“Yes, I did,” Waid admitted. “I knew he was there quite a bit of the time. He telephoned to me several times from San Molinas.”
“I knew that also,” Charles Sabin interposed. “I didn’t know what he was doing there, but Dad was peculiar that way. You know, he’d go into a community, completely lose his identity, take an assumed name, and just mingle with people.”
“Have you any idea why he did it?” Mason asked. “That is, was he after anything in particular?”
“As to that, I couldn’t say,” Charles Sabin said. “Of course, in considering father’s character, you must take into consideration certain things. He’d been a highly successful business man, as we judge standards of success; that is, he had amassed a comfortable fortune. He had nothing to gain by adding to his material wealth. I think he was, therefore, thoroughly ripe for some new suggestion. It happened to come through Uncle Arthur. Uncle Arthur lived somewhere in Kansas — at least he did two or three years ago, when father visited him; and I know that his philosophies made a profound impression on Dad. After Dad returned, he said that we were all too greedy; that we worshiped the dollar as the goal of our success; that it was a false goal; that man should concentrate more on trying to develop his character.
“You might be interested in his economic philosophy, Mr. Mason. He believed men attached too much importance to money as such. He believed a dollar represented a token of work performed, that men were given these tokens to hold until they needed the product of work performed by some other man, that anyone who tried to get a token without giving his best work in return was an economic counterfeiter. He felt that most of our depression troubles had been caused by a universal desire to get as many tokens as possible in return for as little work as possible — that too many men were trying to get lots of tokens without doing any work. He said men should cease to think in terms of tokens and think, instead, only in terms of work performed as conscientiously as possible.”
“Just how did he figure the depression was caused, in terms of tokens?” Mason asked, interested.
“By greed,” Sabin said. “Everyone was gambling, trying to get tokens without work. Then afterward, when tokens ceased to represent honest work, men hated to part with them. A man who had performed slipshod work in return for a token hated to part with that token in exchange for the products of slipshod labor on the part of another laborer. In other words, the token itself came to mean more than what it could be exchanged for — or people thought it did, because too many people had become economic counterfeiters.”
“That’s interesting,” Mason said. “By the way, how many people lived in the house?”
“Only two of us, Mr. Waid and I.”
“Servants?”
“One housekeeper is all. After Mrs. Sabin left for her world tour, we closed up virtually all the house, and let the servants go. I didn’t realize why that was done at the time, but, of course, I understand now that Dad knew Helen Watkins Sabin wouldn’t return, and was intending to close up the house.”
“And the parrot?” Mason asked. “Did your father take the parrot with him on his trips?”
“Most of the time the parrot was with Dad. There were times when he left it home — with Mrs. Sabin, mostly. Incidentally, Mrs. Sabin was very much attached to the parrot.”
Mason turned to Waid. “Did Steve have any motive for murder, any hatred of Mr. Sabin?”
“Steve himself couldn’t have murdered Mr. Sabin,” Waid said positively. “I know that Mr. Sabin was alive at ten o’clock Monday night, the fifth of September. Steve and I left for New York right after I’d received that telephone call. We didn’t arrive in New York until late Tuesday afternoon. You see, there’s a four-hour time difference, what with the difference in sun time and the additional hour of daylight saving time.”
Mason said, “The certified decree of divorce, which Mrs. Sabin handed you in New York, was a forgery.”
“Was what?” Waid exclaimed, startled.
“A forgery,” Mason repeated.
“Look here, Mr. Mason, that decree was passed on by Mr. Sabin’s New York attorneys.”
“It was perfectly legal in form,” Mason admitted. “In fact, it was all worked out to the last detail, even the name of the clerk and the deputy. A very clever forgery — but nevertheless the document was forged.”
“How did you find that out?” Sabin asked, highly excited.
Mason said, “I made it my business to investigate the court records. I gave a photostatic copy of the decree to a detective who flew to Reno. The case was purportedly a default matter, and handled in a routine manner. Much to my surprise, when I investigated, I found that there were no court records of any divorce.”
“Good heavens,” Charles Sabin said, “what did she expect to gain by that? She must have known she’d be discovered.”
“On the other hand,” Mason said, “under ordinary circumstances, no one would ever look back at a certified copy of a divorce decree. It would have been rather a safe forgery.”
“But why did she want to rely on a forged document?” Sabin asked.
“I don’t know,” Mason told him. “There are several guesses. One of them is that there’s some question as to the validity of her marriage to your father.”
“But why should that have kept her from filing suit for divorce?” Waid asked.
“Because,” Mason said, “regardless of the optimistic ideas of Fremont C. Sabin, there was bound to have been publicity. Newspapers keep highly trained investigators stationed at Reno for the purpose of scrutinizing divorce actions. They’re particularly anxious to find out if any of the movie celebrities slip over to Reno for the purpose of getting a divorce under their true names, and without disclosing their Hollywood identities. Now if, perhaps, Helen Watkins Sabin had another husband living, from whom she’d never been divorced... well, she wouldn’t have dared to risk the publicity. There was a hundred thousand dollars at stake — and that’s a considerable stake.”
Sabin said, “If there’s anything illegal about that first marriage, then how about the marriage ceremony my father went through with Helen Monteith in Mexico?”
“Now,” Mason said, with a grin, “you’re getting into the real legal problem.”
“What’s the answer?” Sabin asked.
“That,” Mason told him, “depends very much on what we can find out by examining Helen Watkins Sabin on the witness stand. Suppose, Mr. Sabin, you attend the inquest at San Molinas tonight. I think the sheriff will be broadminded enough to see that a complete investigation is made. Some interesting facts should be uncovered.”
The telephone on Mason’s unlisted private wire buzzed sharply. Mason picked up the receiver to hear Paul Drake’s voice saying, “Are you busy right now, Perry?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone there in connection with this case?”
“Yes.”
“I think,” Drake said, “you’d better arrange to meet me outside the office.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mason said. “The clients who are in the office are just finishing up their business. I’ll see you in just a moment or two.”
He hung up the telephone and extended his hand to Sabin. “I’m glad to learn about that will,” he said.
“And you’ll let us know if anything new... well, if you... I mean if you hear anything about Helen Watkins Sabin, let me know what she’s doing, will you?”
“She’s probably keeping under cover,” Mason told him, “until she can find out what’s going to be done about that forged decree of divorce.”
“Not that woman,” Charles Sabin said. “You’ll never get her on the defensive. She’s busy somewhere right now, stirring up a whole mess of trouble for us.”