Erle Gardner - The Case of the Substitute Face

Hungerford dropped into a chair, as Mason seated himself on the other side of a long, mahogany table.

“I wanted to talk with you about Belle,” Hungerford said. “What about her?” Mason asked.

“I came down on a plane,” Hungerford said. “I was talking with San Francisco a half hour ago on long distance. I understand the newspapers are carrying a story that Carl Newberry, posing as a well-to-do tourist, was C. Waker Moar, an absconding employee of the Products Refining Company. He’d been working on a salary of a hundred and eighty-five dollars a month.”

“So what?” Mason asked.

“And the San Francisco newspapers carry an interview by Charles Whitmore Dail in which he says that Moar absconded with twenty-five thousand dollars of the company’s funds; that had he lived, detectives would have met him at the gangplank and jailed him on a charge of embezzlement; that he has every reason to believe the money which Moar had in the money belt was part of the funds embezzled from the Products Refining Company.”

Mason lit a cigarette and said, “Go on.”

“I want to know what you know about it,” Hungerford said.

“Have you talked with Belle?”

“No. I can’t. They’re holding her in San Francisco.”

Mason met Hungerford’s anxious eyes. “All right,” he said. “Newberry was Moar. He was employed by the Products Refining Company.”

“Where did he get the money on which he was traveling?” Hungerford asked. “Do you know that?”

“He says he won it in a lottery,” Mason said.

“And was there a twenty-five thousand dollar shortage in the Products Refining Company?”

“Yes,” Mason said. “I believe that’s correct.

For several seconds Hungerford was silent. His eyes focused on the shelves of leather-backed law books. Then he once more met Mason’s eyes. “She told me,” he said, “that she’d see me at the Santa Anita Race Track. Apparently she intended to keep right on— well, traveling in my set.”

Mason watched him thoughtfully. “Let’s see if I get you straight, Hungerford. You come to me with all this dirt, hoping I’ll be able to contradict it, hoping I can tell you something good about her, is that right?”

“No,” Hungerford said.

“The hell it isn’t!” Mason told him. “You’re interested in Belle, but you don’t know how much. You’re so wrapped up in conventions that you can’t separate her from her parental environment. When you come right down to it, it’s not Belle you’re uncertain of, but yourself.”

Hungerford flushed, started to make an angry retort, then, under the steady stare of the lawyer’s eyes, lost his anger. After a moment, he said, “I guess you’re right, Mr. Mason. I hadn’t stopped to analyze my own feelings... but I can tell you now that this little talk has helped me understand myself. I know how I feel now .”

Mason watched him with sympathetic eyes.

“Now then, ” he said, “I’ll tell you something. Belle didn’t intend to keep right on traveling in your set, as you’ve expressed it, because she never intended to see you again.”

Hungerford’s face showed surprise.

“Get this,” Mason said, “and get it straight. If there was anything illegal about the manner in which Carl Moar acquired that money, Belle didn’t know it. He told his family he’d won it playing a lottery. That’s what Belle thought. Moar had been working and saving on a small salary. He’d been a bachelor much of his life. He wasn’t Belle’s father. Belle’s father abandoned her and her mother when she was three years old. They’ve never seen or heard from him since. Mrs. Newberry had a little money, enough to get by on. She put Belle through college. Then she married Carl Moar. Naturally, Belle had but little sympathy for her natural father. She became very much attached to Carl Moar. He was the only real father she’d ever known. Then the family had this windfall. She had a chance to travel. She met you. You were inclined to accept her as one of your crowd. You found her interesting, and because her father and mother seemed to be well-to-do tourists, you acted on the assumption they were.”

“That’s the only ground on which Belle could have met you and enjoyed your companionship. Otherwise you’d have patronized her, or ignored her, or pitied her. She was smart enough to know she could never be received on that basis after you returned to your friends on the Mainland. Therefore, she intended to walk off the ship and never see you again. The memory of a few days of pleasant companionship would be something which she’d always cherish. It never entered her head that her stepfather was an embezzler. If she had thought there had been anything illegal in the manner in which he acquired his money, she’d never have touched a cent of it.”

Hungerford said simply, “I care for her — a lot.”

Mason said, “ I don’t know where Moar got the money. I do know that he wasn’t Belle’s father, and I do know that Belle believed he won it in a lottery.”

“Who’s taking care of your fees?” Hungerford asked abruptly.

“Mrs. Moar will,” Mason said. “I haven’t discussed fees with her as yet.”

Hungerford said, “Look here, Mr. Mason. I want to help.”

“Why?”

“Because I care for Belle — a lot more than I ever realized.”

“You’re not hypnotizing yourself into believing you care for her because she’s in a jam, are you?” Mason asked.

Hungerford said, “Mason, I don’t know as I’d ever have known exactly how I felt toward Belle if it hadn’t been for what has happened, I’ve known lots of girls. I suppose I’m considered a good matrimonial catch. The girls themselves have been pretty decent. But mothers have dangled their daughters in front of my eyes until I feel that I’ve seen them all. Belle is different. I’ve met lots of girls who were flippant and full of wisecracks. It’s the attitude they cultivate, for the purpose of appearing modern. Belle’s different. She’s naturally buoyant. She’s eager to live. She wants to wade right out and meet life halfway.”

“Go ahead,” Mason told him, “you’re doing fine.”

Hungerford stared steadily at Mason. “I want to marry her.”

“A Hungerford,” Mason asked, “marrying the daughter of a criminal?”

“Stepdaughter,” Hungerford corrected.

“What will your father say?” Mason asked.

“I hope he’ll say the right thing,” Hungerford said, “because if he doesn’t, it’s going to mean we’ll be estranged from each other. I’m telling you this, Mr. Mason, because I want you to understand why I’m asking to be allowed to contribute toward your fees. Naturally, I’ll ask you to consider what I’ve told you as a sacred confidence. I... well, I naturally want to...”

“Naturally you want to ask Belle yourself?” the lawyer asked with a smile.

“Something like that,” Hungerford said. “I hope she cares for me. I think she does.”

Mason said, “All right, after you’ve asked her, and heard what she has to say, we’ll talk about letting you contribute something toward my fees. In the meantime, we’ll carry on the way we are. One thing, however, may be of interest to you. Carl Moar didn’t embezzle any money from the Products Refining Company.”

“He didn’t?”

Mason shook his head.

“You can prove that?” Hungerford asked eagerly.

“I wouldn’t make the statement unless I could prove it,” Mason said, “and,” — with a dry smile — “for your own personal information, I think that some of the funds for Mrs. Moar’s defense will be contributed by your friend, Charles Whitmore Dail — that is if he has released an interview to the newspapers in which he accuses Moar of embezzlement.”