“I think she was headed back for San Molinas.”
“If she goes there,” Mason said, “she’ll put her neck in a noose.”
“Well, I think she’s done it. She’s probably there by this time.”
“What did you do,” Mason asked, “when you found she was gone?”
“I telephoned Paul Drake’s office right away and told them to get in touch with you. I tried to locate you myself, but couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“I went uptown for breakfast, and then stopped in at a barber shop,” Mason told her.
“Well,” she said, “I think Paul Drake’s on the job. I finally got him personally, and explained to him what had happened, and told him to have his men in San Molinas try and pick her up and keep her out of sight.”
“What did Drake say?” Mason asked.
“Drake,” she said with a wan smile, “didn’t seem overly enthusiastic. I guess I caught him before he’d had his morning coffee. He seemed to think that he’d be dragged up before the Grand Jury in San Molinas if he tried anything like that.”
“Did you sell him on the idea?” Mason asked.
“I sold him,” she said grimly, “but I had to get pretty tough with him, in order to do it. He...” She broke off, as Drake’s code knock sounded on the door, and said, “There he is now.”
Mason nodded to her, and she crossed the office toward the door, then turned and said, “My eyes are a sight; let him in, will you, and let me go splash some cold water on my face?”
Mason nodded. As she glided through the door into the law library, Mason opened the corridor door. “Hi, Paul,” he said.
Drake’s shoulders were slumped forward, his manner lugubrious. “H’lo, Perry,” he said, walking across to the big leather chair, and sliding into it sideways in his favorite position.
“What’s new?” Mason asked.
“Plenty,” Drake said.
“Good, bad, or indifferent?” Mason asked.
“It depends on what you consider indifferent,” Drake said, mustering a slow grin. “To begin with, Perry, your certified copy of the divorce decree is an absolute forgery, and that was a damned clever stroke of genius, good enough for a cool one hundred thousand bucks.”
“You’re certain?” Mason asked.
“Absolutely certain. Mrs. Sabin probably had some Reno lawyer helping her, but we’ll never find out who it was, of course, because it’s a slick scheme of obtaining money under false pretenses. They had the regular printed blanks all in proper form, the signature of the clerk, and the deputy, and quite apparently they managed to get a genuine imprint of the court seal. That could have been done, the clerk admits, by sneaking around behind the counter sometime when he was occupied, but they don’t let every Tom, Dick and Harry go behind the counter; so, evidently, it was pretty carefully worked out in advance.”
“Then there wasn’t any case of Sabin vs. Sabin ever filed?”
“No.”
“That,” Mason said, “was clever. If it hadn’t been for this murder, no one would ever have detected that forgery. A certified copy of a decree of divorce is accepted at face value everywhere. Unless there’s some question of the pleadings, no one ever thinks of going back to look at the court records. What a sweet job that was. A cool hundred thousand, and still his legal wife! Of course, there’s the forgery angle and obtaining money under false pretenses; but if it hadn’t been for this murder, no one would ever have tumbled to it.”
“Even as it is, she’s doing pretty well for herself,” Drake said. “She’s the legal widow, and, as such, entitled to step in and take charge.”
“All right,” Mason said, “we’ll skip that for a while. What’s this about Helen Monteith?”
Drake made a wry grimace and said, “I wish you’d wash your own dirty linen, Perry.”
“Why?” Mason asked.
“It’s bad enough to hold your coat while you cut the legal corners,” Drake said, “but when I find myself suddenly wished into the position of wearing your coat, it doesn’t go over so big.”
Mason grinned, offered a desk humidor to the detective, and helped himself to a cigarette. “Go on,” he said, lighting up, “give me the works.”
“Della called the agency about quarter past eight this morning, and was in an awful lather,” Drake said. “She wanted to get in touch with me, and wanted to get in touch with you, and wanted operatives to watch for Helen Monteith in San Molinas. My agency got in touch with me, and I telephoned Della at the number she’d left. She was registered under the name of Edith Fontayne. She told me all about Helen Monteith taking a run-out powder, and how you wanted her kept away from the police, and for me to beat it down to San Molinas and pick her up, and keep her hidden out.
“I told her to get in touch with you.
“She said she didn’t know where you were. I told her I’d try and find you, and that was every damn thing I would do. My gosh, here I was remonstrating with you last night about the chances you were taking in holding a fugitive from justice away from the sheriff and the district attorney, and then all of a sudden Della proposes that I stick my neck out on the same proposition. It was so hot that even you had to play it so you didn’t know where she was...”
“What did you finally do?” Mason interrupted.
“Do?” Drake groaned. “What the devil could I do? I did exactly what she wanted. My God, Perry, I’ve always been friendly with Della, and it’s been sort of a give-and-take, informal relationship. I always felt she was my friend, but when I told her I had to draw the line some place, she became a regular little hellcat over the wire. She told me that if I wanted your business, I was to take care of it the way you wanted; that I should know damn well you wouldn’t leave me out on the end of a limb, and that you’d never made a foolish move yet; that you wanted Helen Monteith kept away from the police, and...”
“Never mind what she told you,” Mason said, grinning, “what did you do?”
“Took my medicine like a little man, got my operatives in San Molinas on the telephone, and told them to get out to Helen Monteith’s house; to grab her as soon as she showed up, and rush her back to the city; to kidnap her, if they had to, or do anything else that was necessary. My operatives started arguing with me, and I had to read the riot act to them, and told them I’d take the responsibility.”
“Well,” Mason said, “where’s Helen Monteith now?”
“In jail,” Drake said gloomily.
“How come?”
“My operatives didn’t get the message in time. She’d got out to the house about half an hour before they did. Evidently, the police had left word with Mrs. Winters to let them know as soon as Helen Monteith showed up. The sheriff and the district attorney went out there on the run. They nabbed Helen. She’d been killing parrots, burning papers, and trying to find some place to hide a box of forty-one caliber cartridges... You can figure where that puts her.”
“How about the parrot-killing?” Mason asked with interest.
“She went home and killed the parrot,” Drake said. “Snickasneed its head off with a butcher knife — made a nice clean job of it, too.”
“As soon as she got home?” Mason asked.
“I reckon so. The sheriff didn’t tumble to it for a little while. They caught her red-handed with the forty-one caliber shells and stuff she’d been burning in the fireplace. The sheriff went to quite a bit of trouble trying to get something out of the ashes, but about all he could tell was she’d been burning paper. They hustled her out to jail and telephoned in for a technical man from the homicide squad here, to see what could be done about reconstructing the papers... Sergeant Holcomb has been working hand and glove with ’em, you know.”