“I mean that the newspaper men are on the job. It isn’t going to take them long to find out that you claim to have gone through a marriage ceremony with Fremont C. Sabin, who was going under the name of George Wallman. After they’ve gone that far, they’ll find out that Sabin’s parrot, Casanova, is on the screen porch of your house in San Molinas, and that since the murder he’s been saying, ‘Drop that gun, Helen... Don’t shoot... My God, you’ve shot me.’ ”
She was tall enough so that she needed to raise her eyes only slightly to meet the lawyer’s. She was slender enough to be easy and graceful in her motions, and her posture indicated a self-reliance and ability to reach decisions quickly, and put them into rapid execution.
“How,” she asked, apparently without batting an eyelash, “did you find out all this?”
“By using the same methods the police and the newspapermen will use,” Mason said.
“Very well,” she told him quietly, “I’ll talk. What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” he said.
“Do you,” she asked, “want to talk in my car, or in the house?”
“In my car,” Mason told her, “if you don’t mind.”
He cupped his hand under her elbow, escorted her back to his automobile, introduced Della Street, and placed Helen Monteith beside him in the front seat.
“I want you to understand,” Helen Monteith said, “that I’ve done nothing wrong — nothing of which I am ashamed.”