Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Sulky Girl

Don Graves, standing in front of the safe, turned to Perry Mason.

"This compartment of the safe, sir, contains all of the documents relating to the partnership business of Crinston & Norton."

"Very well," said Mason. "You're familiar with the details of those documents, I take it?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Generally, what is the financial state of the partnership?"

"The partnership had a few rather unfortunate investments, sir. There were some commitments which ran into rather a large deficit, amounting to something around million dollars. But, aside from that, the affairs were in good shape. There was, I believe, something like eight hundred thousand dollars on deposit in various banks. Would you like the exact figures?"

"You might give them to me," said Mason. "I want to get just a general idea of the financial setup."

Graves took a book from the safe, opened it, and read off a column of figures.

"The account was in a little better shape than I thought, sir. There's a balance of eight hundred and seventysix thousand, five hundred and fortytwo dollars and thirty cents at the Seaboard Second National Trust Company, and two hundred and ninetythree thousand, nine hundred and four dollars and fifty cents in the Farmers and Merchants National.

"There are notes, representing the partnership loss which are held at the Wheeler's Trust and Savings Bank in an amount of nine hundred thousand dollars, with some interest due on them, I believe, and there's a deposit in that bank of seventyfive thousand dollars."

"How about the trust funds?" asked Mason. "The funds representing the trust in favor of Frances Celane?"

"Those are in excellent shape," said Graves. "There is over a million dollars in stocks, bonds, and securities. There's a list of them in this ledger. Mr. Norton was particularly careful about his trust obligations, and kept the account right up to date."

"Are there any liabilities in the trust account?" asked Mason.

"No, sir. There's not a dollar of indebtedness. The assets are all net."

"Then how about Mr. Norton's individual account; that is, outside the partnership of Crinston & Norton?"

"That's something that I can't tell you very much about," said the secretary. "Mr. Norton kept his private business in such shape that it required but little bookkeeping, and carried most of it in his head. Virtually all of the commercial transactions were in the partnership of Crinston & Norton. Mr. Norton's private affairs were confined to the purchase of giltedged stocks and bonds, which he kept in a safety deposit box."

"How about a will?" asked the lawyer.

"Yes, sir, there's a will. I don't know where it is. I think it's somewhere in the safe here. I understand generally it leaves everything to Miss Celane. Mr. Norton had no close relatives, you understand."

The police representative said casually, the words coming through an aura of cigarette smoke which seeped out from his mouth as he talked: "Pretty good thing for this Celane woman all around. She gets her trust account free and clear, and also gets a gob of money from the old man, himself."

Perry Mason made no reply to the comment, but continued to address Don Graves.

"Just where is the will?" he asked. "Can you find it?"

"Most of his personal papers were kept in this pigeonhole in the safe," said Graves, indicating a pigeonhole.

Perry Mason walked over to the safe, reached in the pigeonhole, and pulled out a bundle of papers.

"Life insurance policy with the Prudential," he said. "Amount, five hundred thousand dollars. The beneficiary is the estate."

"Yes, sir," said the secretary.

"You'll find several life insurance policies in cash to the estate. Those were taken out in order to have sufficient ready cash in the estate to pay inheritance taxes without necessitating a sale of securities at a loss."

"Good idea," said the lawyer. "Here are some more policies. You can list those."

He pulled out a small pasteboardbacked notebook from underneath the policies.

"What's that?" asked the police representative.

Perry Mason turned it over slowly.

"Looks like a car register," he said, "of mileage."

Don Graves laughed.

"Yes," he said, "that's one of the things about Mr. Norton. He always wanted appointments kept to the minute; always carried watches that were adjusted to the second; always kept an account of every mile that was traveled by one of his automobiles. He wanted to know exactly how much mileage he was getting to every gallon of gas and oil. I presume you can tell to within a fraction of a cent how much it cost him to operate every automobile."

"How many cars did he have?" asked Mason, fingering the notebook carelessly.

"He had three: The Buick sedan, a Ford coupe, and a Packard roadster."

"The Packard roadster was the one that Miss Celane usually drove?" asked the lawyer.

"It was," said Graves, "and you won't find any figures on that. That was the despair of his life. Miss Celane simply wouldn't turn in mileage figures."

"I see," said Mason. "But the others are accurately accounted for?"

"Yes."

"Miss Celane wasn't in the habit of operating the others?"

Don Graves flashed the lawyer a meaning glance.

"No," he said, shortly.

Perry Mason carelessly opened the notebook to the division which had to do with the Buick sedan, and noticed the different mileage reports which were in there. Apparently for every mile the Buick had traveled, there was a note as to the kind of road it had gone over, the place to which it had been driven, the general average speed, and much other data which represented a mass of detail that would have been considered useless to any save a mind that gloried in figuring costs to a fraction of a cent.

Perry Mason maintained a pose of casual interest as he fingered the pages until he came to the last entry covering the Buick sedan, which was as follows: "15,294.3 miles. Left house and drove to bank. Arrived bank at 15,299.5 miles. Left bank and returned to house at 15,304.7 miles. Instructed Devoe to fill tank."

Perry Mason glanced at the date, and saw that it was the date on which Norton had met his death.

"I see," he remarked casually, "that he went to the bank the day of his death."

"Did he?" said Don Graves.

"I wonder," said Perry Mason, "if that was when he got his money… that is, the cash that he carried."

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you, sir."

"Does anyone know why he had such a large sum of cash in his possession?" asked the lawyer.

"No," said Graves, emphatically.

"Almost looks as though he might have been blackmailed or something," said Mason, his patient eyes peering out from under his level brows at the face of the secretary.

Don Graves met his glance without changing expression by so much as the flicker of an eyelash.

"I hardly think so, sir," he said.

Mason nodded and slipped the book into his pocket. "Just a minute," said the police officer. "Shouldn't that book be kept here with the rest of the papers?"

Mason smiled.

"That's right," he said. "It looks so much like a notebook that I sometimes carry, I mechanically dropped it into my pocket."

He handed the book to the secretary, got up, and yawned.

"Well," he said, "I guess I've covered about everything I need to, as a first preliminary survey. Of course, we'll have to take a detailed inventory later on."

"We can take the detailed inventory now if you want," said Graves.

"Oh, I don't think so," said Mason, yawning again. "There's going to be a lot of detailed stuff to check over here, and I'll probably want my own stenographer here to take notes when I go into it in detail. I hate detail work."

"How about the will? Should we make any further search for the will?" asked Graves.