Chapter 4
Mrs. Gentrie seemed somewhat overawed by the importance of her visitor. Aunt Rebecca and Delman Steele, sitting together at the dining-room table working a crossword puzzle, looked up as Mason introduced himself to Mrs. Gentrie. They stood up as Mrs. Gentrie escorted Mason toward them.
Mrs. Gentrie performed the introductions. “Mr. Mason, the lawyer you’ve read about,” she announced. “This is my husband’s sister, Miss Gentrie.” It was always necessary to emphasize the “Miss” in introducing Aunt Rebecca. So many people were inclined to call her Mrs. if they hadn’t been paying attention when the introduction was performed, and that led to a correction later which, somehow, always seemed like an embarrassing explanation. “And Mr. Steele, a roomer, who is also a crossword addict,” Mrs. Gentrie added.
Aunt Rebecca was by no means overawed. She looked Mason over critically, said, “Humph! You don’t look so formidable. Reading about you, I’d always imagined you bristled with hostility like a battleship.”
Mason laughed, sized up Delman Steele, a young man in the twenties, who met his eye steadily enough, yet who seemed, somehow, on the defensive. He was good looking, and there was plenty of character in his face, but something about the tight line of his lips indicated that he might, perhaps, have something to conceal.
Mrs. Gentrie said, “Mr. Steele is usually at his work by this time, but after what happened next door, the police insisted on holding everyone here — except they did let the two younger children go to school. Junior, that’s the oldest, is around somewhere. Here he is coming up from the basement now. Junior, come and meet Mr. Mason, the lawyer. He’s here because he — well, what are you doing here, Mr. Mason?” she asked as Junior shook hands with the lawyer.
“Just investigating the case,” Mason said.
“You have a client who’s interested in it?”
“Well, only indirectly. Not the person who’s charged with murder.”
“Have they charged anyone yet?”
“No,” Mason said and laughed. “That’s why I can speak with assurance when I say I’m not representing the person who’s charged with the murder.”
He turned to study Junior, a lad of about nineteen, who had a high, sensitive forehead which seemed at odd variance with the thickness of his lips. However, his nose was straight and well proportioned, and Mason realized that while the young man would never be considered as a matinee idol, he was, nevertheless, sufficiently good looking to get by nicely with the opposite sex.
Junior looked at the dictionary on the table in front of Aunt Rebecca. “No wonder that’s never in my room,” he said. “Every time I have to use it, I put in half an hour looking for it.”
Aunt Rebecca rattled into quick reproach. “Now, Junior, don’t be selfish with your things. After all, it doesn’t wear your dictionary out to look up a word once in a while. You should learn...”
“And my flashlight,” Junior interrupted. “Somebody’s always taking that and running the batteries down.”
“Why, Junior,” Mrs. Gentrie said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I only borrowed it for a few minutes yesterday when I was looking at the preserves on the shelf in the cellar. I didn’t have it on for as much as a minute or a minute and a half altogether.”
“Well, somebody must have left the switch on for a while,” Junior said. “The batteries were all run down this morning.”
“Perhaps you used it last night.”
He said, “That’s the point. I couldn’t find it last night.”
“Why, I put it back in your room. I...” Her voice suddenly lost its assurance, and Junior, wise in the ways of family life, said, “You mean you intended to put it back in my room, but I suppose you left it hanging around some place.”
“I... well, perhaps I did leave it down here. I had that basket of mending, and I put it... Where did you find it, Junior?”
“In my bedroom this morning.”
“Wasn’t it there last night?”
He shook his head.
Mrs. Gentrie laughed and said, “Well, Mr. Mason isn’t interested in all of our domestic troubles. That’s the way it is with a large family, Mr. Mason. Someone’s always feeling that his rights are being infringed upon.”
Aunt Rebecca said, “Well, I suppose Mr. Mason wants to ask us a lot of questions, but before he does, I’m certainly going to take advantage of his being here to find out about that thing that was bothering us in the crossword puzzle.”
Mrs. Gentrie said, “Oh, Rebecca, don’t intrude your silly...”
“If I can help, I’ll be only too glad to,” Mason said. “Fire away.”
“It’s a five-letter word, and the second two letters are u-a. It’s a legal term, meaning — what is it, Delman? How did they express it?”
Steele ran his finger down a list of numbers and then said, reading, “A legal term meaning ‘as if; as though; as it were.’ ”
“Five letters?” Mason asked.
“That’s right.”
The lawyer frowned a moment, then said, “Why not try quasi?”
Rebecca grabbed up the pencil, lettered in the word, moved her head back, and perked it on one side as though she had been a bird critically examining a dubious bug. “Yes,” she said abruptly, “that’s right! That’s absolutely right! That’s exactly what it is. Quasi. I never heard of it before.”
“It’s a term used extensively by lawyers,” Mason said.
“Well,” Rebecca announced, “that is going to get us over the hump, Delman. I suppose Mr. Mason wants to know everything — just as the police did...”
“Please be seated, Mr. Mason,” Mrs. Gentrie invited.
As Mason sat down, Rebecca said, “I certainly hope you don’t start asking a lot of questions, Mr. Mason. I’m all on edge. I started this crossword puzzle to try and quiet my nerves. Mr. Steele’s been kind enough to help me on quite a few of them. Do you do crossword puzzles, Mr. Mason?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have much time for them.”
“Well, perhaps I should be doing something else — and yet I don’t know what else to do. I think it’s a lot better to do crossword puzzles than just fritter away your time. After all, Mr. Mason, it does do wonders for your vocabulary.”
“I assume it does,” Mason said.
Mrs. Gentrie said, “Come, Rebecca. Mr. Mason’s time is valuable. He didn’t come here just to talk about crossword puzzles.”
“Well, I don’t want to start talking about that murder again. It all happened yesterday when you upset me with that story about the empty can. I haven’t been able to concentrate since.”
“Empty can?” Mason asked.
Mrs. Gentrie said indulgently, “That’s just a household mystery. You mustn’t mind Rebecca. She’s always digging up little household mysteries.”
“I’m interested in mysteries,” Mason said, his eyes twinkling. “I collect mysteries the way your sister-in-law collects crossword puzzles.”
“Well,” Rebecca said, “I wish you’d solve this one, Mr. Mason. I just can’t get it off my mind.”
“Rebecca!” Mrs. Gentrie rebuked.
“No, go ahead. I’d like to hear it,” Mason said. “I really would.”
Mrs. Gentrie, evidently quite embarrassed, said, “It was nothing, Mr. Mason. I went down in the cellar yesterday to check over the tins and jars of preserved fruit, I found an empty tin on the shelf.”
“Just an empty tin?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“No. That isn’t all of it,” Rebecca interpolated. “It was an absolutely brand new tin, Mr. Mason. It had been put up on that shelf with the preserves. There wasn’t any label on that tin, and it had been sealed up — you know, crimped over, the way you seal preserves in a can.”