“I don’t care to talk.”
“Then it may be necessary to notify the newspapers after all, Della,” Mason said to Della Street.
“The newspapers?” Mabel Norge echoed.
“Why certainly,” Mason said. “You haven’t kept abreast of developments up in your part of the country. You’re a young woman who is very much sought after.”
She bit her lip and said suddenly, “Mr. Mason, I have nothing to discuss with you. I came in here to eat. I don’t care to be disturbed.”
“Okay by me,” Mason said. “Della, call the newspaper here. Find out who is the representative of the AP and who represents the UP. We’ll get the wire services to work on this angle—”
“Mr. Mason, I told you I didn’t care to be disturbed.”
“It isn’t what one wants in a murder case,” Mason said, “particularly when the newspapers get started.”
“But I have nothing to do with any murder case.”
“You probably think that,” Mason said, “but the facts indicate the opposite.”
“There are no facts indicating the opposite. I did what I did on the definite instructions of my employer.”
“Sure,” Mason said, “but the definite instructions of your employer now are going to become evidence in the case.”
“Mr. Halder told me it would be all right,” Mabel Norge said.
Mason laughed, said, “Halder is very much on the periphery. He doesn’t even know what’s going on. Now Mr. Vandling is the district attorney at Fresno. He’s the one who’s trying the case. You ring him up and see what he has to say.”
Mabel Norge was silent.
“She evidently doubts my word, Della,” Mason said. “There’s a telephone booth down by the cashier’s cage. Get Vandling on the line. Tell him that Mabel Norge is here registered under an assumed name and ask him what he wants to do about it. Perhaps it’s better to let him work through the local police and then the newspapermen can pick the thing up from the local police.”
Della Street arose.
“Got plenty of quarters?” Mason asked.
“I can get some at the cashier’s cage.”
“Well, that’s fine,” Mason said. “Get him and—”
“Don’t.” Mabel Norge said, and suddenly began to cry.
“Now wait, wait.” Mason said. “We don’t want to upset you. Miss Norge, but, good Lord, you can see the plain implications of the case. You know what Mr. Vandling will do. He finds you here registered under the name of Mabel Davenport, so it’s quite natural to assume that you were to join Mr. Davenport here. Or, rather, that he was to join you, as Mr. and Mrs. Davenport—”
“How dare you say a thing like that?”
“Why, your own conduct—good Lord, you don’t think there’s any other interpretation that the press would place upon it, do you?”
“If the press intimates anything like that I’ll … I’ll sue them.”
“Sure,” Mason said. “You can sue but what good would that do? You get up in front of a jury and some attorney starts examining you, you have to admit that you disappeared from Paradise, that you looted the Paradise bank account before you left, that you came down here and registered under the name of Mabel Davenport, and that you were waiting for Ed Davenport to join you.”
“You forget that I knew he was dead before I left Paradise.”
“No, you felt that he wasn’t dead.”
“What gives you any grounds for saying that?”
“Come, come,” Mason said. “Now let’s be grownup. Della, I guess Miss Norge doesn’t realize what we know.”
“Well,” Mabel Norge said, “what do you know?”
Mason said, “Now let’s see. You were supposed to make some deposits on Monday. Then you were supposed to draw virtually all of the cash out of the account and you were to be at the office that night, awaiting a telephone call. That telephone call was to tell you where to take the money. It was to someplace here in San Bernardino. In the event you didn’t get the telephone call by a certain hour you were to come to San Bernardino, register at the Antlers Hotel here under the name of Mabel Davenport and await instructions.”
“I don’t know how you know all this,” Mabel Norge said.
“Well,” Mason said, “those are the facts. Why try to deny them?”
“Those aren’t the facts, that is, that’s not exactly the way it happened.”
“It’s close enough to it,” Mason said, “so that I know what to tell the district attorney at Fresno and how the newspapers will write it up. Of course, they’ll adopt the attitude that you were Ed Davenport’s mistress, that he wanted to get a lot of cash together and disappear with you.”
“Why, that’s absurd, that’s utterly ridiculous. That’s absolutely libelous, Mr. Mason. I can never—why—he had a mining deal that he wanted to put across and he had to have a large sum of cash. I don’t have to talk to you.”
“That’s right,” Mason said, “but what are you going to do now? You’re in a very peculiar position. If you take any of that money and use it for yourself you ‘re guilty of embezzlement. If you return to Paradise you’ll be questioned as to where you went and what you did and why. You’ve got to tell your story sooner or later. If you’re picked up here under the name of Mabel Davenport with Ed Davenport’s cash in your possession it looks as though you have been caught in the act of embezzling money.”
“Well, I didn’t embezzle any money,” she said, “and I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve had the assurance of the district attorney at Oroville that everything I do is all right, and I’m going to call him and tell him I don’t want to be annoyed.”
Mason nodded to Della Street. “This time, Della,” he said, “I’m not bluffing. I’ll call Vandling myself.”
Mason and Della Street left the table. Mason walked down to the cashiers desk, secured some quarters, went to the telephone booth and Mason called Vandling at Fresno.
“Hello,” Mason said when he had Vandling on the line. “This is Mason. How’s your case coming?”
“Our case you mean.”
“Don’t tie me up with it,” Mason said, laughing. “Are you going to dismiss?”
“Well,” Vandling said, “I still haven’t made up my mind as to what I’m going to do, but Los Angeles says it doesn’t want to pull my chestnuts out of the fire for me. I started the thing and I seem to be stuck with it. I can get the defendant bound over for trial all right. I may have to dismiss and start a new preliminary. That’ll give me time to think and perhaps turn up some new evidence.”
“That’s fine,” Mason told him. “Perhaps I can turn up some new evidence. Mabel Norge, the secretary to Edward Davenport, was instructed to make some last-minute deposits and then draw out everything in the Paradise account. She’s here at the Antlers Hotel in San Bernardino registered under the name of Mabel Davenport. She’d have quite a story to tell if you grabbed her as a material witness. She won’t talk voluntarily and she’s getting ready to skip out.
“It may interest you to know that she’s told a part of her story to the district attorney at Oroville and he gave her his official blessing. She thinks she’s sitting pretty. But she didn’t tell him the whole story. If she tells it to you it may help.”
“What are you trying to do? Make a case against your client?” Vandling asked.
“I’m trying to make a case against the murderer,” Mason replied. “Perhaps we can walk into court tomorrow morning and clarify the situation.”
“You slay me,” Vandling said. “In other words, Mason, I fear the Greeks when they’re bearing gifts.”
“No,” Mason said, “it’s an unfortunate trait of human nature. You accept all kinds of phony tips from touts and never win, then some day a quiet, sedate individual comes along with a straight tip on a dark horse in the fifth race and you pass it up because you’re too smart to fall for any more of that stuff. After the fifth race you kick yourself all over the lot.”