“All right,” Mason said. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Nadine called Mosher Higley her Uncle Mosher. Actually he wasn’t related to her. Uncle Mosher knew something about her that enabled him to appraise her true character. In any event, Mosher Higley was one man she couldn’t twist around her finger. He was the one man that I think she really and truly feared.”
“Why did she fear him?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Mason, that I’d give a pretty penny to find out. Uncle Mosher had something on her.”
“In what way?”
“Well — she was afraid of him, but she respected him. She never tried to wheedle him. She didn’t use this helpless innocence on him. She didn’t use anything. She just did what he told her to.”
Mason said, “You came here for some specific purpose. Why not tell me what it is?”
“I’m trying to tell you.”
Mason smiled and shook his head. “How did you happen to come here?”
“Because I wanted you to understand certain things.”
“But how did you happen to come here, to this office? How did you know I was connected with the case?”
“I was told.”
“By whom?”
“Cap’n Hugo.”
“Who’s he?”
“He was my uncle’s cook, housekeeper, chauffeur, handy man, chore boy and general factotum.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“He said Nadine had gone to a doctor who had given her a truth serum test. He said the doctor had taken down everything she had said on the tape and that she had said she had murdered Uncle Mosher.”
“And how did this Captain Hugo know that?”
“John had told him.”
“And who is John?”
“Why, John Avington Locke, the young man Nadine is trying to throw her hooks into.”
Mason smiled. “Her intentions, then, are honorable.”
“They’re permanent,” Mrs. Newburn said.
“And how did John Avington Locke know of this?”
“Nadine told him. The doctor, you know, played this tape recording back to her.”
“I see. So she told John, John told Hugo, Hugo told you.”
“Yes.”
“That was about the tape recording. But how did you know about me?”
“I learned that through the police.”
“Now,” Mason said, “we’re getting somewhere. How did it happen that you were discussing the matter with the police?”
“The police came to our house.”
“To interview you and your husband?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“We answered questions.”
“And what were the questions?”
“They wanted to know all about family affairs, about Nadine Farr, and about Uncle Mosher’s death, and then after they had asked questions they told us that Nadine had gone to you and that you had gone to Twomby’s Lake and recovered the poison.”
“And then what did you tell them?”
“Then I was too completely flabbergasted to tell them anything.”
“How long ago was this?”
“I jumped in my car and came here the minute the police left.”
“Why?”
“Because, Mr. Mason, you’re being victimized. You’re... well, I gathered from the police that you were going to try to protect Nadine. She isn’t worth it. This whole thing is just another one of her schemes.”
“You think she murdered Mosher Higley?”
Mrs. Newburn laughed. “That’s what I’m trying to clear up for you. No one murdered him. Uncle Mosher died a natural death. I’m trying to let you see what’s happening, Mr. Mason.”
“Then why would Nadine have tried to create the impression that she killed your uncle — if we are to take the police version and assume that she did try to create that impression?”
“She did that very deliberately,” Mrs. Newburn said, “and she did it for a definite purpose.”
“What was the purpose?” Mason asked.
“Uncle Mosher had property valued at about seventy-five thousand dollars. He left a will which showed that he didn’t have the faintest idea of the real value of his property. Or perhaps it was his way of taking a parting slap at Nadine.”
“Tell me about the will,” Mason said.
“It provided that I was to receive the big two-story house where he lived, that I was to have the car, the furniture and all of that, but that Nadine Farr could live in the house until she had finished her schooling.
“Then he gave some cash bequests to my husband, to me, and to a college. He directed his executor to keep his factotum, Cap’n Hugo, on at half-salary for a reasonable period not to exceed four months. He provided that Nadine’s expenses were to be paid until she finished the current school year, and then he left all the rest, residue and remainder of his property to Nadine.
“The joke of it is that he left about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of bequests and the most that can be secured from selling his property at the moment would be about seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“So he really left Nadine with something less than nothing,” Mason said.
“That’s exactly it. I think it goes back to some sort of an arrangement he had somewhere with his partner in business. At one time Mosher Higley was quite wealthy and I think there had been a definite arrangement that he was to leave a will by which he had to make certain provisions for Nadine.”
“He disliked Nadine?”
“I won’t say that. He understood her.”
“All right, go ahead. You still haven’t told me about Nadine’s motive.”
“Well,” she said, “Nadine is very, very clever and very, very scheming. She understands the business implications of the will. My uncle owned a large acreage of Wyoming land which has at the present time a low market value.
“However, Standard Oil is going to put down a really deep test well on some adjoining property. If that well should come in, the property in the estate would be worth a lot more than the bequests in the will.
“Then Nadine would have the laugh on us. She’d inherit property Uncle Mosher never really wanted her to have. You see, leaving her everything that might be left over... well, it’s a peculiar situation.”
“I see,” Mason said, his eyes twinkling.
“So,” Mrs. Newburn went on, “anything she can do to keep the estate from being closed will be all to the good for her. She’s even willing to hatch up a murder case which she knows she can beat so she can keep the estate in probate.”
“You mean she’d confess to a purely fictitious murder?” Mason asked.
“Why not? What harm would it do? They couldn’t touch her, particularly if she pretended she was drugged at the time of the confession.”
“You think she’d do anything like that?”
“Of course she would. She’s doing it.”
“And all this elaborate pattern of emotional upset was simply an excuse to get the probate delayed?”
“Of course. Can’t you see what she’s doing? She wants to get the body of Uncle Mosher exhumed. She wants delay, delay, delay. And all the time she’s gambling on that oil well coming in — and she’s gambling with our money.”
“I thought it was in the estate.”
“Well, you can see what I mean.”
“Well,” Mason told her, “you may go home and quit worrying. The tablets that Nadine gave Mosher Higley were exactly what she thought they were when she put them in the chocolate — a sugar substitute.”
Mrs. Newburn’s face showed startled, incredulous surprise.
“So,” Mason said, getting to his feet, “your uncle died a natural death, and you can quit worrying.”
“But I still don’t understand. I—”
Mason stood looking gravely down at her. “I’m quite certain you don’t,” he said. “And if it’s going to be to Nadine Fair’s advantage to delay the closing of the estate and the sale of the Wyoming property until oil can be discovered, I’m in a position to assure you the statements you have made to me this afternoon will cause the probate judge to block any hurried sale of the property.”