“Yes.”
“It’s been years. I hadn’t seen him since he was married.”
“And you saw him on the ship?”
“Yes.”
“I rather gathered that he was trying to avoid you,” Mason said.
“I think he was, at first. However, I happened to run into him on the promenade deck Sunday morning.”
Mason said, “I’m going to put my cards on the table, Miss Whiting. I’ve been investigating you because I think you may be a very material witness for me. I know all about your marriage, about your going to Honolulu on your honeymoon.”
“It wasn’t my honeymoon,” she said — “that is, it was and it wasn’t.”
“Just why did you go?” Mason asked.
“I started to Honolulu with my husband,” she said, “but before we’d left the bay a speed launch came alongside the ship. My husband had to go back. They lowered a rope ladder. He went down the side. I couldn’t have gone down that ladder even if I’d wanted to. I was never so bitterly disappointed in my life. He told me to go on to Honolulu and he’d follow on a clipper plane.”