Эрл Гарднер: The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

"How was it done?"

"It was done by substituting forged notes for original ones."

The lawyer frowned, and said, "I don't see just how that would be an embezzlement, unless the original notes were negotiated."

Harry McLane, raising his voice for the first time since he had entered the room, said, "You don't need to go into all those details, Sis; just tell him what you want done."

"What do you want me to do?" Mason inquired.

"I want you to return the money to Mr. Basset. That is, I want you to arrange it so I can return the money to Mr. Basset."

"All of it?" Mason asked.

"Eventually, yes. I've only got a little over fifteen hundred dollars to give him now. I'll give him the balance in installments."

"You're working?" Mason asked.

"Yes."

"Where?"

She flushed and said, "I don't think it's necessary to go into that, is it?"

"It might be," he told her.

"We can go into it later if we have to. I'm secretary to an important business man."

"What salary do you make?"

"Is it necessary to go into that?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"So I can decide how much to charge for my services, for one thing," Mason told her.

"It isn't as much as it should be, considering the work I'm doing. The employees have all had to take substantial reductions."

"How much?" Mason asked.

"Forty dollars a week."

"Anyone dependent on you?"

"My mother."

"Living with you?"

"No, in Denver."

"How much do you send her?"

"Seventy dollars a month."

"You're her sole support?"

"Yes."

"How about Harry?"

"He hasn't been able to send anything."

"He's been working for Hartley Basset?"

"Yes."

"How much salary," Mason inquired, "did Harry get?"

Harry McLane said, "I couldn't help Mother out on what I was getting."

"How much was it?"

"A hundred dollars a month."

"It takes more for a man to live than a woman."

Bertha McLane said.

"How long did you work for Basset?"

"Six months."

Mason studied the young man, then said curtly, "And, in that time, you made something over seven hundred and fifty dollars a month, did you not?"

Sheer surprise caused Harry McLane's eyes to widen.

"Seven hundred and fifty dollars a month!" he exclaimed. "I should say not. Old Basset wouldn't give anyone a decent salary. He paid me a hundred dollars a month, and hated like hell to part with it."

"During that time," Mason said, "you embezzled something like four thousand dollars. Added to your salary, that makes your monthly income around seven hundred and fifty dollars a month."

Harry McLane's lips quivered at the corners. He said, "You can't figure it that way," and lapsed into silence.

"Any of that money go to your mother?" Mason asked.

It was Bertha McLane who answered the question.

"No," she said, "we don't know where it went."

Mason turned again to the boy.

"Where did it go, Harry?"

"It's gone."

"Where?"

"I tell you it's gone."

"I want to know where it went."

"Why do you want to know that?"

"Because I've got to know it if I'm going to help you."

"A fat lot of help you're being."

Mason pounded his fist on the desk with slow deliberation, beating time to his words with the pounding of the fist.

"If you think," he said, "that I'm going to try to help you without knowing the facts of the case, you're crazy. Now, are you going to tell me the facts, or are you going to find some other lawyer?"

"He gave the money to someone," Bertha McLane said.

"A woman?" Mason inquired.

"No," Harry said, with a flash of something like pride. "I don't have to pay women money. They're willing to give me money."

"Whom did you give it to?"

"I gave it to someone to invest."

"Who?"

"That's something I'm not going to tell."

"You've got to tell."

"I'm not going to tell. I'm not going to rat on anyone. That's one of the things you can't make me do. Sis has been trying to make me squeal. I won't squeal. I'll go to jail and stay there until I die before I'll turn rat."

Bertha McLane turned toward him.

"Harry," she said, in a pleading voice, "was it that man who was just here in the office—the man who spoke to you there in the doorway?"

"No," Harry said defiantly; "I just met that bird once."

"Where did you meet him?"

"None of your business."

"What's his name?"

"Leave him out of it."

She turned to Perry Mason, and said, "He had some accomplice, someone who was bleeding him for the money, someone who helped him to rig things up so that he could get the money without being caught."

"How did he get the money?" Mason asked.

"He had charge of the note file. Basset charges exorbitant rates of interest. People don't borrow money from him except as a last resort. He gets whatever security he can, and all the interest the law will allow. Sometimes people find that they can raise money from other sources. When they do, they rush in to pay off the notes in order to stop the excessive interest.

"That's what happened in these cases. People came in to pay off the notes. They paid the money to Harry. Harry took the money and gave them back their notes. Then he forged notes with their signatures, and put the forged notes back in the note file. Whenever Mr. Basset checked up on the note file, it seemed to be all right, because these forged notes were in there. And Harry kept the interest paid on the forged notes."

"How was he detected?" Mason asked.

"One of the notes came due. Harry couldn't get the money to meet the note immediately. He thought he'd have a few days. He stalled along, but Mr. Basset happened to see the man who'd given the note at a golf club. He dunned him for the money, and the man told him he'd paid off the note four months ago. He had the original note, marked 'Canceled, to prove his claim. So Basset made a complete investigation."

"What makes you think Harry had an accomplice?"

"He's admitted that much to me. It was the accomplice that got the money. I think he was taking it to gamble with."

"What sort of gambling?"

"All sorts—poker, roulette, horse racing, and lottery, principally horse racing and lottery."

"If the old fool had just sat tight, I'd have got him his money back—all of it," Harry McLane said. Perry Mason turned to Bertha McLane, studied her with level, appraising eyes.

"The fifteen hundred dollars," he said, "represents your savings?"

"It's money that I have in a savings bank—yes."

"Money you've saved out of your salary?"

"Yes."

"You've got to keep on sending your mother seventy dollars a month?"

"Yes."

"You want to pay this amount off so Harry won't have to go to jail?"

"Yes; it would kill Mother."

"And then you intend to make payments out of your salary?"

"Yes."

"Harry is out of a job," Mason said; "you'll have him on your hands to support."

"Don't worry about me," Harry McLane said. "I'll get by all right. I'll get a job and pay Sis back every cent of it. She won't have to pay anything out of her salary. I'll get it all back to her inside of thirty days."

"Just how," asked Perry Mason, "did you intend to get it back?"

"I'm going to get it back. I'll make some investments. I can't run into bad luck all the time."

"In other words," Mason said, "you intend to keep on gambling."

"I didn't say so."

"What are the investments you had in mind?"

"I don't have to tell you what my investments are going to be. You just go ahead and get this thing fixed up with Basset. I'll handle my affairs with Sis."

Mason's tone was final.

"I'll give you my advice right now," he said. "Don't pay Basset one cent."

"But I've got to; the money was taken from him."