Mason settled back in his chair. His eyes showed interest. “Go ahead,” he said, “I’m listening — but strip it down to essentials.”
Virginia Trent’s gloved hands smoothed the pleats of her gray skirt. She raised her eyes and said, “I’ll have to begin at the beginning and tell you the whole thing. My aunt,” she went on, “is a widow. Her husband died years ago. My uncle, George Trent, never married. He’s a gem expert, buying and selling stones on commission, cutting and polishing, and redesigning. He has an office and a shop in a loft building at nine thirteen South Marsh Street. He keeps from two to four gem cutters and polishers constantly employed... Tell me, Mr. Mason, are you a student of psychology?”
“Practical psychology,” the lawyer said. “I don’t go much on theory.”
“You have to interpret facts in terms of theory in order to understand them,” she said didactically.
Mason grinned. “It’s been my experience that you have to interpret theories in terms of facts in order to understand theories. However, go ahead. What were you going to say?”
“It’s about Uncle George,” she said. “His father died when he was just a boy. George had to take on the support of the family. He did it wonderfully well, but he never had any boyhood. He never had a chance to play and never...”
“What does that have to do with your aunt?” Mason asked.
“I’m coming to it,” she said. “What I was trying to explain is that Uncle George has an innate repression, a subconscious rebellion against environment which...”
“Which does what?” Mason asked, as she hesitated.
“Makes him get drunk,” she said.