Richard Waid, the secretary, opened the door in response to Mason’s ring. His face showed his relief at seeing the lawyer. “C.W. has been trying to get you on the phone,” he said. “I’ve been calling every few minutes.”
“Something wrong?” Mason inquired.
“Mrs. Sabin is home — the widow.”
“Has that resulted in complications?” the lawyer asked.
“I’ll say it has. Listen, you can hear them in there now.”
Richard Waid stood slightly to one side, and the sound of a woman’s excited voice came pouring through the doorway. The words were undistinguishable, but there could be no mistaking the harsh, rasping sound of the voice itself.
“Well,” Mason said, “perhaps I’d better join in the fight.”
“I wish you would,” Waid said, and then, after a moment, “It may be that you can tone her down a bit.”
“Does she have a lawyer?” Mason asked.
“Not yet. She’s threatening to hire all the lawyers in the city.”
“Threatening?” Mason inquired.
“Yes,” Waid said shortly, and as he led the way into the living room, added, “And that’s putting it mildly.”
Charles Sabin got to his feet at once, as Mason entered. He came forward to grasp the lawyer’s hand, with evident relief. “You must be a mind reader, Mr. Mason,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get you for the last half hour.”
He turned and said, “Helen, let me present Perry Mason. Mrs. Helen Watkins Sabin, Mr. Mason.”
Mason bowed. “I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Sabin.”
She glared at him as though he had been an insect impaled with a pin and mounted on a wall board. “Humph!” she said.
She was heavy, but there was nothing flabby about her heaviness. Her body was hard beef, and her eyes held the arrogant steadiness of a person who is accustomed to put others on the defensive and keep them there.
“And her son, Mr. Watkins, Mr. Mason.”
Watkins came forward to take Mason’s hand in a firm, cordial grasp. His eyes sought those of the lawyer, and his voice as he said, “I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Mason,” lent emphasis to his words. “I’ve been reading so much about you, from time to time, that it’s a real pleasure to meet you in the flesh. I was particularly interested in the newspaper accounts of the trial of that case involving the murder of the insurance man.”
“Thank you very much,” Mason said, letting his eyes take in the bulging forehead, the well-rounded cheeks, the steady blue eyes, and the fit of the well-pressed flannels.
“I’ve had quite a trip,” Steve Watkins said by way of explanation. “I flew from New York down to Central America to pick up mother, and came back with her. Haven’t even tubbed yet.”
“Did you fly your own plane?” Mason asked.
“No, I didn’t, although I do quite a bit of flying. But my job wasn’t exactly tuned up for a long flight. I went on a passenger plane to Mexico City, and then chartered a private plane down and back. We had another plane fly down to wait for us in Mexico City.”
“You have had quite a trip,” Mason agreed.
Mrs. Sabin said, “Never mind the personal amenities, Steve. I see no occasion to waste time trying to meet Mr. Mason on friendly terms. You know perfectly well he’s going to try to knife us. We may just as well start our fight and get it over with.”
“Fight?” Mason asked.
She pushed forward her chin aggressively and said, “I said ‘fight.’ You should know what the word means.”
“And what,” Mason asked, “are we going to fight about?”
“Don’t beat around the bush,” she said, “it isn’t like you — not from all I’ve heard, and I don’t want to be disappointed in you. Charles has employed you to see that I’m jockeyed out of my rights as Fremont’s wife. I don’t intend to be jockeyed.”
Mason said, “Perhaps in the circumstances, Mrs. Sabin, if you retained your attorney, and let me discuss matters with him...”
“I’ll do that when I get good and ready,” she said. “I don’t need any lawyer — not right now. When I need one I’ll get one.”
Steve Watkins said, “Just a minute, Moms, Uncle Charles only said that...”
“Shut up,” Mrs. Sabin snapped, “I’m running this. I heard what Charles said. All right, Mr. Mason, what have you to say for yourself?”
Mason dropped into a chair, crossed his long legs, grinned across at Charles Sabin, and said nothing.
“All right, then, I’ll say something. I’ve told Charles Sabin, and now I’m telling you. I know only too well that Charles has resented me ever since I married into this family. If I had told Fremont one half of the things that I’ve had to put up with, Fremont would have had Charles on the carpet. He wouldn’t have stood for it for a minute. Regardless of what Charles may think, Fremont loved me. Charles was so afraid that some of the property was going to get away from him, that he was completely blinded by prejudice. As a matter of fact, if he’d been disposed to be fair with me, I might have been fair with him now. As it is, I’m in the saddle, and I’m going to do the driving. Do you understand, Mr. Mason?”
“Perhaps,” Mason said, lighting a cigarette, “you could explain a little more clearly, Mrs. Sabin.”
“Very well, I will explain clearly. I’m Fremont’s widow. I think there’s a will leaving the bulk of his property to me. He told me he was making such a will. If there is a will I’m the executrix of it; if there isn’t, I’m entitled to letters of administration. In any event, I am going to be in charge of the estate, and I don’t want any interference from any of the relatives.”
“You haven’t the will with you?” Mason asked.
“Certainly not. I’m not in the habit of carrying my husband’s wills around with me. I presume it’s in his papers somewhere, unless Charles has destroyed it. And in case you don’t know it, Mr. Mason, Charles Sabin is perfectly capable of doing just that.”
Mason said, “Can’t we leave the personalities out of it, Mrs. Sabin?”
She stared defiantly at him, and said simply, “No.”
Richard Waid started to say something, then checked himself.
Mason said, “Look here, Mrs. Sabin, I want to ask you a personal question. Hadn’t you and Mr. Sabin separated?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I say. Hadn’t you separated, hadn’t you decided that you were not going to live together any longer as man and wife? Wasn’t your trip around the world in accordance with such an understanding?”
“Absolutely not, that’s ridiculous.”
“Didn’t you have an agreement with Mr. Sabin by which you were to get a divorce?”
“Absolutely not.”
Waid said, “Really, Mr. Mason, I...”
He broke off as Mrs. Sabin glowered at him.
The telephone rang, and Waid said, “I’ll answer it.”
Mason turned to Charles Sabin and said significantly, “I have recently come into the possession of certain information, Mr. Sabin, which leads me to believe that your father had every reason to believe that by Monday, the fifth of this month, Mrs. Sabin would have obtained a divorce. I can’t interpret the information I have received in any other light.”
“That’s a defamation of character,” Mrs. Sabin said belligerently.
Mason kept his eyes on Charles Sabin. “Do you,” he asked, “know anything about that?”
Sabin shook his head.
Mason turned back to Mrs. Sabin. “When were you in Paris, Mrs. Sabin?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Did you get a divorce while you were in Paris?”
“Most certainly not!”
“Because,” Mason went on, “if you did, I’ll find out about it sooner or later, and I’m warning you now that I’m going to look for evidence that will...”
“Bosh,” she said.
Richard Waid, who had been standing in the door near the hallway in which the telephone was located, came striding into the room and said, “Well, it isn’t bosh, it’s absolute fact.”
“What do you know about it?” Mason asked.
Waid came into the room, met Mrs. Sabin’s eyes, and turned to Charles Sabin. “I know everything about it. Look here, Mr. Sabin, I realize there’s going to be a family fight. I know enough of Mrs. Sabin’s character to know that it’s going to be a free-for-all. As she pointed out to me, within a few minutes after she arrived, I can best safeguard my interests by keeping my mouth shut and keeping out of it. But my conscience won’t let me do that.”
“You and your conscience,” Mrs. Sabin said, her voice rising shrilly. “You’re nothing but a paid ‘yesman.’ My husband had completely lost confidence in you. You may not know it, but he was getting ready to discharge you. He...”
“Mrs. Sabin,” Waid interrupted, “didn’t go around the world, at all.”
“She didn’t?” Mason asked.
“No,” Waid said, “that was just a stall to fool the newspaper reporters so she could get a divorce without any publicity. She boarded a round-the-world boat. She only went as far as Honolulu. Then she took the Clipper back, and established a residence at Reno. She obtained a divorce there. All this was done under Mr. Sabin’s direction. She was to receive one hundred thousand dollars in cash when she furnished Mr. Sabin with evidence that she had received her divorce. Then she was to fly to New York, pick up a round-the-world boat, come back through the Panama Canal, and then let Mr. Sabin, at such time as he thought best, announce the divorce. That was the agreement between them.”
Mrs. Sabin said with cold finality, “Richard, I warned you to keep your mouth shut about that.”
Waid said, “I didn’t tell the sheriff because I felt it wasn’t up to me to discuss Mr. Sabin’s business. I didn’t tell Mr. Charles Sabin because Mrs. Sabin told me that it would be to my own good to keep my mouth shut. She said that if I co-operated with her, she’d co-operate with me once she got in the saddle.”
“The question,” Mason said, “is whether this divorce was actually obtained.”
Mrs. Sabin settled back in her chair. “Very well,” she said to Richard Waid. “This is your party. Go ahead and furnish the entertainment.”
Waid said, “I will. The facts in this case are bound to come out sooner or later, anyway. Fremont C. Sabin had been unhappy for some time. He and his wife had been virtually separated. He wanted his freedom; his wife wanted a cash settlement.
“For some reason, Mr. Sabin wanted to have the matter remain a closely guarded secret. He didn’t trust any of his regular attorneys with the matter, but went to a man by the name of C. William Desmond. I don’t know whether any of you gentlemen know him.”
“I know of him,” Mason said, “a very reputable attorney. Go ahead, Waid. Tell me what happened.”
Waid said, “An agreement was reached by which Mrs. Sabin agreed to get a divorce in Reno. When she presented a certified copy of the divorce decree to Mr. Sabin, he was to pay her the sum of one hundred thousand dollars in cash. It was stipulated as part of the agreement that there was to be absolutely no publicity, and that the responsibility was up to Mrs. Sabin to arrange the matter in such a way that the newspapers would not get hold of it.”
“Then she didn’t go around the world, after all?” Mason asked.
“No, of course not. As I told you, she went only as far as Honolulu, took the Clipper ship back, established a six weeks’ residence in Reno, secured a decree of divorce, and went to New York. That was what Mr. Sabin telephoned to me about on the evening of the fifth. He said that everything was arranged and Mrs. Sabin was to meet me in New York with the decree of divorce. As I’ve already explained to the officers, Steve was waiting at the airport with his plane all tuned up and ready. I stepped in and we took off for New York. We arrived in New York on the afternoon of the sixth. I went directly to the bankers to whom Mr. Sabin had directed me, and also to the firm of solicitors who represented Mr. Sabin in New York. I wanted them to check over the certified decree of divorce before I paid over the money.”
“They did so?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“And when did you pay the money?”
“I paid that on the evening of Wednesday, the seventh, at a New York hotel.”
“How was it paid?”
“In cash.”
“Certified check or currency or...”
“Cash,” Waid said. “It was paid in one hundred bills of one thousand dollars each. That was the way Mrs. Sabin wanted it.”
“You have a receipt from her?” Mason asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“And how about the certified copy of the decree of divorce?”
“I have that.”
“Why,” Charles Sabin asked, “didn’t you tell me about this before, Richard?”
“I wanted to wait until Mr. Mason was here.”
Mason turned to Mrs. Sabin. “How about it, Mrs. Sabin? Is this correct?” he asked.
“This is Waid’s party,” she said. “Let him go ahead with the entertainment. He’s played his first number, now let’s have an encore.”
“Fortunately,” Waid said, “I insisted on the money being paid in the presence of witnesses. I thought that perhaps she was getting ready to pull one of her fast ones.”
“Let’s see the certified copy of the decree of divorce,” Mason said.
Waid took from his pocket a folded paper.
“You should have delivered this to me,” Charles Sabin said.
“I’m sorry,” Waid apologized, “but Mr. Sabin’s instructions were that I was to keep the decree of divorce and deliver it to no one except himself. I was not, under any circumstances, to mention it to anyone. The nature of the business which took me to New York was to be so confidential that no one, save his New York counselors, was to know anything about it. He particularly cautioned me against saying anything to you. I realize now, of course, that the situation is changed. Either you or Mrs. Sabin is going to be in charge of the entire estate, and my employment — if it continues — is going to be subject to your instructions.
“Mrs. Sabin has taken particular pains to tell me that she’s going to be in the saddle and that if I say anything to anybody, I’ll suffer for it.”
Mason reached out and took the folded paper from Waid’s hand. Sabin crossed over to look over the lawyer’s shoulder.
“This,” Mason said, as he examined the printed form with the certification attached to it, “appears to be in proper form.”
“It was passed on by the New York lawyers,” Waid said.
Mrs. Sabin chuckled.
Sabin said, “In that event this woman isn’t my father’s widow. As I take it, Mr. Mason, under those circumstances she isn’t entitled to share in any part of the estate — that is, unless there’s a specific devise or bequest in a will.”
Mrs. Sabin’s chuckle became harsh, mocking laughter. “Your lawyer isn’t saying anything,” she said. “You overplayed your hand, Charles; you killed him too soon.”
“ I killed him!” Charles Sabin exclaimed.
“You heard what I said.”
“Moms,” Steve Watkins pleaded, “please be careful of what you say.”
“I’m more than careful,” she said, “I’m truthful. Go ahead, Mr. Mason, why don’t you tell them the bad news.”
Mason glanced up to confront Sabin’s troubled eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Charles Sabin asked. “Isn’t the decree good?”
Waid said, “It has to be good. The New York lawyers passed on it. A hundred thousand dollars was paid on the strength of that decree.”
Mason said quietly, “You’ll notice, gentlemen, that the decree of divorce was granted on Tuesday the sixth. There’s nothing on here to show at what time on the sixth the decree was rendered.”
“What does that have to do with it?” Sabin asked.
“Simply this,” Mason said. “If Fremont C. Sabin was killed before Mrs. Sabin was divorced, the divorce was inoperative. She became his widow immediately upon his death. You can’t get a divorce from a dead man.”
And the silence which followed was broken by Mrs. Sabin’s shrill laughter. “I tell you, Charles, you killed him too soon.”
Slowly, Charles Sabin crossed the room to sit down in his chair.
“But,” Mason went on, “in the event your father was killed after the divorce decree was granted, the situation is different.”
“He was killed in the morning,” Mrs. Sabin said positively, “after he’d returned from a fishing trip. Richard Waid has gone over all the facts with me in a preliminary conference. Those facts can’t be changed and can’t be distorted... because I’m going to see to it that no one changes them.”
Mason said, “There are several factors involved in fixing the time, Mrs. Sabin.”
“And that,” she said, “is where I come in. I’m going to see that none of the evidence is tampered with. My husband met his death before noon on the sixth. I didn’t get my divorce until four-thirty in the afternoon.”
“Of course, the decree of divorce doesn’t show at what time during the day the decree was granted,” Mason said.
“Well, I guess my testimony amounts to something, doesn’t it?” she snapped. “I know when I got the divorce. What’s more, I’ll get a letter from the lawyer who represented me in Reno.”
Charles Sabin looked at Mason with worried eyes. “The evidence,” he said, “shows my father met his death some time before noon, probably around eleven o’clock.”
Mrs. Sabin said nothing, but rocked back and forth, triumphantly, in the big rocking chair.
Charles Sabin turned to her savagely. “You have been rather free with your accusations directed at me,” he said, “but what were you doing about that time? If anyone had a motive for killing him, you did.”
Her smile was expansive. “Don’t let your anger get the best of you, Charles,” she said. “It’s bad for your blood pressure. You know what the doctor told you... You see, Charles, I was in Reno getting my divorce. Court was called at two o’clock, and I had to wait two hours and a half before my case came up. I’m afraid you’ll have to find a pretty big loophole in that alibi to pin the crime on me — or don’t you think so?”
Mason said, “I’m going to tell you something which hasn’t as yet been made public. The authorities at San Molinas will probably discover it shortly. In the meantime, the facts happen to be in my possession. I think you all should know them.”
“I don’t care what facts you have,” Mrs. Sabin said. “You’re not going to bluff me.”
“I’m not bluffing anybody,” Mason told her. “Fremont C. Sabin crossed over into Mexico and went through a marriage ceremony with a librarian from San Molinas. Her name is Helen Monteith. It has generally been supposed that the parrot which was found in the cabin, with the body, was Casanova, the parrot to which Mr. Sabin was very much attached. As a matter of fact, for reasons which I haven’t been able to uncover as yet, Mr. Sabin purchased another parrot in San Molinas and left Casanova with Helen Monteith. Casanova remained with Helen Monteith from Friday, the second, until today.”
Mrs. Sabin got to her feet. “Well,” she said, “I don’t see that this concerns me, and I don’t think we have anything further to gain here. You, Richard Waid, are going to be sorry that you betrayed my interests and violated my instructions. I suppose now I’ve got to go to a lot of trouble making affidavits as to when that divorce decree was actually granted... So my husband has a bigamous wife, has he? Well, well, well! Come, Steve, we’ll go and leave these gentlemen to themselves. As soon as I’ve gone, they’ll try to find evidence which will show that Fremont wasn’t killed until the evening of Tuesday the sixth. In order to do that, it’s quite possible they’ll try to tamper with the evidence. I think, Steve, that it will be wise for us to retain a lawyer. We have our own interests to protect.”
She swept from the room. Steve Watkins, following her, turned to make some fumbling attempt to comply with conventions. “Pleased to have met you, Mr. Mason,” he said, and to Charles Sabin, “You understand how things are with me, Uncle Charles.”
When they had left the room, Charles Sabin said, “I think that woman has the most irritating personality of any woman I have ever encountered. How about it, Mr. Mason? Do I have to sit quietly by and let her accuse me of murdering my father?”
“What would you like to do?” Mason asked.
“I’d like to tell her just what I think of her. I’d like to let her know that she isn’t fooling me for a minute, that she’s simply a shrewd, gold-digging, fortune-hunting...”
“That wouldn’t do you any good,” Mason interrupted. “You’d tell her what you thought of her. She’d tell you what she thought of you. I take it, Mr. Sabin, you haven’t had a great deal of experience in giving people what is colloquially known as a piece of your mind, have you?”
“No, sir,” Sabin admitted.
Mason said, “Well, she evidently has. When it comes to an exchange of personal vituperation, she’d quite probably have you beaten before you started. If you want to fight her, there’s only one way to fight.”
“What’s that?” Sabin asked, his voice showing his interest.
“That is to hit her where she least expects to be hit. There’s only one way to fight, and that’s to win. Never attack where the other man is expecting it, when the other man is expecting it. That’s where he’s prepared his strongest defense.”
“Well,” Sabin demanded, “where can we attack her where she hasn’t her defenses organized?”
“That,” Mason said, “remains to be seen.”
“Why,” Sabin asked, “should my father have gone to all these elaborate preparations to insure secrecy about that divorce? I can understand, of course, that my father didn’t like publicity. He wanted to avoid all publicity as much as possible. Some things are inevitable. When a man gets divorced, it’s necessary for the world to know he’s divorced.”
“I think,” Mason said, “that your father probably had some reasons for wanting to keep his picture out of the newspaper at that particular time, although it’s rather hard to tell.”
Sabin thought for a moment. “You mean that he was already courting this other girl, and didn’t want her to know who he was?”
Richard Waid said, “If you’ll pardon me, I think I can clear that situation up. I happen to know that Fremont C. Sabin was rather... er... gun-shy about women, after his experience with the present Mrs. Sabin... Well, I feel quite certain that if he had wanted to marry again, he would have taken every possible precaution to see that he wasn’t getting a gold-digger.”
Charles Sabin frowned. “The thing,” he said, “gets more and more complicated. Of course, my father had a horror of publicity. I gather that the plans for this divorce were made before he met this young woman in San Molinas, but probably he was just trying to avoid reporters. What’s all this about the parrot, Mr. Mason?”
“You mean Casanova?”
“Yes.”
“Apparently,” Mason said, “for reasons best known to himself, your father decided to put Casanova in a safe place for a while, and take another parrot with him to the mountain cabin.”
“Good heavens, why?” Sabin asked. “The parrot wasn’t in any danger, was he?”
Mason shrugged his shoulders and said, “We haven’t all the facts available as yet.”
“If you’ll permit me to make a suggestion,” Waid said, “it seems that the parrot most decidedly was not in any danger. The person who murdered Mr. Sabin was especially solicitous about the welfare of the parrot.”
Mason said, “ Peculiarly solicitous, would be a better word, Waid... Well, I must be going. I have quite a few irons in the fire. You’ll hear from me later on.”
Sabin followed him to the door. “I’m particularly anxious to have this cleared up, Mr. Mason.”
Mason grinned. “So am I,” he said. “I’ll have photostatic copies made of this divorce decree and then we’ll chase down the court records.”