Mason glanced up to confront Sabin’s troubled eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Charles Sabin asked. “Isn’t the decree good?”
Waid said, “It has to be good. The New York lawyers passed on it. A hundred thousand dollars was paid on the strength of that decree.”
Mason said quietly, “You’ll notice, gentlemen, that the decree of divorce was granted on Tuesday the sixth. There’s nothing on here to show at what time on the sixth the decree was rendered.”
“What does that have to do with it?” Sabin asked.
“Simply this,” Mason said. “If Fremont C. Sabin was killed before Mrs. Sabin was divorced, the divorce was inoperative. She became his widow immediately upon his death. You can’t get a divorce from a dead man.”
And the silence which followed was broken by Mrs. Sabin’s shrill laughter. “I tell you, Charles, you killed him too soon.”
Slowly, Charles Sabin crossed the room to sit down in his chair.
“But,” Mason went on, “in the event your father was killed after the divorce decree was granted, the situation is different.”
“He was killed in the morning,” Mrs. Sabin said positively, “after he’d returned from a fishing trip. Richard Waid has gone over all the facts with me in a preliminary conference. Those facts can’t be changed and can’t be distorted... because I’m going to see to it that no one changes them.”