“There was only one thing for him to do. He must recoup that loss. He must change it into a profit. Spurred by the whiplash of his own impatience, he didn’t have time to wait for sound investments. He had to do something quick. He had to gamble.
“From the fact that he went so far, I presume that that first desperate chance turned in his favor. He gambled and won. It was that easy.”
She said, “But you don’t even know him, Chief.”
“Yes, I do. You don’t need to see a man, look in his face, shake his hand, and hear him talk, in order to know him. You can watch the things he does. You can see him through the eyes of others.”
“But the eyes of others are distorted by prejudice.”
“You make allowances for that prejudice when you know the others. You can then judge the extent of their distortion. That’s the only way you can solve cases, Della. You must learn to know the characters involved. You must learn to see things through their eyes, and that means you must have sympathy and tolerance for crime.”
She nodded.
“He had won,” Mason went on, “and he was jubilant. What he didn’t realize was that he was like the lion that has tasted meat. He could never go back. He could never forget that full-bodied flavor. He made other losses. He tried to recoup them by gambling, and that time he wasn’t so successful.”
“You mean gambling at the wheel?”
“No, not that — not at first,” Mason said. “It probably was a sure-thing tip on the horses. A friend in whose judgment he had learned to have confidence, someone who apparently knew all the inside facts.”
“Sindler Coll?” she asked.
“Probably.”
“And then,” she said, “I suppose he was decoyed along...”
“He got in so deep,” Mason said, “that there was only one way out, and that was to plunge. He plunged and lost, and lost again. Then came the time when he took stock of the situation. For the first time he really saw the position in which he’d placed himself. And then was when they dangled the real bait in front of his eyes. Then was when they had a sure-thing tip, something that was so absolutely certain that he became hypnotized with it. But you can’t gamble without money, and on this sure-thing, lead-pipe cinch which they dangled in front of his eyes, they demanded cash. So he had to raise cash, and Lynk wouldn’t lend him any money on securities as collateral. He pointed out that the loan was for a gambling stake, that there could be too many complications. Instead, he offered to buy the stock outright, that within five days Lawley could buy it back.
“By that time Lawley was so completely engrossed with the possibilities of once more turning his losses into profits that he didn’t bother to consider the cost of the step he was taking. That’s the difference between a good businessman and a bad businessman. The good businessman wants something and weighs the cost of what he wants against the utility of the article he desires. That’s the way Peavis plays the game. The poor businessman sees something that he wants, and he must have it. The price represents only an obstacle which stands between him and possession.”
“But what’s that got to do with Lieutenant Tragg?”
Mason dismissed it all with a gesture, smiled, and said, “I get to reconstructing what Lawley must have done, and how he must have felt, and I find it too fascinating... Well, anyway, Lawley’s next move, once he found that he had lost out, would be — well, you can realize for yourself.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Murder,” Mason said simply. “He wouldn’t come to it all at once. It wouldn’t be the first solution that would come into his mind, but he’d fling himself against the bars of his predicament as a caged animal would try out the iron bars, trying to find a weak point.”
“And so he murdered Lynk?” she asked.
“Not Lynk,” Mason said impatiently, “—not unless he could have gained by it, not unless he could have secured that stock.”
“Didn’t he?”
“If he had, he’d have gone back home. He’d have waited for his wife with an air of calm routine. No, if Lawley had murdered Lynk, it was a murder done either for revenge or to get the stock back. That would have been the purpose of it.”
“But the stock has disappeared.”
“If Lawley had murdered Lynk for the stock, the stock would be missing,” Mason said. “Someone murdered Lynk. The stock is missing. That doesn’t necessarily mean Lawley did it. We must guard against that mental trap. Perhaps Lawley did it, perhaps he didn’t. But what I’m getting at is that if he didn’t murder Lynk, his mind would turn elsewhere.”
“You mean his wife?” Della Street asked.
“Yes.”
“But... I don’t see...”
“His only out,” Mason said. “His wife still had money. There were other securities. If she died, Lawley wouldn’t have to account to her. He wouldn’t have to account to Mildreth Faulkner. Her death wouldn’t get him back the property he’d lost, but it would give him the stake for another gamble, and, above all, it would save his face. With a man of Lawley’s type, the saving of face is the thing of paramount importance.”
“But they’d certainly suspect him. He being the one to profit...”
“No,” Mason interrupted. “That’s where the man could be diabolically clever. You see, the stage is all rigged. He could commit the perfect crime. She’s been struggling with a weak heart. Doctors have warned her that excitement might prove fatal. It would only be necessary for Lawley to face her with some terrific shock, something that would throw a strain on her heart, and the death would be due to natural causes.”
“You think he’d do that — that any man would do that to his wife?”
Mason said, “It’s done every day. Wives kill husbands. Husbands kill wives. Mind you, Della, it takes a powerful motivation to lead to murder. That’s why people don’t usually murder comparative strangers. The more intimate the relationship, the more devastating the results which come from it. That’s why, taken by and large, more wives kill husbands than kill strangers. More husbands kill wives than kill persons outside the family.”
“I didn’t know that was true,” she said.
“Look at your newspapers. Why, those husband-wife killings are so common, they aren’t even front-page stuff. Usually there’s no mystery. They’re drab, sordid crimes of emotional maladjustment. A husband kills a wife and commits suicide. A woman kills her children and commits suicide.”
She nodded.
“And so,” Mason said, “I wanted to call Tragg’s attention to what would probably happen next. I wanted him to realize that whoever killed Lynk, Carlotta Lawley was in danger. The best way I could do that was to make him think that it had actually happened.”
“Why? He wouldn’t protect a woman who was already dead.”
“I didn’t want him to protect her,” Mason said. “I’ve already done that. I wanted him to turn the police force upside down to catch Bob Lawley, and put him behind bars.”