Leeds said, “I have no further statement to make.”
Mason said, “Suppose I make one then. You’re not Alden Leeds. You’re really Bill Hogarty, who assumed Leeds’ identity back in 1907.”
Emily Milicant said, “Go ahead and tell him, Alden. Can’t you see? Its the only way.”
“We haven’t got all night, you know,” Mason prodded.
Leeds tamped tobacco down in his pipe. “I’ll tell him about me, and leave you out of it, Emily,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” Emily Milicant retorted. “Tell him the whole thing.”
He shook his head.
“All right. I’ll tell him about me,” she said. She turned to Perry Mason. “I was a dance hall girl,” she went on. “I went up into the Klondike as a dancer for the ‘M and N. ’ That was before the days of taxi dancers as we know them nowadays. Dance hall girls were all kinds, straight and crooked. I was filled with the spirit of adventure, and wanted to go places and do things. Well, I went places, and I did things, and I’m not ashamed of anything I ever did.
“They told me when I left Seattle, I could work in the dance hall and be straight. I could, but I couldn’t make any money at it. I’m no angel, but I never in my life gave myself to a man just for money. I was nineteen when I went up to the Klondike in 1906. That makes me fifty-two years old now. Now then, Alden, you go on from there.”
Alden Leeds said, “I went into the Yukon in 1906. I picked up a partner by the name of Hogarty. We went up in the Tanana district, and made a pretty good strike. Hogarty had got acquainted with Emily coming in on the boat. He fell for her hard, and kept writing to her.