“The very thought is absurd! I loved him. I have never loved any man...” she broke off.
“He was,” Mason pointed out, “considerably older than you.”
“And wiser,” she said, “and gentler, and more considerate, and... You have no idea how grand he was; contrasted with the young men whom I meet around the library — the fresh ones who try to take me out, the stupid ones, the ones who have lost all ambition...” Her voice trailed away into silence.
Mason turned to Della Street. “Della,” he said, “I want you to take Miss Monteith with you. I want you to keep her some place where she won’t be annoyed by newspapermen, do you understand?”
“I think I do,” Della Street said quietly from the back seat, and her voice sounded as though she had been crying.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Miss Monteith said. “I understand that I’m in for a disagreeable ordeal. The only thing I can do is face it.”
“Do you want to meet Mrs. Sabin?” Mason asked. “I understand that she’s rather disagreeable.”
“No,” Helen Monteith said shortly.
Mason said, “Miss Monteith, I think the developments of the next few hours may make a great deal of difference. Right at present the police haven’t identified that murder weapon; that is, they haven’t found out where it came from. When they do... well, you’re going to be arrested, that’s all.”
“You mean and charged with murder?”