“Yes.”
“On the Pennwent?”
“No,” she said, “on Marley’s cruiser, the Atina. We took a quick run over to Catalina.”
“Can you run that boat?”
“Yes. I brought it back all the way. I wish I could like Marley as well as I do his boat. It’s a honey.”
“What about you and Wentworth?”
She said, “We met some time ago. I did some work for him. I saw he was taking quite an interest in me. He asked me to go on a cruise. You know what those cruises are apt to be. I told him straight from the shoulder. He said it was okay by him. All he wanted was my company. I went. Okay, he was going to open up a bookmaking office. It was against the law, but he claimed he had it squared with the officers. He wanted me to be in the place to class it up and sort of check on Marley. He knew that Marley’s line didn’t go across with me, and he was a little suspicious of Frank. Frank was handling most of the money end of the business. Penn thought it would be a good idea to have someone around who could check up on him.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t think Frank liked the idea. If you started prodding around in Frank’s accounts, I think you’d find something rotten. I told Penn that.”
“What did Penn say?” Mason asked.
“Not very much. He told me I was wrong, but I could see he was turning what I’d said over in his mind.”
“And the clothes?” Mason asked.
She said, “I get mad every time I think about that. It was a straight business proposition from first to last. Wentworth wasn’t to pay for those clothes unless something happened and I didn’t go to work. I was to go to work and pay the bill out of my salary in instalments. The whole thing was explained to the credit manager at the time the account was opened. I tell you it was a business proposition.”
“But you didn’t pay for the clothes?”
“No, of course not. I never went to work. There was a shake up in city politics. The men they thought they could control were transferred around to other districts. They didn’t give up the idea entirely but marked time trying to establish new contacts.
“Well, that was the understanding we had when he put the proposition up to me. I was out of work. I wasn’t to draw any regular salary until the place opened. I was to spend a good deal of time with Penn, meeting his friends and getting to know who they were. Penn was to send my sister a small cheque every three weeks and to pay my living expenses. I was to have enough clothes to make a good impression. In a way, I was to be the official hostess on his yachting parties.
“I didn’t need anyone to tell me what it looked like. It looked like the devil. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that in the back of Penn’s mind was the idea that I’d become dependent on him, get under his control, and become his mistress. I didn’t care what was in his mind. I knew what was in my mind. I didn’t sail under any false colours. I told him so right at the start. He knew the way I felt. He thought he could make me change. All right, it was a fair deal and no favours.”
“But your family?” Mason asked.
“There the shoe pinched. I was out of work and couldn’t get any satisfactory job. I figured this would open up into something that would pay. I also knew darn well that there was a chance the place might be raided and I’d find myself dragged into court. I didn’t think they’d do anything to me, but I didn’t know. I knew it would hurt Mother terribly if she thought I was mixed up in a business like that. I didn’t want to lie to them, so I just quit writing. But I also knew Sylvia needed some help with finances, so I arranged to have Penn send her some money until my regular salary began. By that time, I expected to have money to send her. Now then, that’s the story.”
Mason said, “It’s a good story if it’s true.”
Her eyes darkened.
“Don’t get excited,” Mason said. “I’m talking particularly about what happened after you left me. A witness will claim that you took Frank Marley’s cruiser out for a spin.”
“That I did?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Sometime after we made our trip to the Yacht Club.”
“I did not.”
“The witness says you did.”
“The witness lies. What in the name of reason would I want with Frank Marley’s boat?”
Mason said, “If Hal Anders had gone back to the Pennwent, instead of going to his hotel, and had taken it out to sea and started it heading down the coast in the direction of Ensenada, you could have taken Marley’s cruiser and gone out to pick him up. The Atina was at least twice as fast as the Pennwent.”
“That’s absurd. Hal went directly to North Mesa so he could consult his old family lawyer.”
“He went to North Mesa all right,” Mason said. “I’m not so certain about the direct part of it.”
“Well, I’ve told you the truth.”
Mason got up, reached for his hat, and said, “Okay, we’ll let it go at that.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
Mason said, “Go back to your apartment, act just as though nothing had happened. Newspaper reporters will call on you. People will ask questions. Photographers will want pictures. Give them all the pictures they want. Remember, newspapermen are working for a living. They’re sent out to get stories, pictures, and interviews, if they come back with something good, the boss pats them on the back. If they come back without anything, the boss snarls at them. So give them something to come back with. Let them pose you any way they want to, give them all the pictures they want, and tell them that you’re not discussing the case.”
“I get you,” she said.
“As far as the newspaper reporters are concerned,” Mason said, “tell them all about your romance with Hal Anders.”
“It wasn’t any romance.”
“That’s what I want you to tell them. Tell them just about the way you’ve told it to me.”
“About his being weak and always asking for advice—”
“No, not that,” Mason interrupted. “The part about how he’s such a model young man who never makes any mistakes and how you got tired of it all. You wanted to come to the city and see life for yourself. And tell them all about Wentworth’s proposition that you should go to work for him, only don’t let on that you knew it was a bookmaking business. Simply say that it was a downtown office he intended to open up, and he wouldn’t tell you very much about what it was only that it was to handle some of his investments. But about the things that happened last night, keep mum. You’d like to talk, but your attorney has told you to say absolutely nothing.”
“In other words,” she said, “I’m to give them something they can turn into copy, is that it?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, I’ll do that little thing.”
“How about it?” Mason asked. “Are you nervous and upset?”
She shook her head and smiled. “It’s all part of the game,” she said; “Sometimes you’re on top and things are easy. Sometimes you’re on the bottom. There’s no need to let it worry you.”
Abruptly, she thrust out her hand, smiled up into his face, and said, “Good night, Mr. Mason.”
Mason stood for a moment holding her hand, looking down into her eyes. “Did they,” he asked, “try to browbeat you, try to make you nervous?”
“Did they?” She laughed. “All of them yelled questions at me and asked me to re-enact what happened at the time of the shooting, and then when that failed, accused me of having been his mistress and lying to Hal about it because I wanted to marry Hal in order to be on financial easy street. I guess they tried everything, Mr. Mason.”