That he was bumped off.'
She flicks the ash off her cigarette.
'That seems ridiculous to me, Mr Frayme,' she says. 'The watchman on Cotton's Wharf testified that he saw Granworth drive the car over the wharf. That looks like suicide doesn't it?'
'Yeah,' I tell her, 'that's OK, but I gotta tell you what happened. This guy in the DA's office tells me that they got information that you slipped a counterfeit Registered Dollar Bond over at the bank here, an' of course that was reported to the Federal Government. The Feds evidently put a 'G' man on the job, an' this guy gets around in New York an' he grills this watchman on Cotton's Wharf an' after a bit he gets the whole truth about this business. What the watchman said he saw an' what he really saw is two different things, believe me, lady, because the watchman tells this 'G' man that he saw Granworth Aymes' car drive slowly down the wharf, an' that when it was half way down an' in the shadow the off-side door opens an' somebody gets out. He can't see who it is, but he can see it's a woman. He sees her turn around an' lean inside the car an' then shut the door. The car starts off again, gathers speed, bounces off a wooden pile an' goes right over the edge into the river.
'I see,' she says. 'And why doesn't this watchman tell this story at the coroner's inquest?'
I grin.
'He had a reason, lady,' I tell her. 'A durn good reason. He kept his mouth shut about that little incident because a certain guy by the name of Langdon Burdell - a guy who was your husband's secretary - gave him one thousand dollars to forget everything except seeing the car bounce off the pile an' go over the edge.'
She looks at me as if she has been struck by lightning.
'It looks like this Burdell guy is pretty friendly towards you,' I tell her, 'because when this 'G' man had seen him previously he said that you wasn't in New York that night, you was in Connecticut, an' it looks as if he not only said that but that the night after the death he had scrammed down and bribed the watchman good an' plenty to keep his mouth shut about that woman.'
'Well, what does that look like?' I say. 'It looks like Granworth Aymes mighta been dead an' stuck in that car. It looks like the woman mighta been drivin' it, don't it?'
She don't say anything for a minute. I see her wet her lips with her tongue. She is takin' this stuff pretty well, but she is frightened, I reckon. But she soon gets hold of herself again.
'If Granworth were killed they could have discovered it at the post mortem,' she says.
'Maybe,' I tell her, 'an' maybe not. But the guy in the DA's office tells me that Granworth was smashed up through the fall into the river. Remember when that car hit bottom he banged plenty hard against the wind shield. His head was all smashed in, but that mighta been done before he was put in the car.'
'I don't understand any of this,' she says. 'And I don't understand why Langdon Burdell should have bribed the watchman to tell some story that was not the truth. Why should he do that?'
'Search me, lady,' I tell her. 'But I expect that the DA's office can find that out if they wanta start gettin' funny with somebody.'
I ask her if she would like some more coffee, an' she says yes, so I order it. While we are waitin' for it to come I am keepin' a quiet eye on Henrietta an' I can see she is doin' some very deep thinkin', which don't surprise me because it looks like I have given her something to think about.
When the coffee comes she drinks it as if she was glad to have something to do. Then she puts the cup down an' looks straight at me.
'I'm wondering why you took the trouble to tell me all this, Mr Frayme,' she says. 'What was in your mind? What did you expet me to do?'
'It ain't what's in my mind, Henrietta,' I tell her. 'It's what's in the mind of these guys in the New York DA's office. The thing is this. My friend who works there says that nobody gave a durn about whether Granworth Aymes committed suicide or not until this counterfeit business turned up. The inquest was all over an' everything was tied up an' put away, an' then this Registered Dollar Bond thing happens. Well, that's a Federal job, an' the 'G' people at Washington have made up their minds good an' plenty to find out who it was faked those phoney bonds. If they can find that out everything's hunky dory an' they ain't likely to worry about the inquest or anything else.
'When I went to the Hacienda Altmira last night that guy Sagers, the feller who was workin' there an' who was leavin' for Arispe today, told me you was Mrs Henrietta Aymes, an' I made up my mind to tell you about this business, an' here's why:
'Supposin' for the sake of argument you know somethin' about this counterfeitin'. Supposin' you know who fixed it. Well, if I was you I'd come across. Slip me the works. Then, when I go back to New York I can hand the information quietly to my pal in the DA's office an' if it's good enough for them to pass on to the 'G' people at Washington an' satisfy their curiosity, well, I don't reckon that they'll want to re-open that case about your husband.
'You see these guys reckon that you must know something about that counterfeitin'. An' if you don't come across with some information, it's a cinch that they'll re-open the business about your husband's death just so that they got something to pin on to you that will make you talk. See?'
'I see' she says, 'but I've no information to give any one. The package of Dollar Bonds which I brought with me out here was taken from my husband's safe deposit where I kept them. I understood from Mr Burdell that the safe deposit was opened with the key taken from my husband's dead body by his lawyer, who handed them to me. That is all I know. As for their re-opening the question of my husband's death and the suggestion that I was in New York on that night, well, they'll have to prove that, won't they?'
'Yeah. I suppose they will,' I tell her. I am thinking that all the proof wanted is in the three letters from her to Granworth that I have got stored away in the safe at the Miranda House hotel.
'Anyhow it was very nice of you to give me this warning,' she says. 'It seems that I have a lot to thank you for, Mr Frayme, and now, if you don't mind I think I'll be getting back.'
We go out an' get into the car an' I drive back. I make out that I do not know where she is living an' she tells me the way. I drop her at the door, an' I wonder how she will feel when she finds out that somebody has pinched those three letters - three letters that may spell a bundle of trouble for this dame.
She says goodnight She gets outa the car an' she walks up to the door of the rancho. When she gets there she looks back at me an' smiles.
I reckon Henrietta has got nerve all right.
I start the car up an' I just drive along. I don't take any notice of where I am goin' because I am busy turnin' over in my mind what she has said. By an' large she seems to be takin' this business pretty calm.
There is one or two things that I cannot understand about this Henrietta. I cannot understand why she made that crack about havin' to marry Fernandez, an' I certainly cannot understand why she kept the three letters she wrote to Granworth - the letters that prove she saw him on the night he died-instead of gettin' rid of 'em pronto.
But I don't think that she knows anything about Sagers bein' bumped off. When I brought his name up an' said that he was the guy who was leavin' for Arispe I was watchin' her like a cat watches a mouse an' she never batted an eyelid.
An' I reckon she has got enough nerve to have bumped off Aymes. Let's do a bit of supposin'. Let's suppose she goes back to New York after writin' the letters because she has made up her mind to have a show down with Granworth about this woman who he is supposed to be runnin' around with. Maybe Granworth meets her some place in his car, because when I talked to Burdell about it when I was in New York before I come down here, he tells me that Aymes left the office to 'meet some people' an' he was lookin' a bit excited. Maybe he was goin' to meet Henrietta. All right, well, they meet an' they have one helluva row. It might be possible too, that in between whiles she has discovered that the Dollar Bonds he gave her was phoney. So what? Aymes is sittin' in the drivin' seat of the car in some quiet place an' she smashes him one over the head with a gun-butt or something an' knocks him out. Then she has an idea. She remembers how he tried this suicide business once before in East River, an' she thinks she can pull a fast one. She shoves him outa the drivin' seat an' pushes him over in front of the passenger seat Then she gets in an' drives round by the back way until she gets to Cotton's Wharf which is pretty deserted. She don't see the watchman standin' at the end of the wharf. She gets out, leavin' the engine runnin', turns the wheel so that the car is pointin' to the edge of the wharf, leans over an' presses the clutch pedal down with her hand an' shoves the gear lever into gear. Then, as the car moves she stands away an' shuts the door. This would account for the car runnin' into the wooden pile before it bounced into the river.
I reckon she coulda done it that way, an' I reckon that she has got the nerve. The fact that she's pretty don't
