“Am I to gather that your Uncle George is on one of his sprees?” Mason asked.
“Yes. He didn’t come home Saturday night. We knew what that meant. Of course, there was no mail delivery on Sunday, but Aunt Sarah went up to the office and got things all ready for Monday morning.”
“Opened the vault?” Mason asked.
“I believe so, yes. Then, this morning, she went up to the office early, got in touch with the foreman, and they planned out the day’s work. Sure enough, the keys to Uncle George’s car were in the first mail delivery. But there was nothing to indicate where the car was. It wasn’t until shortly before noon, the traffic department rang up to tell us it was parked in a thirty-minute zone... You see, it had been left there Saturday night after the parking restrictions had been removed, and then, of course, Sunday didn’t count. But this morning, the traffic tickets started piling up on the car.”
“So you went and moved the car?” Mason asked.
“Yes. Aunty and I went together. We picked up the parking tickets, and moved the car into a garage. Aunt Sarah had some shopping she wanted to do, and I wanted to get a pair of shoes. We went into the department store, and I was getting my shoes and thought Aunt Sarah was standing right behind me. Then suddenly I missed her... You know what happened after that.”
“And you found her up in the tea room?” Mason asked.
“Yes, I’d been looking all over the store for her. I found her up there just before... well, you know.”
“All right,” Mason said, “tell me some more about the Bedford diamonds.”
“The Bedford diamonds,” she said, “came to us through Austin Cullens.”