I stop talkin' an' start drinkin' my coffee. Over the top of the cup I am watchin' her. I can see that her fingers holdin' the cigarette are tremblin' an' she has gone plenty white round the mouth. It don't look to me that what I have just said has pleased her any.
She takes a pull at herself but when she begins to talk her voice ain't so low as it was before. There is a spot of excitement in it
"That's very interesting," she says. "What new evidence could they find? I didn't know there was any question about my husband's suicide. I thought it was all over and finished with."
She stubs out the cigarette end on an ashtray. By this time she has got hold of herself. I put my cup down an' give her another cigarette an' light one for myself.
"You see it's this way," I go on. "A coroner's inquest don't matter very much if the DA in charge of the case thinks that he's found some new stuff that means something. Anyhow this guy in the DA's office tells me that they have discovered that you wasn't in Connecticut on the night that Granworth Aymes is supposed to have bumped himself off. They have found out that you was in New York an' another thing is that they have gotta big idea that the last person to see Granworth Aymes before he died was you, see?"
"I see," she says. Her voice is sorta dull, the life has gone out of it.
"These guys get all sorts of funny ideas in their heads," I say, "but you know what coppers an' district attorneys are. They just gotta try an' hang something on somebody. They wouldn't be doin' the job they do if they didn't like pullin' people in.
"You see it looks like somebody has dropped a hint around there that Granworth Aymes didn't commit suicide. That he was bumped off."
She flicks the ash off her cigarette.
"That seems ridiculous to me, Mr Frayme," she says. "The watchman on Cotton's Wharf testified that he saw Granworth drive the car over the wharf. That looks like suicide doesn't it?"
"Yeah," I tell her, "that's OK, but I gotta tell you what happened. This guy in the DA's office tells me that they got information that you slipped a counterfeit Registered Dollar Bond over at the bank here, an' of course that was reported to the Federal Government. The Feds evidently put a 'G' man on the job, an' this guy gets around in New York an' he grills this watchman on Cotton's Wharf an' after a bit he gets the whole truth about this business. What the watchman said he saw an' what he really saw is two different things, believe me, lady, because the watchman tells this 'G' man that he saw Granworth Aymes' car drive slowly down the wharf, an' that when it was half way down an' in the shadow the off-side door opens an' somebody gets out. He can't see who it is, but he can see it's a woman. He sees her turn around an' lean inside the car an' then shut the door. The car starts off again, gathers speed, bounces off a wooden pile an' goes right over the edge into the river.
"I see," she says. "And why doesn't this watchman tell this story at the coroner's inquest?"
I grin.
"He had a reason, lady," I tell her. "A durn good reason. He kept his mouth shut about that little incident because a certain guy by the name of Langdon Burdell - a guy who was your husband's secretary - gave him one thousand dollars to forget everything except seeing the car bounce off the pile an' go over the edge."
She looks at me as if she has been struck by lightning.
"It looks like this Burdell guy is pretty friendly towards you," I tell her, "because when this 'G' man had seen him previously he said that you wasn't in New York that night, you was in Connecticut, an' it looks as if he not only said that but that the night after the death he had scrammed down and bribed the watchman good an' plenty to keep his mouth shut about that woman."
"Well, what does that look like?" I say. "It looks like Granworth Aymes mighta been dead an' stuck in that car. It looks like the woman mighta been drivin' it, don't it?"
She don't say anything for a minute. I see her wet her lips with her tongue. She is takin' this stuff pretty well, but she is frightened, I reckon. But she soon gets hold of herself again.
"If Granworth were killed they could have discovered it at the post mortem," she says.
"Maybe," I tell her, "an' maybe not. But the guy in the DA's office tells me that Granworth was smashed up through the fall into the river. Remember when that car hit bottom he banged plenty hard against the wind shield. His head was all smashed in, but that mighta been done before he was put in the car."
"I don't understand any of this," she says. "And I don't understand why Langdon Burdell should have bribed the watchman to tell some story that was not the truth. Why should he do that?"
"Search me, lady," I tell her. "But I expect that the DA's office can find that out if they wanta start gettin' funny with somebody."
I ask her if she would like some more coffee, an' she says yes, so I order it. While we are waitin' for it to come I am keepin' a quiet eye on Henrietta an' I can see she is doin' some very deep thinkin', which don't surprise me because it looks like I have given her something to think about.
When the coffee comes she drinks it as if she was glad to have something to do. Then she puts the cup down an' looks straight at me.
"I'm wondering why you took the trouble to tell me all this, Mr Frayme," she says. "What was in your mind? What did you expet me to do?"
"It ain't what's in my mind, Henrietta," I tell her. "It's what's in the mind of these guys in the New York DA's office. The thing is this. My friend who works there says that nobody gave a durn about whether Granworth Aymes committed suicide or not until this counterfeit business turned up. The inquest was all over an' everything was tied up an' put away, an' then this Registered Dollar Bond thing happens. Well, that's a Federal job, an' the 'G' people at Washington have made up their minds good an' plenty to find out who it was faked those phoney bonds. If they can find that out everything's hunky dory an' they ain't likely to worry about the inquest or anything else.
"When I went to the Hacienda Altmira last night that guy Sagers, the feller who was workin' there an' who was leavin' for Arispe today, told me you was Mrs Henrietta Aymes, an' I made up my mind to tell you about this business, an' here's why:
"Supposin' for the sake of argument you know somethin' about this counterfeitin'. Supposin' you know who fixed it. Well, if I was you I'd come across. Slip me the works. Then, when I go back to New York I can hand the information quietly to my pal in the DA's office an' if it's good enough for them to pass on to the 'G' people at Washington an' satisfy their curiosity, well, I don't reckon that they'll want to re-open that case about your husband.
"You see these guys reckon that you must know something about that counterfeitin'. An' if you don't come across with some information, it's a cinch that they'll re-open the business about your husband's death just so that they got something to pin on to you that will make you talk. See?"
"I see" she says, "but I've no information to give any one. The package of Dollar Bonds which I brought with me out here was taken from my husband's safe deposit where I kept them. I understood from Mr Burdell that the safe deposit was opened with the key taken from my husband's dead body by his lawyer, who handed them to me. That is all I know. As for their re-opening the question of my husband's death and the suggestion that I was in New York on that night, well, they'll have to prove that, won't they?"
"Yeah. I suppose they will," I tell her. I am thinking that all the proof wanted is in the three letters from her to Granworth that I have got stored away in the safe at the Miranda House hotel.