“Why, Helen, sweetheart,” he said. “Good Lord, what’s the matter, you look as though you were seeing a ghost... why, dearest...”
She was in his arms, sobbing incoherently, while the older man held her tightly against him, comforting her with soothing words in her ears, tender hands patting her shoulders. “It’s all right, my dearest,” he said. “I wrote you a letter this afternoon. I’ve found just the location I want.”
Chapter fourteen
George Wallman sat in the creaking rocking chair in the hotel bedroom. Seated on the floor by his side, her cheeks glistening with tears of happiness, Helen Monteith clasped her arms around his knees. Perry Mason was seated astride a straight-backed, cane-bottomed chair, his elbows resting on the back; Della Street was perched on the foot of the bed.
George Wallman said in a slow drawl, “Yes, I changed my name after Fremont made such a pile of money. People were always getting us mixed up because I looked like him, and word got around that I had a brother who was a multimillionaire. I didn’t like it. You see we aren’t twins, but, as we got older, there was a striking family resemblance. People were always getting us mixed up.
“Wallman was my mother’s maiden name. Fremont’s son was named Charles Wallman Sabin, and my middle name was George, so I took the name of George Wallman.
“For quite a while Fremont thought I was crazy, and then, after he’d visited me back in Kansas, we had an opportunity for a real good talk. I guess then was when Fremont first commenced to see the light. Anyway, he suddenly realized that it was foolish to set up money as the goal of achievement in life. He’d had all he wanted years ago. If he’d lived to be a thousand he could still have eaten three meals a day.
“Well,” Wallman went on, after a moment, “I guess I was a little bit foolish the other way, too, because I never paid enough attention to putting aside something that would carry me through a rainy day... Anyway, after Fremont had that first visit with me, we became rather close, and when I came out here to the West, Fremont used to come and see me once in a while. Sometimes we’d go live together in a trailer; sometimes we’d stay up in his cabin. Fremont told me that he was keeping the association secret from his business associates, however, because they’d think perhaps he was a little bit cracked, if they found out about me and my philosophy of life.
“Well, that suited me all right. And then, shortly after I was married, Fremont came down to San Molinas to talk with me.”
“He knew about your marriage?” Mason interrupted.