“And you don’t think he had any idea of the real reason you wanted to buy in?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “he didn’t when he started in that house. But if he got up to the top of the stairs and saw the way I’d cleaned up that room, with the newspaper on the chair and things, he might have known.”
“You don’t know how many shots were fired?”
“No, that’s because I had the radio going in the car.”
“All right, go on, what happened?”
“Well, I thought I was going to have to hitchhike, but as it turned out, I didn’t.”
“How come?”
“When I hit the main county highway, I was really in a panic. I would have gone in any direction, taking the first car that came along. But as it happened, I was in luck. A taxicab was coming toward town. Evidently, it had been out to the country club and was running back empty. I saw it coming when I was still a little way from the road and I started waving. The driver saw me and pulled right off to the side of the road, and then he came down and picked me up.”
“He could see you’d been running?”
“I guess so. I guess I looked a mess.”
“What did he say?”
“Well, of course, he... he was curious. He wanted to know if I was all right, if anything had happened, if anyone had attacked me or anything of that sort.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him everything was quite all right, that I was just in a hurry to catch a train.”
“To catch a train?”
“Yes, I wanted him to take me to the depot. I felt that if he took me there, I could pick up another cab from the depot and—”
“You didn’t have any baggage?”
“No, I told him my husband had gone on ahead with the baggage and I was supposed to have joined him, but I’d been detained.”
“Did he ask you anything other than that?”
“He tried to get me into a conversation, but I clammed up on him and became dignified. I’ll say one thing, he sure made a fast run, getting me to the depot.”
“In other words, you think you convinced him?”
“I think I did. He asked me a few questions at first, and then he seemed to take my story for granted.”
Mason said, “Good Lord, why didn’t you notify the police?”
“I was afraid to. My story would have sounded crazy, and the minute I told it, Enny would have found out everything. I’ve invested thirty-two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars in trying to save my marriage, and I’m not going to back out now.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said. “Let’s get something straight.”
“What?”
“You invested thirty-two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars in trying to save your marriage,” Mason told her. “That was this morning. A lot of things have happened since then.”
“I’m still fighting to save my marriage.”
“You may be fighting to save your life,” Mason warned. “You’ve been mixed up in a murder. You told me a story that isn’t going to sound very convincing to the police.”
“Don’t you believe me?”
“I’m inclined to believe you,” Mason said, “because you came to me earlier in the day, and I think I understand something of the impulsive nature of your character. You’re a daring gambler. You’ll hatch out some original scheme and then put a stack of blue chips right on the line, backing up that scheme. By the same token, you’d gamble your life and your liberty trying to save your marriage.”
“Without my husband,” she admitted, “life wouldn’t be worth living. I love him — too much.”
Mason regarded her thoughtfully. “As an attorney, there’s only one piece of advice I can give you.”
“What’s that?”
“Let me pick up the phone and report what you have told me to the police.”
“I can’t, Mr. Mason.”
“Why not?”
“You know why. The minute Enny knew that I was out there with George Lutts, he’d know right then and there that I was the one who had brought you into the company. The money that I invested, trying to save my marriage, would prove to be the thing that hopelessly wrecked it.”
“I’m still advising you that, under the law, you have to report this to the police.”
“Suppose I don’t do it. Are you going to betray me?”
Mason said, “I’m your lawyer.”
“How about Miss Street?” Sybil Harlan asked, looking at Della Street with hard, appraising eyes.
“She’s my secretary,” Mason said. “Anything she learns in the course of the business is a privileged communication. You can count on her.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“If I’ve made a gamble, I won’t whimper if I lose. You don’t need to worry about that, Mr. Mason. I’ll take my medicine. I’ll march into that gas chamber with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. If I can’t have my husband, if I can’t salvage my marriage, I don’t want to live.”
Mason frowned. “That’s what frightens me about you. You play a peculiar game all your own, and when you bet, you don’t have any limit.”
“If I’m going to bet, I may as well bet every chip in my stack.”
“Well, you’ve done it now,” he told her. “Are you going to notify the police?”
“No.”
Mason said, “Technically, I should.”
“Never mind the technical end of it. Let’s be practical. Are you going to?”
“Probably not,” Mason told her, “if you tell me not to; but I still think it would be better to do it that way.”
“Why?”
“Because they may find that you were up there with Lutts, and if you don’t notify the police—”
“Isn’t it too late now to notify the police?”
“It’s pretty late, all right,” Mason admitted.
She pressed her advantage. “Look at it from the standpoint of the police — and the newspapers. I go up there with Lutts. He’s trying to blackmail me. Something happens and he’s killed by a gunshot wound. I run away. I don’t try to call the police. I take a cab. I go to the Union Station, so the cab driver can’t trace me. Then I consult my lawyer. The lawyer tells me I should call the police. When you put those facts together, what does it mean?”