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“I don’t know just how much he told Ezekiel, but Ezekiel got the idea, and the next thing anybody knew Harmon Haslett was off for Europe.

“At that time Ellen here got an envelope in the mail which contained ten one-hundred-dollar bills. There was nothing else in it — just ten one-hundred-dollar bills.”

“Did she tell you about it? Did you see the money?”

“She told me about it and I saw the money,” Maxine said. “And she told me that she’d made a play and lost out on the jackpot but that she had still won the consolation prize, that she had a thousand bucks and she was going to ditch the whole business, go to a new place where she wasn’t known and start all over again.”

“She told you that?”

“She told me that.”

“This woman?” Lovett asked.

“This woman,” Maxine said.

Lovett looked around and said, “For your information, Maxine Edfield has made an affidavit containing these statements. I have that affidavit in my possession. I don’t think anyone wants to get mixed up in a fraudulent claim, except perhaps Ellen Calvert here may have tried — or may have had some vague idea... But I’m satisfied you’ll drop it now, won’t you, my dear?”

Drake’s operative looked to Mason for instructions.

Mason said, “Say nothing.”

“Can’t I even deny...”

“Not yet,” Mason said. “You are keeping silent at the request of counsel.”

Duncan Lovett smiled. “I can readily understand that counsel would be embarrassed by any statement from you at this time. In view of the statement by Maxine Edfield, I feel that the case is closed.”

“I’d like to ask Miss Edfield some questions,” Mason said.

“Go right ahead,” Lovett said.

Jarmen Dayton warned, “You let this lawyer start cross-examining this witness and pretty quick you won’t have any witness.”

“Nonsense,” Lovett said; “the witness has told her story. She’s going to tell it on the witness stand if she has to. When she tells it on the witness stand, she’ll be cross-examined. If she can’t stand a little cross-examination now, she can’t stand it then. I have repeatedly told her to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and then there is nothing to be afraid of. Isn’t that right, Maxine?”

“That’s right, Mr. Lovett.”

Lovett smiled at Mason. “Go ahead and ask your questions,” he said.

Stephen Garland took a package of cigarettes from his pocket. “Anyone mind if I smoke?”

No one made any objection.

Garland lit the cigarette, said, “How many questions do you want to ask, Mr. Mason?”

“Just a few,” Mason said.

“I’m neutral,” Garland said. “Sitting in a corner, so to speak.”

Jarmen Dayton said, “Don’t kid yourself. Garland. We’re the innocent bystanders who are going to get hit by the stray bullets.”

Garland grinned, said, “That’s a chance we have to take. There’s no place to duck now.”

“What questions did you want to ask, Mr. Mason?” Maxine Edfield said. “I’m perfectly willing to answer any and all questions at any time. I’ve been a working girl all of my life. I’m a human being. I’ve had a few purple passages myself, but I’ve always made an honest living and I never made any money except from working.”

“Very commendable,” Mason said. “I wasn’t going to inquire into your background, Miss Edfield. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about things that seemed to require explanation.”

“Such as what?”

“Well, you said that Ellen Calvert had taken the thousand dollars and gone to a new place where she wasn’t known.”

“That’s right.”

“How do you know that?”

“From what she told me.”

“What I am getting at,” Mason said, “is why she would do a thing like that.”

“Why not? She was young. She had life before her. She had a thousand bucks in her stocking. The world was her oyster. Believe me, if someone had given me a thousand dollars when I was that old I’d have shaken the dust of Cloverville from my feet and taken the first train out of town.”

“I’m afraid you don’t get what I’m driving at,” Mason said. “Here was Ellen Calvert, winner of a beauty contest, holder of some papers entitling her to a screen test, and—”

“Oh, I get you now,” Maxine interrupted. “Sure, she had the world by the tail on a downhill pull. Your idea is there was no reason for her to duck out.”

“That’s right.”

“Well,” Maxine said, “you’re looking at it one way. Now try looking at it the other Way. Here was Ellen, who had been within an ace of landing the most eligible bachelor in Cloverville. She probably counted on it pretty strong.

“When the affair began to cool off, she decided to stake everything on the turn of a card. She pulled this pregnancy gag and wanted to see if it would work.

“It didn’t work.

“She woke up with the realization that she had irrevocably lost the man she wanted. Personally, I think she was really in love with him. I mean really and truly. But a girl has to look out for herself, and Ellen had been around enough to know that.

“Anyway, she had been to Hollywood. She’d taken her screen tests. She thought she was going to hear from them for a while, but she was beginning to wake up to the fact that this was one of these situations where they say, ‘Don’t call me; we’ll call you.’

“In other words, provision had been made for a couple of screen tests. The people who were obligated to furnish those screen tests had carried out their share of the contract, which consisted of doing nothing more than putting Ellen up in front of a camera, letting her recite lines from a script, portray certain emotions to the best of her ability, and then step down.

“It was fun while it lasted, and, of course, she had high hopes. She thought she did a swell job of registering rage, hatred, love, astonishment, terror, and all that stuff. Actually, from the standpoint of Hollywood studios, which are accustomed to judging professional actresses, all Ellen was doing was standing up in front of a camera and making faces.

“As soon as they saw the tests they knew the answer, but they didn’t dash Ellen’s hopes all at once. They told her, ‘Go on back to Cloverville and we’ll evaluate the tests. Don’t call us; we’ll call you.’

“That was when Ellen began to see her little house of cards falling apart; and right at that time she thought that her boyfriend was beginning to cool off, that he was still ardent and impetuous but he was beginning more and more to think about what was going to happen when his father, old Ezekiel Haslett, found out that his son had been playing around with one of the girls in the organization, that the affair had gone a lot further than the father would approve of, and that Ellen had her hopes set on marriage.

“When Harmon Haslett was with Ellen he was all enthused, but as soon as he’d leave Ellen he lost his enthusiasm mighty fast.”

“You think Ellen knew this?” Mason asked.

Maxine laughed. “She’s sitting right there beside you. Why don’t you ask her? Of course she knew it. That’s the trouble with you smart lawyers; you know all about law but you don’t know enough about human nature. You underestimate women.

“When a man is with a woman he portrays his inner thoughts by a thousand and one little things — emotions, glances of the eye, the tone of voice in which he says things, the spacing of his words... Of course Ellen knew it.”

“How do you know she knew it?”

“Because she told me all about it. All about how Harmon was having spells of moody silence, how he wasn’t calling her quite as frequently as he used to, how — when he would be with her — he would try to keep things under control so he could gradually break away. But, of course, he couldn’t, and then he’d be affectionate and pleading and loving and all that. But the handwriting was there on the wall.