“How did she come home?” Mason asked her.
“In a taxi. I don’t know what she intends to do about the parrot. She didn’t say a word to me about giving him food or water. I guess there’s plenty in the cage to last him over night, but I don’t know how long she intends to be gone... I must close those garage doors for her. She never leaves them open when she takes the car out, but today she didn’t stop for anything, just backed the car out of the garage, and went a-kiting down the street.”
“Probably had a date in the city for a theater or something,” Mason said. “Perhaps she was meeting her husband... I take it her husband wasn’t with her.”
“No. I believe he’s out somewhere looking for work — he comes and goes. She spent the weekend with him somewhere I know, because I had to keep the parrot for her.”
“Her husband’s out of work?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“Quite a few people are these days,” Mason told her, “but I suppose a young man who has plenty of vitality and stick-to-it-iveness can...”
“But he isn’t young,” Mrs. Winters interrupted, with the air of one who could be led to say more if properly encouraged.
“Why, I gathered she was a young woman,” Mason said. “Of course, I haven’t met her personally, but...”
“Well, it depends on what you call young. She’s in the early thirties. The man she married must be twenty years older than she is. I guess he’s steady enough and nice enough and all that, but what in the world a young woman wants to go and tie herself up for, with a man old enough to be her father... There, I mustn’t go gossiping. I suppose it’s none of my business. After all, she married him, I didn’t. I made up my mind when she introduced him to me that I wasn’t going to say a word to her about his age. I figure it’s just none of my business, and I’m a great body to mind my own business... May I ask what you want to see Mrs. Wallman about?”
Mason said, “I wanted to see Mrs. Wallman, but I also wanted to see her husband. You don’t know where I could reach him, do you?”
Her eyes glittered with suspicion. “I thought,” she said, “you didn’t know she was married.”
“I didn’t,” Mason admitted, “when I came here, but now that I’ve found it out, I’m quite anxious to see her husband. I... I might have a job for him.”
“There’s a lot of younger men out of jobs these days,” Mrs. Winters said. “I don’t know what Helen was thinking of, taking on a man like that to support, because that’s just what it’s going to amount to. I guess he’s a nice, quiet, respectable man and all that, but after all he’s out of work, and if you ask me, his clothes show it. I would think Helen’d get him a new suit of clothes. She lives simple enough and they do say as how she has quite a little put by for a rainy day.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed in thoughtful speculation. Abruptly he fished in his vest pocket with his thumb and forefinger and took out the folded newspaper picture of Fremont C. Sabin. “Is there any chance,” he asked, showing Mrs. Winters the picture, “that this photograph is of her husband?”
Mrs. Winters carefully adjusted her glasses, took the newsprint picture from Mason, and held it up so that the western light fell full upon it.
In the automobile, Paul Drake and Della Street watched breathlessly.
An expression of surprise came over Mrs. Winters’ face. “Land sakes, yes,” she said. “That’s the man, just as natural as life. I’d know him anywhere. Good Lord, what’s George Wallman done to get his picture in the newspapers?”
Mason retrieved the picture. “Look here, Mrs. Winters,” he said, “it’s vitally important that I find Mrs. Wallman at once and...”
“Oh, you want to see Mrs. Wallman now. Is that it?”
“Either Mr. or Mrs.,” Mason said. “Since she was the last one you’ve seen, perhaps you could tell me where I’d be able to find her.”
“I’m sure I don’t know. She might have gone to visit her sister. Her sister’s a school teacher in Edenglade.”
“Is her sister married?” Mason asked.
“No, she’s never been married.”
“Then her name is Monteith?”
“Yes, Sarah Monteith. She’s a couple of years older than Helen, but she looks about fifteen years older. She’s painfully correct in her ways. She takes life too seriously and...”
“You don’t know of any other relatives?” Mason asked.
“No.”
“And no other place where she would have gone?”
“No.”
Mason terminated the interview by raising his hat with elaborate politeness. “Well, Mrs. Winters,” he said, “I certainly thank you for your co-operation. I’m sorry that I bothered you. After all, I guess I’ll have to plan on seeing Mrs. Wallman some other time.”
He turned back toward the car.
“You can leave a message with me,” Mrs. Winters said. “I’ll see that she gets it and... but...”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to see her personally,” Mason said, jumping into the car and signaling for Della Street to drive on.
“Put down that gun, Helen!” the parrot on the porch screamed. “Don’t shoot! Squawk. Squawk. My God, you’ve shot me!”
Della Street lurched the car into motion.
Mason said, “Okay, Paul, find her. Get out and start using the telephone. Spread operatives all over the country. Get a description of her car and the license number from the Motor Vehicle Department or from the Assessor’s Office or wherever you can. Try the sister in Edenglade.”
“Where are you going?” Drake asked.
“I’m heading for Sabin’s place in town,” Mason told him. “I think the chances are about even that she’s headed there, and I want to beat her to it if I can.”
“What do I do with her if I find her?” Drake asked.
“Put her where no one can talk with her until after I do.”
“That,” Drake said, “is something of a large order, Perry.”
“Oh, shucks,” Mason told him, “don’t be so squeamish. Put her in a sanitarium somewhere as suffering from a nervous breakdown.”
“She’s probably upset,” Drake told him, “but we’d have quite a job making the nervous breakdown business stick.”
“Not if she realized the full significance of what that parrot’s saying, you wouldn’t,” Mason said grimly.
Chapter four
Mason guided his car in close to the curb and glanced across the street at the lighted house. “Certainly is big enough,” he said to Della Street. “No wonder the old man got lonely living there.”
He had slid out from behind the wheel and was standing at the curb, locking the car door, when Della Street said, “I think this is one of Paul Drake’s men coming.”
Mason looked up to see a man emerge from the shadows, glance at the license plate on the automobile, then cut across the beam of illumination from the headlights.
“Shall I put the lights out, Chief?” Della Street asked.
“Please,” he told her.
The light switch clicked the surroundings into darkness. The man approached Mason and said, “You’re Mason, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Mason told him. “What is it?”
“I’m from the Drake agency. The old woman and her son got in on the plane this afternoon. They came directly here. Another operative is tailing them. They’re inside now, and there’s a hell of a row going on.”
Mason looked across at the huge house silhouetted against the night sky, its windows glowing in subdued brilliance through the drapes.
“Well,” he said, grinning, “I may as well go on in and join the fight.”
The operative said, “The boss telephoned for us to be on the lookout for a car with license number 1V-1302. I saw you drive up and thought maybe that was the bus I was looking for.”