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"I was near exhaustion.
"My married life had not been happy. My wife, Eunice, and I had, as it turned out, very little in common other than the first rush of passion which had brought about the marriage. When that wore off and we settled down to a day-by-day relationship, we became mutually dissatisfied. She evidenced that dissatisfaction by finding fault with just about everything I did. If I drove a car, I was driving either too fast or too slow. If I reached a decision, she always questioned the decision.
"I evidenced my dissatisfaction by staying away from home a great deal and in the course of time developed other emotional interests.
"During the long hours I was swimming I felt that the situation was hopeless. I reviewed my past life. I realized that I should have separated from her while she was still young enough to have attracted some other man. An attempt to sacrifice both of our lives simply in order to furnish a home to a young daughter was, in my opinion, poor judgment."
"It's difficult to judge a matter of that sort," Mason said, "because the judgment is usually made in co
"Meaning that you don't agree with me?" Winlock said.
"Meaning that I was merely making a marginal comment," Mason said. "However, all that is in the past. If you want to justify your course of conduct I'm very glad to listen to you, but I feel that in view of what you have said we're getting to a point where time is short."
"Exactly," Winlock said. "I'll put it this way. The boat that picked me up was headed for Catalina. I explained to them that I had been on a somewhat drunken party on another boat; that I had made a wager that I could swim to Catalina before the boat got there and had been drunk enough and foolish enough to plunge overboard to try it and the others had let me go, with a lot of jeering and facetious comments.
"I told my rescuers that I had a responsible position and that I certainly couldn't afford any publicity. So they fitted me out with clothes, which I agreed to return, and put me ashore at Catalina and said nothing about it.
"Now then, recently Harrison T. Boring found out in some way what had happened and that I was actually George Alder."
"And he has been asking money?"
"He has been paid money," Winlock said. "I gave him four separate payments, all of which represented blackmail. Boring came to Riverside in order to collect yet another payment. This time it was a very substantial payment and it was represented to me it would be a final payment."
"How much?" Mason asked.
"Ten thousand dollars in cash," Winlock said.
"Can you afford blackmail of that sort?" Mason asked.
"I can't afford not to pay blackmail. This man is in a position to wipe me out. Because I didn't dare to answer the questions in co
"I may state that at that time the circle of my friends was much more limited than is the case at the present time, and what we did-or rather, what we said we had done-attracted very little attention. There was, I believe, a small article in the society column of the local newspaper."
"But how do you feel about Dia
"I couldn't let her know," Winlock said. "I had to make a clean break. There was no other way out of it. However, I may state that I have kept in touch with Dia
"She had a very good job as a secretary with Corning, Chester and Corning of Bolero Beach. She has perhaps no realization of just how she secured that job. If it hadn't been for the influence of a firm of attorneys here in Riverside, who, in turn, were indebted to me, I doubt very much that Dia
"However, that's neither here nor there. I am not trying to justify myself to you, Mr. Mason. I am simply pointing out that your statement to me is a great shock, because it is now apparent that Boring is not interested in a lump sum settlement as he told me, but plans to bleed me white.
"This would kill my wife. To have a scandal come out at this particular time, to have it appear our relationship was illicit, to lose her social prestige- Well, I can't even bear to think of it."
"Your wife has a son by another marriage?"
"That's right. And as far as he is concerned, I- Well, I am not talking about him. If something happened that would- If that young man had to go out and stand on his two feet- Oh, well, that's neither here nor there. There's no use discussing it."
Mason said, "May I ask what Boring told you when he solicited this last ten-thousand-dollar cash payment?"
Winlock shrugged his shoulders. "Probably it would be an old story to you," he said. "The man rang me up. He told me that he was sincerely repentant; that he was just being a common blackmailer; that it was ruining his character and making a crook and a sneak of him; that he had an opportunity to engage in legitimate business; that he needed ten thousand dollars as operating capital; that if he could get this in one lump sum, he could invest it in such a way that he could have an assured income and that I would never hear from him again.
"He promised me that if I got him this one ten thousand-dollar payment, that that would be the last; that he would, as he expressed it, go straight from that point on. That I would have the satisfaction of knowing I had straightened him out at the same time that I was relieving myself of the possibility of any further payments."
"You believed him?" Mason asked.
"I paid him the ten thousand dollars," Winlock said dryly. "I had no choice in the matter."
"The line of patter Boring handed you," Mason said, "is just about standard with a certain type of blackmailer."
"What are you going to do?" Winlock asked.
"I don't know," Mason told him. "Remember, I am representing your daughter, but that she has no suspicion of the true facts in the case-as yet. As her attorney, I will tell her. Now, what do you intend to do?"
"There is only one thing I can do," Winlock said. "I must throw myself on Dia
"But if you could come to terms with Dia
Winlock's shoulders slumped. "I wish I knew," he said simply. "And now, Mr. Mason, I simply must keep my other appointment."
Mason shook hands. "I'm sorry to bring you bad news."
"I had it coming," Winlock said, and escorted him to the door.
"Situation coming to a head?" Sid Nye asked, as Mason opened the door and jumped in the car beside him.
"The situation is coming to a boil," Mason said, "and I think it's going to be advantageous to take some further steps in the interests of justice."
"Such as what?" Nye asked.
"Such as scaring the living hell out of a blackmailer," Mason told him. "Let's go to the hotel. We'll talk with Paul Drake, find out if he knows anything, get in touch with Della Street, and then set the stage for one hell of a fight."
Nye gri
"It opened up possibilities," Mason said.
Nye said, "A kid went tearing out of here in a sports car seven or eight minutes ago, and a dame who is a knockout drove out just a minute or two ago. That mean anything?"