“Bosh,” she said.
Richard Waid, who had been standing in the door near the hallway in which the telephone was located, came striding into the room and said, “Well, it isn’t bosh, it’s absolute fact.”
“What do you know about it?” Mason asked.
Waid came into the room, met Mrs. Sabin’s eyes, and turned to Charles Sabin. “I know everything about it. Look here, Mr. Sabin, I realize there’s going to be a family fight. I know enough of Mrs. Sabin’s character to know that it’s going to be a free-for-all. As she pointed out to me, within a few minutes after she arrived, I can best safeguard my interests by keeping my mouth shut and keeping out of it. But my conscience won’t let me do that.”
“You and your conscience,” Mrs. Sabin said, her voice rising shrilly. “You’re nothing but a paid ‘yesman.’ My husband had completely lost confidence in you. You may not know it, but he was getting ready to discharge you. He...”
“Mrs. Sabin,” Waid interrupted, “didn’t go around the world, at all.”
“She didn’t?” Mason asked.
“No,” Waid said, “that was just a stall to fool the newspaper reporters so she could get a divorce without any publicity. She boarded a round-the-world boat. She only went as far as Honolulu. Then she took the Clipper back, and established a residence at Reno. She obtained a divorce there. All this was done under Mr. Sabin’s direction. She was to receive one hundred thousand dollars in cash when she furnished Mr. Sabin with evidence that she had received her divorce. Then she was to fly to New York, pick up a round-the-world boat, come back through the Panama Canal, and then let Mr. Sabin, at such time as he thought best, announce the divorce. That was the agreement between them.”
Mrs. Sabin said with cold finality, “Richard, I warned you to keep your mouth shut about that.”
Waid said, “I didn’t tell the sheriff because I felt it wasn’t up to me to discuss Mr. Sabin’s business. I didn’t tell Mr. Charles Sabin because Mrs. Sabin told me that it would be to my own good to keep my mouth shut. She said that if I co-operated with her, she’d co-operate with me once she got in the saddle.”