“Better make it twelve hours,” Sergeant Holcomb suggested.
Sprague hesitated a moment, then looked at his watch and said, “You have her in San Molinas for questioning before the Grand Jury by noon tomorrow. Otherwise, you’ll take the consequences.”
He nodded to Sergeant Holcomb, and they started for the door. Mason caught Sheriff Barnes’ eye and said, “Going, Sheriff, or do you want to stay?”
Sheriff Barnes dropped easily into the overstuffed leather chair and said, “Don’t go just yet, Ray.”
“We’re not getting anywhere here,” Sprague objected.
“I am,” the sheriff said, puffing calmly at his cigarette.
Mason seated himself on one corner of his big office desk. Sprague hesitated a moment, then walked across to a chair. Sergeant Holcomb, making no attempt to conceal his disgust, stood by the door leading to the corridor.
Mason said to Sheriff Barnes, “Rather a peculiar situation developed out at Sabin’s house. It seems that Mrs. Sabin and Fremont C. Sabin entered into an agreement by which she was to pretend to take a round-the-world trip, double back by Clipper ship to the coast, go to Reno, establish a residence, and get a divorce, taking pains to avoid any publicity whatsoever. Having done that, she was to receive, in full payment of any claims she might have as the wife of Fremont C. Sabin, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
“She wasn’t in Reno. She was on a boat coming through the Panama Canal, when we located her,” Sprague said. “That Reno business is some sort of a pipe dream.”
“Perhaps it is,” Mason admitted, “but Richard Waid met her in New York on Wednesday the seventh. She gave him a certified copy of a decree of divorce, and he gave her one hundred thousand dollars, and holds her receipt for it. That’s the important business which took him to New York.”
“What are you getting at, Mason?” Sheriff Barnes asked.
“Simply this,” Mason said. “The decree was dated on Tuesday the sixth. If a divorce decree was granted before Sabin was murdered, his widow received one hundred thousand dollars after his death, in accordance with an agreement which had been entered into. But, if Sabin was murdered before the divorce decree was granted, then the divorce decree was invalid, Mrs. Sabin has received one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and is also entitled to take a share of the estate as the surviving widow of the decedent. That’s rather an interesting, and somewhat complicated, legal point, gentlemen.”
Sergeant Holcomb said wearily, “Listen. Helen Monteith married Sabin. She didn’t know he was married. She thought his name was Wallman, but she went up to that cabin with him. We traced those clothes through the laundry mark. They were hers. She’d found out he was married. She figured he’d been taking her for a ride. She made up her mind she was going to call for a showdown. She wanted a gun, and she wanted one right away. She couldn’t get into a store to get a gun, but there was a collection of weapons in the library. She had a key to that collection. She picked out a gun, intending to return it to the collection. Perhaps she only wanted to run a bluff, I don’t know. Perhaps it was self-defense. I don’t know and I don’t care. But she took that gun up to the cabin and killed Fremont C. Sabin.
“She ran to Mason to represent her. He’s found out stuff which he could only have found out after having talked with her. She told her sister she was going to Sabin’s residence and talk with the son. Apparently, she never showed up at the residence. Mason was there. He went out there with his secretary. He comes back alone. Where’s his secretary? Where’s Helen Monteith?
“You start questioning him, and he starts drawing Mrs. Sabin across the trail as a red herring. He’ll get you more red herrings as fast as you fall for them.”
A peculiar knock sounded on the corridor door. Mason slid to his feet, walked across the office, and opened the door. Paul Drake, on the threshold, said, “Well, Perry, I’ve...” and broke off as he saw the people gathered in the room.
“Come in, Paul,” Mason said. “You know Sergeant Holcomb, of course, and this is Sheriff Barnes of San Molinas, and Raymond Sprague, the district attorney of San Molinas. What have you found out?”
“Do you,” Drake asked, “want me to report here?”
“Sure,” Mason told him.
“Well, I’ve been burning up the long distance telephone and getting operatives on the job. As nearly as I can tell right now, Mrs. Sabin sailed to Honolulu, took the Clipper ship back from Honolulu, went to Reno, and stayed at the Silver City Bungalows, establishing a residence under the name of Helen W. Sabin. At the end of six weeks she probably filed suit for divorce against Fremont C. Sabin, but I can’t get into the courthouse records until tomorrow morning. On the evening of Wednesday the seventh, Mrs. Sabin was in New York. She sailed from New York at midnight.”
“Then she was in Reno until when?” Mason asked of the detective.
“As nearly as we can find out, she took the plane from Reno on the evening of Tuesday the sixth and arrived in New York on the seventh.”
“Then the divorce decree must have been granted the morning of the sixth,” Raymond Sprague said.
“It would look that way,” Drake told him.
Sprague nodded and said, “She must have been in court on the sixth.”
“What are you getting at?” Sheriff Barnes inquired.
“I’m just checking up,” Sprague told him. “Mason has defeated his own purpose.”
“How do you mean?” Barnes asked.
“Simply this,” Sprague said. “Mason’s trying to distract our attention from Helen Monteith by dangling Mrs. Sabin in front of our noses, but if she was in court in Reno, she could hardly have been killing her husband in a mountain cabin in San Molinas County at one and the same time. Regardless of what other things the woman may have done, she couldn’t have been concerned in the murder.”
Mason stretched his arms above his head and sucked in a prodigious yawn. “Well, gentlemen,” he observed, “at least I’m putting my cards on the table.”
Raymond Sprague walked across to the door. “I think,” he said, “we’re fully capable of making our own investigations. As far as you’re concerned, Mason, you heard my ultimatum. You either have Helen Monteith before the Grand Jury at San Molinas at twelve o’clock tomorrow, or you’ll go before the Grand Jury.”
Sheriff Barnes was the last to leave the office. He seemed reluctant to go. In the corridor he said in an undertone, “Aren’t you acting a bit hasty, Ray?”
The district attorney’s answer was a rumbling undertone, drowned by the slamming of the door.
Mason grinned at Paul Drake and said, “Well, Paul, that’s that.”
“Are you keeping Helen Monteith out of sight somewhere?” Drake asked.
Mason smiled at him and said, “I don’t have the slightest idea, Paul, where Helen Monteith is.”
“My man reported that you picked her up out at Sabin’s residence, and that she and Della Street drove off in her car.”
Mason said, “I trust the man who made that report to you won’t do any talking to outsiders, Paul.”
“He won’t,” Drake said. “What are you going to do about having her before the Grand Jury in San Molinas, Perry?”
“I can’t get her there,” Mason said. “I don’t know where she is.”
“Della does.”
“I don’t know were Della is.”
“Well,” Drake told him, “it’s your funeral.”