Monday morning found the ship slowly throbbing its way toward the docks, while representatives of the sheriffs office held mysterious conferences with the ship’s officers.
The passengers, hushed by the tragedy, whispering bits of gossip which were magnified and distorted with each surreptitious repetition, stood huddled in groups about the deck.
Roy Hungerford sought out Perry Mason.
“Look here, Mr. Mason,” he said, “I don’t pretend to know what this is all about. But I want you to know where I stand.”
“All right. Where do you stand?” Mason asked.
“Mrs. Newberry impresses me as being a fine woman,” Hungerford said. “She’s absolutely incapable of having murdered her husband. And Belle’s one girl in a million.”
Mason nodded.
“Don’t you suppose,” Hungerford asked, “that you could get the captain to drop this silly business and—”
“No,” Mason interrupted, “not as matters stand. I hear there’s a witness who claims to have seen Mr. and Mrs. Newberry on deck together shortly before nine o’clock. The officers are being particularly secretive about it. Apparently they don’t want me to know who this witness is, or—”
“I can tell you who the witness is, if that’ll be any help,” Hungerford said eagerly.
“It’ll help a lot,” Mason told him. “They’re keeping her under cover.”
Hungerford said, “She’s Aileen Fell.”
“You mean the spectacled schoolteacher?”
“Yes, the one from Santa Barbito who’s on a six months’ leave of absence — nervous breakdown or something.”
“How do you know?” Mason asked.
“I talked with the girl who shares her cabin. She said Miss Fell had hysterics and the doctor had to give her an opiate. The doctor advised her not to talk with anything about what she saw, but she talked to her roommate before the doctor came. She’s pretty nervous. Personally, I think she’s crazy.”
Mason said musingly, “Let’s see, She’s about thirty-four or five, has funny eyes and a muddy skin. That the one?”
“She gives her age as twenty-nine,” Hungerford said. “She’s peculiar, you know — always walking around deck by herself.”
Mason said, “Yes, I’ve seen her a number of times. She wears flat-heeled shoes, a short walking skirt, and forges determinedly around the deck every night after dinner.”
“That’s right — always walking by herself. They say she walks two miles every night.”
Mason said musingly, “I know the type, finds out how many laps to the mile, religiously counts every lap... Did she really see Mrs. Newberry on deck?”
“She swears she did. She was standing just below the boat deck, huddled up in a dark ram coat. The door opened, and Mr. and Mrs. Newberry came out. They walked past her without seeing her. She was within three or four feet of them and heard Newberry say something about it being necessary to handle things his way. He told Mrs. Newberry to keep her fingers out of his affairs, and started for the boat deck. Mrs. Newberry followed, and he kicked at her and yelled, ‘Keep back!’ but she went on up behind him.
“After a little while Aileen Fell heard a scuffle on the deck above. She climbed the stairs to the boat deck. She told her roommate she heard a pistol shot as she was climbing the stairs. When she got on deck, she claims she saw Mrs. Newberry leaning over Newberry’s body, and then saw Mrs. Newberry drag the body toward the rail. Just about that time, the ship gave a big lurch to port, and Aileen Fell took a spill. She thought she was going overboard. Somewhere in there she heard a second shot. She started to scream and kept on screaming. After she got to her feet, she saw Mrs. Newberry running along the deck. Newberry had disappeared.”
“So she kept right on screaming?” Mason asked.
“That’s right.”
“It must have been dark up there on the boat deck,” Mason said. “She couldn’t...”
“Now, that’s the funny thing,” Hungerford told him. “Aileen Fell swears there was a light in the hospital and the hospital door was open. You know, the hospital’s really a penthouse. It’s up there forward of the gymnasium, and just aft of the officers’ quarters.”
“And there was a light on in the hospital?” Mason asked, frowning.
“That’s what Aileen Fell says. Of course, I got it second hand. She was hysterical when she told her roommate. Personally, I don’t put one bit of faith in what she says she saw. But it started the captain searching Mrs. Newberry’s cabin and it’s going to put Belle’s mother in an awful spot.”
“Did the captain search the hospital?” Mason asked.
“Not then, I don’t think,” Hungerford said. “I heard he did later on.”
Mason frowned. “You know, Hungerford, this thing, just doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Hungerford declared. “Miss Fell is crazy. Ida Johnson, her roommate, will do anything she can to help Belle. She doesn’t like Aileen Fell, and is crazy about Belle. She says Miss Fell is one of those opinionated people who make all sorts of positive statements, and then lie to back them up if necessary.”
“Did you get her address?” Mason asked.
Hungerford nodded, passed over a slip of paper. “She wrote it down for me. She said she’d prefer to talk with you some time after we dock. She’ll do everything she can.”
Mason took the slip of paper, said, “I’m going in now to talk with Mrs. Newberry.”
“I wanted to, but they wouldn’t let me see her,” Hungerford said. “Would you mind telling her... well... where I stand, Mr. Mason?”
“I’ll tell her,” Mason said, gripping Roy Hungerford’s arm, “and I wish you luck, Roy.”
A guard was standing in front of Mrs. Newberry’s cabin. He nodded to Mason. “I want to see my client,” Mason said.
The guard stood to one side. Mason knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” Mrs. Newberry asked.
“Mason, ” he said.
She opened the door. Her eyes showed that she’d had a sleepless night. “Come in,” she said, and dropped dejectedly into a chair as the lawyer shut the door.
Mason sat down beside her. “We’ll be docking within half an hour,” he said. “Are you prepared for it?”
“As much as I’ll ever be.”
“Police will push you around. Newspaper men will give you the works. They’ll question you and keep questioning you.”
“Of course,” she said listlessly. “I guess I can take it.”
“Are you going to talk?” Mason asked.
“Should I?”
“No.”
“Very well, then, I won’t.”
“It’s going to take considerable will power.”
She raised her voice nervously. “I said I wouldn’t talk — I won’t talk! ”
Mason studied her for a few seconds, then said, “Do you want to hear something?”
“Good news or bad?”
“Bad.”
“All right. Let’s hear it.
Mason said, “Aileen Fell, that schoolteacher from Santa Barbito, claims she saw you and your husband go up to the boat deck. You’d been having an argument about something. After a few minutes she followed you up there. She heard a pistol shot as she was on the stairs. Then she saw you bending over your husband’s body and dragging it toward the rail. Then she heard a second shot.”
“She’s a liar!” Mrs. Newberry said.
Mason said tonelessly, “I thought perhaps you might want to change the story you told me.”
She said indignantly, “Well, I don’t. That girl’s a liar. She’s crazy anyway. I’m telling you the truth. I went up on deck with my husband. I wanted to talk with him and he was trying to avoid me. I told him I could save Belle’s happiness if he’d give me the money and let me handle things my own way. He said to go back to the cabin and wait for him.”
“How about the money belt?” Mason asked.
“He gave it to me.”
“When?”
“After I went up on the boat deck. He said, ‘Here’s the money, but don’t do anything with it until I get back. I want Belle to have it all for her own. You remember — it’s Belle’s‘ — I can’t remember his exact words. I tried to get him to come back to the cabin with me. He tried to strike me. That was too much. I ran downstairs, went to my cabin and started changing my clothes.”
“How did you leave the boat deck?” Mason asked.
“By the forward stairway on the starboard side.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“No.”
“Did you meet anyone while you were going to your cabin?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Why did you tell the captain you hadn’t been on deck?”
“Because I felt certain that Carl had jumped overboard and I didn’t want to be mixed up in it.”
“Do you mean that when you left him, you thought he was going to...?”
“Don’t be silly,” she interrupted. “I’m not a fool, and please don’t mistake me for one. After I went to the cabin and heard the five short blasts of the whistle, I knew someone had gone overboard. Naturally, I guessed who that someone must have been. There I was, standing with my wet clothes on the floor and my husband’s money belt in my hand. I knew what it was going to look like as well as you did. So I decided to change my clothes and hide the money belt.”
“Where was your husband when you left him?”
“On the boat deck.”
“You know where the hospital is up there?”
“There’s the little cluster of rooms in a cabin off by itself, with...?”
“That’s the place,” Mason said.
“Yes, I know where it is.”
“Was there a light in the hospital?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t think so. It was dark up there.”
“Did you see anyone else on the boat deck?”
“No.”
“And you’re sure there wasn’t a light in the hospital?”
“Quite certain.”
Mason said, “Look up at me. I want to impress something on you.”
“Go ahead,” she said, avoiding his eyes.
“No, look up here.”
She raised sullen, defiant eyes.
Mason said, “I want you to listen carefully to everything I say.”
“Go on and say it,” she said impatiently, “and don’t beat around the bush.
Mason said, “You told the captain you didn’t go on deck. You insisted that you’d left the dining saloon, gone to your stateroom, and your husband had left you there. Now then, you’re going to have to change that story. Public sentiment is a funny thing. You can change your story once and get away with it, if you have some good explanation as to why you didn’t tell the truth the first time. But you can never change your story twice. The next time you talk, you’re going to have to tell the truth, and you’re going to need some mighty good explanation of why you didn’t tell the truth the first time. Now then, don’t make any other statement until you’re prepared to go the whole way. I want the truth and the whole truth... Where did you get that money?”
“My husband gave it to me.”
“When?”
“After I’d gone up to the boat deck.”
“ Why did he give it to you?”
“Because I told him I had to have it to protect Belle’s interests.”
“Did he intimate that he was going to commit suicide?” Mason asked.
“Certainly not.”
“You didn’t have any idea he was going to jump overboard?”
“No, not then.”
“He didn’t try to jump overboard while you were with him?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Did you have a revolver?”
“No, of course not. That woman’s a liar.”
Mason said, “Look here, Mrs. Newberry. Suppose your husband told you he was going to commit suicide. Suppose you tried to stop him. Suppose he produced a revolver and shot himself, despite anything you could do. Suppose you tried to drag him to the stairs so you could get help, and suppose the ship, at that time, took a heavy roll to port which sent you sliding down against the port rail, still holding on to your husband’s body. You knew you were going to have to summon help. Would you, under those circumstances, have decided it would be better to remove his money belt before you gave the alarm?”
“Probably,” she said, “but that isn’t what happened.”
“And if you had, and your husband had recovered consciousness while you were doing it, started to struggle and gone overboard, then what would you have done?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Mason said, “Wouldn’t you have given the alarm of ‘Man overboard’?”
“I might have.”
“Well,” Mason said, “ I think you did give the alarm.
She shifted her eyes and said, “Well, I didn’t.”
Mason said, “The Fell woman was up there on the boat deck, screaming. She was frightened and hysterical. Her screams could never have been heard on the bridge, but the telephone operator says some woman called from the social hall and said to report to the bridge there was a man overboard, and then hung up the telephone without giving any particulars. She seemed to be in a hurry to go some place or do something. Now, were you that woman?”
“No.”
Mason, staring thoughtfully at her said, “I think you were.”
“What makes you think that?” she asked, avoiding his eyes.
“You’re the only woman on the ship who could have put through that call and who wouldn’t have come forward and admitted it.
“Well, I didn’t do it.”
Mason said, “You have two defenses. One of them is that you had an argument with your husband on the boat deck. He tried to strike you. You went below to your cabin. After you left, some other person stepped out of the hospital and shot him. You could have used that as a defense if it hadn’t been for lying to the captain and trying to conceal that money belt. Your other defense is that your husband shot himself and plunged overboard after giving you the money belt. You can’t make that defense stick unless you can break down the testimony of Aileen Fell.”
“So what?” she asked.
“So,” Mason said slowly, “I’m not going to let you commit yourself until I know two things.”
“What are the two things?”
“One of them,” Mason said, “is whether Aileen Fell’s story will stand the test of cross-examination. The other one is why you’re lying about putting in that call from the social hall.”
“You don’t trust me?” she asked.
Mason said, “I’m afraid to trust you. There’s too much at stake. I’m afraid to let you tell your story until I know you’re telling the truth. You lied once because you thought you could get away with it. You’ll do it again if you think you can get away with it. And don’t overlook the fact that you can’t tell your story to the officers without telling them why you wanted the money. You can’t do that without disclosing that your husband was Carl Moar and that you thought the money had been embezzled.”
That’s going to come out anyway,” she said in a dull, hopeless voice.
“It’s going to come out that he’s Carl Moar,” Mason said, “but it isn’t going to come out for a few hours. And during those few hours, I’m going to get busy with the Products Refining Company. There’s something queer about that embezzlement. Rooney, the head auditor, holds his job because he’s related to the president. I have an idea he may be incompetent and the books may be in such shape he can’t show definitely who took the money. Now, if that’s the case and he knows Moar’s dead, he’ll make a flat accusation and perhaps doctor up the records to make that accusation stick. That will save his own face. But if there’s some legitimate reason why the Products Refining Company has been afraid to get out a felony warrant for Carl Moar, I’m going to find out what that is and spike their guns before they realize he’s dead.”
“Then you mean the embezzlement would never come out?”
He nodded.
“That would mean everything to Belle,” she said.
“Yes,” Mason said. “ If I can find some weakness in their auditing system and capitalize on that weakness before they know it’s Carl Moar who’s dead. But that means I’ll have to dash out just as soon as we dock. It means I’ll have to leave you to the mercy of the police officers and the newspaper men.”
“All right,” she said, her chin coming up, “I can take it. You do what’s necessary to help Belle.”
“You see,” Mason told her, “I’ve arranged for a detective to meet me at the dock. We’ll fly to Los Angeles and get busy. When I fight, I don’t stand up and block the other man’s punches. I try to find his weak point and hit him there. Now, in order to build up a good case against you, the district attorney will claim you wanted to get that money from Carl so you could get immunity for your husband, thereby saving Belle the unhappiness incident to exposure. It’ll take the district attorney a little while to get all that motivation pieced together. By the time he does, I want to have brought enough pressure to bear on the Products Refining Company so they won’t dare to make the embezzlement charge.”
Mason moved toward the door. She came to his side. There was animation in her eyes. “You can depend on me, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I’ll sit tight. They can’t drag a word out of me.”
“All right,” Mason told her. “Don’t answer any questions about your past. Don’t give them any clue which will enable them to link your husband with Carl Moar. Every minute you can delay them will give me that much more time within which to work. And,” he said grimly, as he opened the door, “I’ll need it.”
Mason found Belle Newberry in her stateroom with Della Street.
“How goes it, Belle?” he asked.
“Okay so far,” she told him. “They questioned me up one side and down the other.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them they weren’t officers of justice,” she said, “but persecutors. I refused to answer any of their questions. I said that anyone who would accuse my mother of a crime like that was a monster.”
Mason’s eyes were sympathetic. “I’m sorry I had to tell you to play it that way, Belle,” he said, “but for certain reasons it was the only thing to do.”
“You mean that if I told them Carl’s real name, they’d find out about that lottery and—”
“Something like that,” Mason said. “In order to build up a defense, I want a few hours during which no one will even suspect that Carl Newberry was really Carl Moar.”
“Will a few hours be enough?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Mason told her. “I’ll do my best.”
“Celinda Dail has been trying to see her,” Della Street said. “She’s full of sympathy and—”
“Keep Belle away from Celinda,” Mason said. “Tell everybody that Belle’s upset and isn’t to be questioned that you’re sorry, but she can see no one.”
“That’s what I’ve done,” Della Street said. “Of course, the officers insisted on coming in.”
“Tell me, Mr. Mason,” Belle asked. “How about Moms? Is she holding up?”
“She’s holding up,” Mason said.
“What’s this about some witness having seen her on deck?”
Mason made a gesture of dismissal. “Pay no attention to it, Belle. You can hear all sorts of stories.” He turned to Della Street. “Della, I want to find out who sent that note to Carl Newberry. The bellboy says he got it from the purser. The purser says he was doing some book work and when he looked up the note was lying on the glass shelf in front of his window. On the envelope had been written, ‘Please deliver immediately to Carl Newberry.’ The purser called a bellboy and told him to deliver the note.”
Belle said, “I think I know what was in that note, Mr. Mason.”
“What?” he asked.
“There was just three words scribbled on a piece of paper with a lead pencil. It said simply, ‘Promenade Port Okay,’ and there was no signature.”
“Could you tell if it was a man’s writing?”
“No. It was scribbled in pencil. I got the impression it was a woman’s writing. That’s why I didn’t say anything at the time. I knew Carl wouldn’t carry on an affair, but I thought perhaps Moms might get jealous.”
Mason said, “It wouldn’t do any harm for you to give that-information to the officers, Belle, but be absolutely certain not to tell them anything about your past, where you went to school, where you’ve been living, or anything about it. And, incidentally, do your hair differently. You look too much like Winnie Joyce with your hair done that way. The officers may trace you through that resemblance.”
Della Street reached for a comb. “I’ll fix that,” she said.