“How do you know?” Mason asked.
“I talked with the girl who shares her cabin. She said Miss Fell had hysterics and the doctor had to give her an opiate. The doctor advised her not to talk with anything about what she saw, but she talked to her roommate before the doctor came. She’s pretty nervous. Personally, I think she’s crazy.”
Mason said musingly, “Let’s see, She’s about thirty-four or five, has funny eyes and a muddy skin. That the one?”
“She gives her age as twenty-nine,” Hungerford said. “She’s peculiar, you know — always walking around deck by herself.”
Mason said, “Yes, I’ve seen her a number of times. She wears flat-heeled shoes, a short walking skirt, and forges determinedly around the deck every night after dinner.”
“That’s right — always walking by herself. They say she walks two miles every night.”
Mason said musingly, “I know the type, finds out how many laps to the mile, religiously counts every lap... Did she really see Mrs. Newberry on deck?”
“She swears she did. She was standing just below the boat deck, huddled up in a dark ram coat. The door opened, and Mr. and Mrs. Newberry came out. They walked past her without seeing her. She was within three or four feet of them and heard Newberry say something about it being necessary to handle things his way. He told Mrs. Newberry to keep her fingers out of his affairs, and started for the boat deck. Mrs. Newberry followed, and he kicked at her and yelled, ‘Keep back!’ but she went on up behind him.
“After a little while Aileen Fell heard a scuffle on the deck above. She climbed the stairs to the boat deck. She told her roommate she heard a pistol shot as she was climbing the stairs. When she got on deck, she claims she saw Mrs. Newberry leaning over Newberry’s body, and then saw Mrs. Newberry drag the body toward the rail. Just about that time, the ship gave a big lurch to port, and Aileen Fell took a spill. She thought she was going overboard. Somewhere in there she heard a second shot. She started to scream and kept on screaming. After she got to her feet, she saw Mrs. Newberry running along the deck. Newberry had disappeared.”
“So she kept right on screaming?” Mason asked.
“That’s right.”
“It must have been dark up there on the boat deck,” Mason said. “She couldn’t...”
“Now, that’s the funny thing,” Hungerford told him. “Aileen Fell swears there was a light in the hospital and the hospital door was open. You know, the hospital’s really a penthouse. It’s up there forward of the gymnasium, and just aft of the officers’ quarters.”
“And there was a light on in the hospital?” Mason asked, frowning.
“That’s what Aileen Fell says. Of course, I got it second hand. She was hysterical when she told her roommate. Personally, I don’t put one bit of faith in what she says she saw. But it started the captain searching Mrs. Newberry’s cabin and it’s going to put Belle’s mother in an awful spot.”
“Did the captain search the hospital?” Mason asked.
“Not then, I don’t think,” Hungerford said. “I heard he did later on.”
Mason frowned. “You know, Hungerford, this thing, just doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Hungerford declared. “Miss Fell is crazy. Ida Johnson, her roommate, will do anything she can to help Belle. She doesn’t like Aileen Fell, and is crazy about Belle. She says Miss Fell is one of those opinionated people who make all sorts of positive statements, and then lie to back them up if necessary.”
“Did you get her address?” Mason asked.
Hungerford nodded, passed over a slip of paper. “She wrote it down for me. She said she’d prefer to talk with you some time after we dock. She’ll do everything she can.”
Mason took the slip of paper, said, “I’m going in now to talk with Mrs. Newberry.”
“I wanted to, but they wouldn’t let me see her,” Hungerford said. “Would you mind telling her... well... where I stand, Mr. Mason?”
“I’ll tell her,” Mason said, gripping Roy Hungerford’s arm, “and I wish you luck, Roy.”
A guard was standing in front of Mrs. Newberry’s cabin. He nodded to Mason. “I want to see my client,” Mason said.
The guard stood to one side. Mason knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” Mrs. Newberry asked.
“Mason, ” he said.
She opened the door. Her eyes showed that she’d had a sleepless night. “Come in,” she said, and dropped dejectedly into a chair as the lawyer shut the door.
Mason sat down beside her. “We’ll be docking within half an hour,” he said. “Are you prepared for it?”
“As much as I’ll ever be.”
“Police will push you around. Newspaper men will give you the works. They’ll question you and keep questioning you.”
“Of course,” she said listlessly. “I guess I can take it.”
“Are you going to talk?” Mason asked.
“Should I?”
“No.”
“Very well, then, I won’t.”
“It’s going to take considerable will power.”
She raised her voice nervously. “I said I wouldn’t talk — I won’t talk!”
Mason studied her for a few seconds, then said, “Do you want to hear something?”
“Good news or bad?”
“Bad.”
“All right. Let’s hear it.
Mason said, “Aileen Fell, that schoolteacher from Santa Barbito, claims she saw you and your husband go up to the boat deck. You’d been having an argument about something. After a few minutes she followed you up there. She heard a pistol shot as she was on the stairs. Then she saw you bending over your husband’s body and dragging it toward the rail. Then she heard a second shot.”
“She’s a liar!” Mrs. Newberry said.
Mason said tonelessly, “I thought perhaps you might want to change the story you told me.”
She said indignantly, “Well, I don’t. That girl’s a liar. She’s crazy anyway. I’m telling you the truth. I went up on deck with my husband. I wanted to talk with him and he was trying to avoid me. I told him I could save Belle’s happiness if he’d give me the money and let me handle things my own way. He said to go back to the cabin and wait for him.”
“How about the money belt?” Mason asked.
“He gave it to me.”
“When?”
“After I went up on the boat deck. He said, ‘Here’s the money, but don’t do anything with it until I get back. I want Belle to have it all for her own. You remember — it’s Belle’s‘ — I can’t remember his exact words. I tried to get him to come back to the cabin with me. He tried to strike me. That was too much. I ran downstairs, went to my cabin and started changing my clothes.”
“How did you leave the boat deck?” Mason asked.
“By the forward stairway on the starboard side.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“No.”
“Did you meet anyone while you were going to your cabin?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Why did you tell the captain you hadn’t been on deck?”
“Because I felt certain that Carl had jumped overboard and I didn’t want to be mixed up in it.”
“Do you mean that when you left him, you thought he was going to...?”
“Don’t be silly,” she interrupted. “I’m not a fool, and please don’t mistake me for one. After I went to the cabin and heard the five short blasts of the whistle, I knew someone had gone overboard. Naturally, I guessed who that someone must have been. There I was, standing with my wet clothes on the floor and my husband’s money belt in my hand. I knew what it was going to look like as well as you did. So I decided to change my clothes and hide the money belt.”