“All right. Where do you stand?” Mason asked.
“Mrs. Newberry impresses me as being a fine woman,” Hungerford said. “She’s absolutely incapable of having murdered her husband. And Belle’s one girl in a million.”
Mason nodded.
“Don’t you suppose,” Hungerford asked, “that you could get the captain to drop this silly business and—”
“No,” Mason interrupted, “not as matters stand. I hear there’s a witness who claims to have seen Mr. and Mrs. Newberry on deck together shortly before nine o’clock. The officers are being particularly secretive about it. Apparently they don’t want me to know who this witness is, or—”
“I can tell you who the witness is, if that’ll be any help,” Hungerford said eagerly.
“It’ll help a lot,” Mason told him. “They’re keeping her under cover.”
Hungerford said, “She’s Aileen Fell.”
“You mean the spectacled schoolteacher?”
“Yes, the one from Santa Barbito who’s on a six months’ leave of absence — nervous breakdown or something.”