Erle Gardner - The Case of the Substitute Face

“You don’t take it seriously, then?” Mason inquired.

“Me?” she told him, raising her chin and laughing up into his face. “I don’t take anything seriously — life, liberty, or the pursuit of love. I’m the flippant younger generation, Mr. Mason — born without reverence — yet reared without guile, thank Heaven.”

“And how about your father?” Mason inquired. “How does he take it?”

“Oh, Dad takes it right in his stride,” she said. “Pops is a Thinker, carries the world on his shoulders. Only occasionally can I get him to set it down long enough to play with me.”

“That,” Mason said, “doesn’t answer my question.”

“Ooh, the Big Bad Lawyer!” she laughed. “I forgot I was being cross-examined. What shall we call this, Mr. Mason — ‘The Case of the Purloined Picture’?”

“It wasn’t purloined,” he said, “so much as substituted.”

“All right, then. ‘The Case of the Substitute Face.’ How will that do?”

“All right,” he said, “at least temporarily. What does your father say about it — and, incidentally, what are your theories?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have theories. I’m too young... You don’t mind being kidded a bit, do you, Mr. Mason? Because if you do, you only have to say so and I get worse... No, seriously speaking, Dad and I both think it’s just a joke someone in the hotel played. You know Moms. She swears that it was my picture in the frame when she was doing the packing, but Moms gets excited when we travel. You see. Miss Joyce and I look alike, even if Miss Joyce wouldn’t admit it. Ever since I started traveling, people in restaurants and night clubs have been staring at me, nudging each other and whispering.”

“You might capitalize on it,” Mason said. “A stand-in or something.”

“That’s what I claim,” Belle Newberry said, the banter instantly leaving her eyes, and her voice slightly wistful. “I think it would be a swell chance for me to go to Hollywood and look around, but Dad says nothing doing, that I stay with him until after I’m twenty-three, and that’ll be six months. My Lord! It seems as though I’ve been twenty-two forever... there I go, telling my age!”

Mason laughed. “You liked Honolulu?”

“Crazy about it,” she said. “Lord, how I hated to leave! I’d never even dreamt of such a glamorous, thrilling experience. I suppose I shouldn’t indulge in all those enthusiasms, but should be more like the society bud at the hotel who raised her eyebrows and made her face look like a stifled yawn whenever anyone asked her how she enjoyed the Islands. Then, after just the right interval, she’d say, ‘Oh, they’re quite nice, thank you.’ You know, that world-weary sophistication which comes to us blase twenty-year-olds.”

“Yes,” Mason laughed, “I’ve encountered it.”

“I’ve wallowed in it,” she said. “It surrounded me all through college.”

“Your first ocean voyage?” Mason inquired.

“Going to the Islands was not only my first ocean voyage,” she told him, “but positively and absolutely the first time I’ve ever been... well now, wait a minute, I hadn’t better make any confessions. After all, there’s nothing so disillusioning as a woman with a drab past, and you know, I...”

She broke off as the door on the lee side opened, and Roy Hungerford, attired in white flannels, stepped out to the deck and looked eagerly to the right and left. He caught sight of them, smiled, and came swiftly toward them. Belle Newberry hooked her arm through his and performed introductions.

Della Street said, “You two go walk up that appetite. I see that I have to go into a huddle with the boss. He has a businesslike look on his face. You shouldn’t have mentioned mysteries, Belle. Now you’ve reminded him that he’s returning to the office.”

Belle Newberry flashed her a grateful glance, and nodded to Roy Hungerford. They pushed forward into the wind, and Della Street looked up at the tall lawyer and said, “Okay, Chief, spill it.”

“Spill what?” Mason asked.

She laughed and said, “Go on, don’t pull that stuff on me. Tell me all about the family mystery — The Case of the Substitute Face.”

“You know about all there is to know about it,” Mason told her. “The photographs were switched.”

“Who did the switching, and why?” Della asked.

“I don’t know,” Mason admitted. “There are complicating factors. Come on up on the boat deck and I’ll tell you about them.”

They climbed the stairway, walked past the gymnasium, across the deck tennis court, and found a sheltered spot in the lee of the rooms used as ship’s hospital. Mason told Della Street of his conversation with Mrs. Newberry. “So,” she said when he had finished, “you sent a radiogram to Paul Drake.”

He nodded.

She laughed. “Well, that’ll be a good preliminary training for Paul. He’s had a rest while you were batting around the Orient. I’ll bet he missed the wild scramble of your work. How about breakfast?”

He nodded. “In a minute. What do you think of her?”

“Of whom?”

“Of your cabin-mate.”

“Oh, she’s a kick. She’s an observing kid, and chuck full of life. She’s modern, impatient of all sham and pretense, and isn’t too affected to show enthusiasm. She’s as full of bounce as a rubber ball.”

“Did she say anything about young Hungerford?”

“No. It’s really deep and serious with her. She treats the world in that light, flippant manner, but this is something she won’t treat that way. Come on. Chief, let’s eat. I’m starved.”

They were half through breakfast when Drake’s first radiogram was received. It read simply:

PRODUCTS REFINING COMPANY ASSETS SHORT TWENTY-FIVE GRAND. PRIVATE DETECTIVES MAKING QUIET SEARCH FOR MOAR — VANISHED EMPLOYEE. NO COMPLAINT FILED AS YET. APPARENTLY NIGGER SOMEWHERE IN WOODPILE AND AUDITORS LACK SUFFICIENT PROOF TO MAKE DEFINITE ACCUSATIONS.

Della, taking the cablegram from Mason, said, “That’s fast work, Chief.”

“Uh huh. But remember, it’s later there than it is here. He’s been on the job for two or three hours.”

They were strolling the promenade deck, snapping colored photographs with Mason’s miniature camera, when Drake’s second message came. It read:

NO SWEEPSTAKE OR LOTTERY WINNERS NAMED MOAR. WINNERS LAST FOUR MONTHS ALL ACCOUNTED FOR.

And his third radiogram was received about noon:

WINNIE JOYCE HAS NO SISTERS. BETTER FORGET ROMANCE PERRY AND STICK TO BUSINESS. COME HOME. ALL IS FORGIVEN.

Mason, folding the message, said, “Damn him, I’ll get even with him for that.”

“Here comes Mrs. Newberry,” Della Street Said.

Mason returned Mrs. Newberry’s good-morning, and said, “I have some information for you.”

“Can you tell me now?” she asked, glancing dubiously at Della Street.

Mason said, “I have no secrets from Della. Do you want me to beat around the bush, or do you want it straight from the shoulder?”

“Straight from the shoulder.”

“All right. The Products Refining Company is about twenty-five thousand dollars short. Private detectives are looking for your husband. He didn’t win any sweepstakes.”

She kept her profile turned toward them, her eyes staring far out over the ocean. Weariness was stamped on her features. “It’s what I expected,” she said.

Mason said, “I think you’d better have a talk with your husband, Mrs. Newberry.”

“It won’t do any good,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he suggested, “if I sat in on the conference it would help.”

“Help what?” she asked.

“Help to make him tell the truth.”

“Well,” she said dejectedly, “suppose he tells the truth. What then?”