“Help what?” she asked.
“Help to make him tell the truth.”
“Well,” she said dejectedly, “suppose he tells the truth. What then?”
Mason was silent for several seconds. Then he said, “Look here, Mrs. Newberry, I won’t represent your husband in this business.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” Mason went on, “we may be able to reach an understanding. I would try to protect Belle if it were definitely understood I wasn’t representing your husband.”
She faced him then, her eyes showing a glint of hope.
“Your husband,” Mason pointed out, “has sailed under the name of Newberry. No one on board this ship knows him except as Newberry. On the other hand, he embezzled money from the Products Refining Company under the name of Moar. No one in the Products Refining Company knows him except as Moar. I might be able to capitalize on that. Now then, if I were representing your husband, and tried to patch matters up with the Products Refining Company, someone might claim I was trying to compound a felony. But if I had nothing to do with your husband and was representing you on behalf of Belle, I might be able to work out a deal by which he could make restitution of whatever money he has left and receive in return some concessions. In other words, the company might be willing to cooperate with us, perhaps to the extent of joining in an application for probation, and they would probably agree to keep you and your daughter free from any publicity. If we could do that, do you think your husband would be willing to surrender, confess and make what restitution he could?”
“He’d do anything to help Belle,” she said. “That’s the only reason he took the money in the first place.”
Mason said, “If I’m going to handle it that way, I want it distinctly understood I’m not representing your husband. I’m representing you, and you alone. Do you understand that?”
She nodded.
“And until I’ve brought matters to a head, I don’t want your husband to even know that I’m working on the case. I don’t want to talk with him. I don’t want him to try to talk with me.”
“That would be all right,” she said.
“Have you any idea how much money he has left?”
“No. He carries it all in a money belt.”
“Assuming that the original embezzlement was twenty-five thousand dollars, how much do you suppose you’ve spent?”
“In the last two months we’ve spent more than five thousand dollars,” she said. “I know that for a fact.”
“We could do a lot of trading with twenty thousand dollars,” Mason observed, staring out at the blue horizon.
Mrs. Newberry said, “There’s one other element of danger, Mr. Mason, something you’ve got to guard against.”
“What’s that?” Mason asked.
“Have you noticed the man with the broken neck?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “What about him?”
“It isn’t him,” she said. “It’s his nurse. Carl knows her.”
“Well?” Mason asked.
“Don’t you see what that means? He knew her before he married me. She knows him as Carl Moar. If she should see him and recognize him, she’d be sure to call him by the name of Moar.”
“Just what do you know about her?” Mason asked.
“Her name’s Evelyn Whiting. She’s... here she comes now.”
A young, attractive nurse, in a stiffly starched uniform, pushed a wheel chair along the promenade deck. A man lay in the wheel chair, his head cradled in a padded steel harness which was strapped to his shoulders. His eyes were protected from the sun by a huge pair of dark goggles.
Mrs. Newberry’s lowered voice was sympathetic. “Poor chap, he was in an automobile wreck. His neck’s broken. He may have to wear that harness for two or three years. He can’t turn his head, isn’t even supposed to talk. She asks him a question and then puts her hand in his. He squeezes once for yes and twice for no. He can’t use his legs. Think of not being able to even turn your head to avoid the glare of the sun.”
Mason studied the nurse. She was in the early thirties, attractive, well-figured, auburn-haired. She felt his gaze and turned eyes to his which showed a frank interest before they shifted solicitously back to her patient. She stopped the chair and said, “Is it a little too sunny for you here, Mr. Cartman? Would you like to go around on the other side of the deck?”
She pushed her hand under the light blanket which covered the thin figure, and Mason saw the blanket move as the man squeezed her hand once. She turned the wheel chair and sought the shady side of the deck.
“How does your husband expect to avoid her?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Newberry confessed. “He’ll only come on deck when she’s in the cabin. The fact that she’s nursing that man makes it easier for Carl.”
“Couldn’t he go to her and explain that he was using another name and—”
“I’m afraid not,” Mrs. Newberry said. “He tells me that he handled some money for her once on an investment. The investment didn’t turn out well and he thinks she might feel a little bitter about it-particularly if she saw that he seemed to have plenty of money now.”
Mason turned to Della Street. “Encode a wireless to my office, Della. Tell Jackson to find out what concessions the Products Refining Company would be willing to make if Moar should surrender and return intact approximately twenty thousand dollars of the embezzled money. Tell Jackson to have it definitely understood that he’s merely asking questions on behalf of an interested party, is not representing Moar, does not know where Moar is, and is at present only asking for information. Tell him to handle it diplomatically and report progress.”
Mrs. Newberry gripped his hand in thanks. After a moment she said, “I’ll go now. It’ll be better if I’m not seen with you too frequently. If you’re not going to have any contact with Carl... Well, I wouldn’t want Belle to suspect that I was consulting you professionally.”
Mason said, “It’ll probably take my office two or three days to get anything definite. In the meantime, you sit tight and don’t worry.”
He left her, to circle the deck. Celinda Dail, clad in a sun suit which showed her long, sun-browned limbs to advantage, was playing ping-pong with Roy Hungerford.
Chapter 3
The ship was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco late Sunday night, docking early Monday morning. On Saturday, Mason received a wireless from his office lawyer which read:
C. DENTON ROONEY HEAD AUDITOR OF PRODUCTS REFINING COMPANY IN CHARGE OF LOS ANGELES OFFICE HAS AGREED TO CABLE PRESIDENT NOW IN HONOLULU. ROONEY TEN DEGREES COLDER THAN FREEZING. OUTLOOK DISTINCTLY UNFAVORABLE. WILL KEEP YOU POSTED.
“Isn’t that rather an unusual attitude, Chief?” Della Street asked, when Mason had finished reading the message.
“I’ll say it is,” Mason said. “It’s the first time I ever knew a corporation to snub twenty thousand dollars.”
“But still. Chief, there’s the question of ethics. Perhaps they don’t want to establish a precedent—”
Mason laughed. “Don’t worry, Della. They usually hook the embezzler in the long run. But when he offers to make restitution they unhesitatingly make glittering promises. Even the police do it. Let them arrest an embezzler who has a few thousand dollars cached away and they’ll promise him probation, or a light sentence, or a chance to escape, or even that the charges will be dropped, if he’ll only show that he’s properly repentant by disclosing the hiding place of the money. Then, after they once get their hands on the money, they sing a different tune. It seems that the officer the crook was talking with had no authority to make the promises, or the judge refuses to cooperate, or something of that sort.”