PAGE 12
"Worth 10,000"
by
“No; why should I?”
“That’s a question for you to decide. Did you think to look in the papers to see whether General Dunlap had really been taken ill on a motor trip?”
“No.”
“Yet he’s a well-known person. Surely you expected the papers would mention his illness?”
“It never occurred to me to look. I tell you there was nothing wrong about it. Why do you try to trip me up so?”
“Excuse me, I’m only trying to help you out of what looks like a pretty bad mess. But I’ve got to get the straight of it. Let me run over the points in your story: No sooner do you land in Gulf Stream City than your husband gets a faked-up telegram and goes away? And you are left all alone? And you go for a walk all by yourself? And a man you never laid eyes on before comes up to you and tells you that you look a lot like a friend of his, a certain very rich widow, Mrs. Watrous–somebody, though, that I for one never heard of, and I know the Social Register from cover to cover, and know something about Wilmington too. And on the strength of your imaginary resemblance to an imaginary somebody he introduced himself to you? And then you let him walk with you? And you let him whisper pleasant things in your ear? Two of those pictures that you’ve got in your hand prove that. And you let him take you into one of the most notorious blind tigers on the beach? And you sit there with him in this dump–this place with a shady reputation–“
“I’ve explained to you how that happened. We didn’t stay there. We came right out.”
“Let me go on, please. And you let him buy you wine there?”
“I’ve told you about that part, too–how the bottles and the glasses were already on the table when we sat down.”
“I’m merely going by what the photographs tell, Mrs. Propbridge. I’m merely saying to you what a smart divorce lawyer would say to you if ever he got you on the witness stand; only he’d be trying to convict you by your own words and I’m trying to give you every chance to clear yourself. And then after that you go and sit with him–this perfect stranger–in a lonely place alongside a deserted bath house and nobody else in sight?”
“There were people bathing right in front of us all the time.”
“Were there? Well, take a look at Photograph Number Five and see if it shows any bathers in sight. And he slips his arm around you and draws you to him?”
“I explained to you how that happened,” protested the badgered, desperate woman. “No matter what the circumstances seem to be, I did nothing wrong, I tell you.”
“All right, just as you say. Remember, I’m taking your side of it; I’m trying to be your friend. But here’s the important thing for you to consider: With those pictures laid before them would any jury on earth believe your side of it? Would they believe you had no hand in sending your husband that faked-up telegram? Would they believe it wasn’t a trick to get him away so you could keep an appointment with this man? Would any judge believe you? Would your friends believe you? Or would they all say that they never heard such a transparent cock-and-bull story in their lives?”
“Oh, oh!” she cried chokingly, and put her face in her hands. Then she threw up her head and stared at him out of her miserable eyes. “Where did those pictures come from? You say you believe in me, that you are willing to help me. Then tell me where they came from and who took them? And how did you manage to get hold of them?”
His baitings had carried her exactly to the desired place–the turning point, they call it in the vernacular of the confidence sharp. The rest should be easy.