“I see,” Mason said. “Now, you saw this message that had been prepared by pasting together words that had been cut from the newspaper.”
“Yes.”
“They were pasted on a sheet of paper.”
“Yes.”
“Now,” Mason said, “I’m going to ask you to think carefully, Mrs. Theilman, because this answer may be important. Had those words been torn in any way?”
“What do you mean, torn?”
“Torn in two and then pasted together again?”
“No. They had been cut neatly with a pair of scissors.”
“No evidence of tearing?”
“None whatever.”
“The address on the envelope,” Mason said, “was it the address of your husband’s office or—”
“Frankly, I didn’t notice that. He gets quite a bit of mail here at the house.”
“I don’t suppose you noticed the envelope when it came in.”
“Heavens, no. I just glance through the mail that comes in and if it’s for my husband I put it on a little table to the right of the door. He picks it up when he comes in.”
“How much mail does he have come to the house?”
“Not too much but still quite a bit. Mostly it’s unimportant mail, circulars and things of that sort. Naturally his business mail comes to the office.”
“But this one came to the house?”
“It could have. I remembered only my husband’s name being on the envelope and the name of A. B. Vidal being in the upper left-hand corner. I saw it for only a second or two.”
“Your husband doesn’t come home to lunch?”
“No. He eats lunch in town.”
“And this time he came home about two o’clock in the afternoon?”
“It was a little before two. I don’t know the exact time.”
“And there was some mail for him that you had placed on the table?”
“There were, I think, three letters.”
“Do you remember whether they were business letters; that is, whether the envelopes had been addressed in handwriting or—”
She smiled and said, “There were no scented envelopes addressed in a feminine handwriting, if that’s what you mean, Mr. Mason. I would have noticed those. No, there were just three or four letters that were the ordinary type of business letter one would expect. That is, the envelopes indicated it was just a batch of routine mail.”
“But this letter from Vidal may have been one of the three or four letters?”
“I think it must have been. I can’t tell positively.”
“Did you notice the envelope at that time?”
“Mr. Mason, it’s just as I’ve told you, I don’t know when that envelope came in.”
“Did you notice the postmark on the envelope?” Mason asked.
“You mean when I took it out of his pocket?”
“Yes.”
“No. I didn’t want to pry into his affairs. I saw the message and of course I was startled. I looked at the envelope and I remembered the name of A. B. Vidal on the return address and, of course, the address of General Delivery. But I didn’t— It’s difficult to explain, Mr. Mason. I didn’t want to pry into my husband’s affairs. I simply took the letter, looked at it, felt in the pocket, found the envelope was in there, and transferred both letter and envelope to his other suit. Of course, I was concerned but I still didn’t want to pry. I’m not the sort of wife who is jealous or prying. I think wives who have those reactions are simply torturing themselves and undermining the very foundation of their marriage.”
“You’re happily married?” Mason asked.
“Very happily married.”
“This is a delicate question,” Mason said, “but are you— Well, is your husband approximately the same age as you are? I gather he isn’t because he has evidently been in business long enough to establish himself financially and you are...”
“Yes, yes. Go on,” she said, smiling, as Mason hesitated. “A woman always likes to hear that.”
“Well, you’re quite young,” Mason said.
“Thank you,” she said.
After a moment’s silence she added, “I’m not as young as you think, but I am younger than my husband, Mr. Mason, and since I know the other questions which will naturally be in your mind, I am a second wife. My husband was married to a woman who was nagging, jealous and the exact antithesis of what I try to be. She was inordinately suspicious, she kept asking him for explanations of everything he did, she undermined the happiness of the marriage by making home a place which Mr. Theilman wanted to avoid.”
“Was it this house?” Mason asked.
“Heavens, no,” she said. “I didn’t want to have anything around me that would remind me of that woman. I had Morley, my husband, sell that house furnished and we moved into this place and I furnished it according to my own ideas.”
“You did a very fine job,” Mason said, looking appreciatively around the room.
“Thank you again.”
“Now then,” Mason said, “you reported to the police that your husband had disappeared.”
“That’s right.”
“Did the letter which you had read from A. B. Vidal have anything to do with that?”
“A great deal,” she said, “a very great deal. If it hadn’t been for that, I probably wouldn’t have even given it a second thought.”
“He telephoned you last night?”
“About eight o’clock last night. He said he would be back around eleven or eleven-thirty. He telephoned from Bakersfield. When he hadn’t shown up by three o’clock, I became worried. I asked the police to check accidents and hospitals and when that report was negative I was very much relieved, and was able to go back to bed and sleep. I assure you, Mr. Mason, that I understand there are times when a man can change his mind about going home. I don’t expect any husband of mine to be a plaster saint. He wasn’t when I married him, and I’m not foolish enough to think that marriage to me is going to change him. Just the same, when he wasn’t home by seven, when I awoke, I became seriously alarmed.”
“What, generally, is the nature of your husband’s business?”
“Real estate. He speculates — buys and sells and subdivides.”
“You mean he acts as a realtor on—”
“Lord, no! The real estate commissions on sales wouldn’t pay office overhead — not the way my husband does things. He’s a speculator.”
“I take it then, he has quite a pretentious office.”
“On the contrary, his actual office is... well, it’s well furnished and all that, but my husband does a great deal of his business on the outside. He doesn’t wait for people to come to him. He goes out and meets opportunity halfway.”
“How many secretaries?” Mason asked casually.
“One.”
“What’s her name?”
“Janice Wainwright... I get so exasperated at that girl, I sometimes want to grab her and pull her hair.”
“Why?” Mason asked. “Does she—”
“Make passes? Anything but. That’s the trouble with her. Ever since I entered the picture she’s become the most mouse-like little creature you ever saw. She fixes her mouth so it looks positively hideous. She slicks her hair back and wears huge spectacles — the most unbecoming type she can possibly get.”
“You say this was since you entered the picture?”
“Since I entered the picture,” Mrs. Theilman said.
“Then you knew her before that time?”
“I had seen her,” she said cautiously, “yes.”
“And she wasn’t like that before your marriage?”
“Heavens, no. She was an attractive girl.”
“Do you think your husband knew she was attractive?”