"Yes," she said, "I told him exactly what happened. That I took the car out about quarter to eleven, and brought it back about twelve fifteen, but that I hadn't asked my uncle's permission."
"The police seemed to take that explanation all right?" he asked.
"Oh yes," she said. "They have discontinued working on that end of the case. At first they thought that perhaps the burglars might have stolen the Buick for a getaway."
"They've about concluded now, I understand, that there weren't any burglars," said Mason.
"That's right," she said.
Mason paced up and down the floor.
Suddenly he whirled, and stared at the girl.
"You're not telling me the whole truth about this thing," he said.
She showed no resentment whatever in her manner, but stared at him with eyes that were coldly speculative.
"What is there in my story that doesn't hang together?" she asked, and her tone was impersonally thoughtful.
"It isn't that," he said, "it's something in your manner. You haven't told me the truth. You didn't tell me the truth when you first came to my office."
"What do you mean by that?" she wanted to know.
"About wanting to get married and all that," he said.
"Why, what do you mean by that?"
"You know what I mean. You had been married already."
Every bit of color drained from her face, and she stared at him with eyes that were wide and round.
"Who told you that? Have you been talking with some of the servants?"
He countered her question with another.
"Do the servants know about it?" he asked.
"No," she said.
"Why then did you think that I had been talking with the servants?"
"I don't know," she said.
"You were married?" he asked her.
"That's none of your business," she said.
"Of course it's my business," he told her. "You came to me with a problem. You can't gain anything by lying to me, any more than you could by lying to a doctor. You've got to tell your lawyer and your doctor the whole truth. You can trust me. I don't betray communications made by my clients."
She pursed her lips and stared at him.
"What do you want me to tell you?" she asked.
"The truth."
"Well, you know it, so what's the use of my telling you?"
"You are married then?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"Because we were keeping it secret."
"All right," said Mason, "now somebody knows that secret. There is somebody blackmailing you."
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"Never mind that. Answer me."
She extended her right forefinger and started pushing it along the arm of the chair, squirming it around every irregularity in the cloth.
"Under the will," she said slowly, "now that my uncle is dead, does it make any difference if I am married?"
His eyes regarded her in cold, fixed appraisal.
"As I remember the provisions of the will," he said, "your uncle is given the option of turning the money over to charity in the event you marry before you are twentyfive."
"And on his death," she said, "the trust terminates?"
"On his death the trust terminates."
"Then if he can't exercise that option, it doesn't make any difference whether I'm married or not?"
"Offhand," he said, "that would be my interpretation of the will."
She heaved a sigh of relief.
"Then," she said, "it doesn't make any difference whether anyone tries to blackmail me or not?"
Mason's eyes stared at the girl as though they would rip the mask from her face and probe the interior of her soul.
"I wouldn't," he said, "make very many comments about that, young lady."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because," he said in a low steady monotone, "if the police should stumble onto that theory of the case, it would show a most excellent motive for a murder."
"You mean that I murdered him?"
"It would mean," he said, stubbornly and steadily, "that you had an excellent motive for murdering him."
"Pete Devoe murdered him," she insisted.
"They might say that Pete Devoe was an accomplice," he told her.
"They might," she agreed, shrugging her shoulders, and regarding him with enigmatical black eyes.
"All right, all right," Mason said, his voice now showing a trace of impatience, "come down to earth. Suppose you try to be fair with me."
"Listen," she told him, speaking rapidly, "I'm going to come into a large sum of money. I'm going to need some one to protect my rights. I've heard about you, and I know you've got a wonderful mind. You're going to be well paid for everything you do for me—everything. You understand?"
"All right," he said, "what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to represent my interests and my interests alone. I am going to pay you a fee of forty thousand dollars, and if you have to do any work about getting the trust fund, that is, work like going to court or anything, I am going to pay you more."
He regarded her for a few moments in silent speculation, then said: "That's a lot of money to pay a person to protect your rights if there's nothing to be done."
"How do you mean?" she asked.
"If," he said, "you simply borrowed your uncle's car without his permission and went out for a ride, returned the car and found him murdered, there is no necessity for paying an attorney forty thousand dollars to protect your rights."
She twisted her fingers together and asked: "Are you going to argue with me about that?"
"No," he said, "I simply made that comment. I wanted you to understand the facts."
"You understand what I mean when I say that I will pay you forty thousand dollars if you protect my rights?" she inquired.
"Yes," he said.
She got up and crossed the room with quick, nervous stride, dropped into a wicker chair in front of a writing desk, pulled a piece of paper to her and scribbled out a document in pen and ink, which she signed with a flourish.
"Here you are," she said, "my promissory note to pay to you the sum of forty thousand dollars as soon as I have received that amount from the inheritance left me by my father. And I also mention that if there is any litigation about the inheritance, I will pay you more."
Mason folded the note and dropped it into his pocket.
"Have the police questioned you in detail?" he asked.
"No," she said, "they aren't annoying me at all. You see, the fact that I had the car out when the murder was committed gives me an alibi. That is, they know I wouldn't know what took place in the house at the time of the murder."
"What time was the murder?" he asked.
"They can fix that very exactly," she said. "It was about eleven thirtythree or eleven thirtyfour. You see, Mr. Crinston had Judge Purley with him in the car, and Judge Purley wanted to get home. He started away from the house promptly at eleven thirty. He remembers because he looked at his wristwatch and I believe some comment was made about the fact that he had been here less than half an hour. I think Mr. Crinston promised Judge Purley that if the judge would drive Mr. Crinston out here, he would be detained less than half an hour in all. Mr. Crinston had an appointment with my uncle for eleven o'clock, and he was seven minutes late.
"I guess you saw enough of my uncle to know how he would feel about that seven minutes. Mr. Crinston kept urging Judge Purley to 'step on it, all the way out here."
"I still don't see," said Mason, "how that fixes the exact time of the murder."
"Well, you see," she explained, "Don Graves saw the murder committed. Now, if the car started from the house at eleven thirty, it would have taken about three minutes to get to the point in the driveway where Graves could look back and see the persons clubbing my uncle."