Mason said, “Emily Milicant has taken a run-out powder. She sent me a phoney letter from a Yuma hotel, hoping that would pull the wool over my eyes.”
“She isn’t there?” Leeds asked, his voice either showing surprise or a well-simulated imitation.
“No,” Mason said. “That hotel has no party by that name stopping there — no one at all who answers the description.”
Leeds digested the information in thoughtful silence.
“Suppose,” Mason said, “you tell me a little more about Hogarty.”
“Suppose I don’t?”
“In that event,” Mason said, “I’ll fill in the gaps as best I can, and do as I see fit.”
“What makes you think Emily killed him?”
“Lots of things,”Mason said. “I don’t think you’re the type who would run away from a killing in a fair fight, and I don’t think you’d kill a man deliberately unless you did it to protect someone you loved. If you’d done that up in the Yukon, there’d have been two witnesses — you and Emily. You’d have stayed and faced the music.”
Leeds twisted his long fingers together. “Emily,” he said, “was high-spirited. She was fond of adventure, and the restrictions which were carried over as an aftermath of the gay nineties, didn’t appeal to her in the least. She went very much on her own. She was very willful, very determined, and very independent.”