“Good Lord, no. Coming on top of everything else, it almost floored me. I thought I’d go crazy that night.”
“So then what?”
“Then,” she said, “you know just as much as I do. Aunt Sarah never would admit to me that she remembered anything that happened. She kept saying that her mind was a blank, and seemed perfectly cheerful about it, and said I wasn’t to worry, but was to leave everything to you. She wouldn’t even let me talk to her about anything that happened. She said her mind was a blank and she wanted it that way.”
“Perhaps her mind is a blank,” Mason said.
“I don’t think so. I think she’s just trying to protect me.”
“But you don’t know?”
“No.”
Mason glanced at Della Street. “Virgie,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something. I want you to remember it. If your Aunt Sarah’s mind is a blank, that’s one thing. If it isn’t a blank, and she’s trying to cover up for you, that’s something else. As far as you’re concerned, it doesn’t make a particle of difference. You shot in self-defense. There’s no question but Austin Cullens intended to kill both you and your aunt. He’d killed your Uncle George, when your uncle had found out that the Bedford diamonds were stolen gems. Probably your uncle sent for Cullens. Cullens came up to the office. They had a showdown. When he saw he was trapped, and your uncle started to call the police, Cullens jerked the gun out of his hip pocket and killed your uncle. He concealed the body in a packing case, removed all evidences of the crime, went home, reloaded his gun, and, because he knew of your uncle’s habits, mailed in the keys to the car.”
“Now then, I didn’t know what had happened, but I had my suspicions. I felt certain that Pete Chennery’s wife had confessed to her husband, everything which had taken place with Austin Cullens, and her husband, Pete Chennery, a gem thief, saw an opportunity to make a good haul so he had his wife continue to string Cullens along. He was engaged in going through the house when Cullens drove up.”
“Now, I felt certain that Cullens had killed your Uncle George. At first, I didn’t know how I could definitely prove it. I couldn’t tell whether your aunt really had lost her memory, or whether she was trying to protect someone. I felt that if she was trying to protect someone, that you would be that someone. I realized that circumstantial evidence pointed at Pete Chennery as the burglar who had entered Austin Cullens’ house. I thought perhaps I could use him as a red herring to drag across the trail, so that I could get your aunt acquitted, because I felt certain the evidence would show the bullets had been mixed up. Then when Sergeant Holcomb got on the witness stand and tried to cover up his mistake by testifying so positively in regard to the bullets, I realized that I had a perfect opportunity to let him unwittingly serve the real ends of justice.