“But what earthly advantage would that give him?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know. I tell you, I don’t know anything at all about it.”
“How much money did Mrs. Tump give you?”
“A thousand dollars.”
“When?”
“That was two months ago.”
“And you took a little while fixing up your story — perhaps forging a few records?”
“Well, naturally, I wanted to make my story stand up.”
Mason said suddenly, “Freel, you went to Tidings. He didn’t come to you. Your first contact was with Tidings. You wanted to sell him information about Byrl Gailord. Because he was the trustee of her funds, you thought there’d be a chance for a shakedown. And then you found out about Mrs. Tump, or she found out about you, and you cashed in on that. But you were still doing business with Tidings. There was something he wanted… Now what did Tidings want?”
Freel put his hands on his knees. His head was lowered until his voice sounded muffled as he said, “You’ve got me wrong, Mr. Mason. It wasn’t anything like that at all.”