Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

Mason smiled tolerantly and said, “Not while you’re in this mood, Miss Andrews. If I’m going to talk to you at all, I should like to do so when we could look at the matter with calm appraisal.”

“I’m willing to listen,” she said.

“With one ear,” Mason told her. “You’re too indignant to give undivided attention at the present time.”

“Well, I have a right to be indignant.”

“You still haven’t told me why.”

“You know perfectly well why. That blackmail note was sent to me . I was the one who was instructed to get the fifteen hundred dollars in ten and twenty-dollar bills, put them in a coffee can with ten silver dollars to balance the coffee can just enough so it would keep floating right side up, put the lid on tight and toss it overboard from my boat at a time when there were no boats in the vicinity.

“No sooner had I done it than this boat with a lot of scantily clad bathing beauties came swooping up out of nowhere — I thought at first they were the people who were going to collect the money, but then I decided they wouldn’t be quite that brazen about it. However, there seemed to be no one else in the vicinity, so I let it go.”

“Now, let’s get this straight,” Mason said. “You say the blackmail note was addressed to you?”

“You know it was.”

“How would I know?”

“Probably through my stepfather, who has been snooping around and who took that note from my desk and then replaced it under the blotter.”

“How do you know that?”

“I took the precaution of marking the exact place I had put the note under the blotter. I just wanted to know if someone might be snooping around.”

“Do I gather there is no great amount of affection lost between you and your stepfather?” Mason asked.

“You don’t gather anything of the sort. I love him. He’s wonderful, considerate, overly protective, overly solicitous, a worrywart, and he’s always worrying about me.”

“So what do we do now?” Mason asked.

“Now,” she said, “I don’t know. You’ve put me on a spot. I had fifteen hundred dollars to turn over to some people who were going to suppress certain information. Somebody has changed the note to three thousand dollars, somebody has put in another fifteen hundred dollars in addition to mine, and now we’ve got a starlet in a bikini bathing suit having her photograph all over the front pages of the papers, the police have got hold of the money, and... Well, frankly, there’s hell to pay.”

“Has anybody asked you to pay hell yet?” Mason asked.

“Not yet,” she said, “but I dread what’s going to happen.”

“Perhaps,” Mason said, “you’d care to tell me how it happens you’re so vulnerable.”

“What do you mean, vulnerable?”

“So that a blackmailer could put a bite on you.”

“I think we’re all vulnerable,” she said. “Virtually everybody has some skeleton in his closet.”

“What’s your skeleton?”

“That’s none of your business. I realize you’re trying to protect me in some way, but I’m here to advise you, Mr Perry Mason, that I don’t want protection. I want to deal with this thing in my own way.”

Mason said, “I hope you realize that once you start playing ball with a blackmailer, you’re licked. You pay once and then you pay again and then you pay again and again and again, and then you keep on paying until you’re bled white.”

“No one is going to bleed me white,” she said. “I’m gaining time, that’s all.”

“Time for what?”

“Time to play things my own way. I’ll take care of my own business in my own way, and I don’t need your help.”

“Were you,” Mason asked, solicitously, “trying to protect someone else in this thing?”

“That,” she said, “is none of your business. All I want to tell you, face to face, is that I want you to keep out of this and let me handle it my own way.”

“But don’t you understand, you’re walking into quicksand,” Mason said. “You keep getting deeper and deeper and—”

“I know what I’m doing, Mr Mason. I’m gaining time. I was willing to pay fifteen hundred dollars to gain time.”

“And then they’ll put another bite on you.”

“By that time,” she said viciously, “they’ll break their teeth.”

“You seem to be a very determined young woman.”

“And resourceful,” she added. “Don’t forget that.”

Mason sized her up thoughtfully. “Perhaps if you’d tell me just what you have in mind, Miss Andrews, I might be able to give you some advice that would help and we could, so to speak, pool our resources.”

She doggedly shook her head.

“This information that is hinted at in the blackmail letter. You have an idea what that is all about?”

“I know what it is all about,” she snapped.

“Would you care to discuss it?”

“Certainly not. It’s my business and my business alone.”

“Perhaps,” Mason said, “for romantic reasons, or perhaps because of social prestige, you feel that if you could gain a few days or a few weeks or so, you could handle the situation to better advantage.”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“Do you think it would make any real difference?” Mason asked.

“What would?”

“The passage of time.”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “The persons who sent that note have been communicating with you by telephone?”

“That would seem to be a natural inference.”

“Is there any way by which they identify themselves?”

“That,” she said, “is something else that I don’t care to discuss... The purpose of this visit, Mr Mason, is to tell you that I don’t want your services. I have no need for the services of a lawyer. I am doing this on my own, I have my own plans, I am handling things my own way, and I don’t want any interference. I’ll thank you, therefore, to keep out of my affairs entirely and completely. And this is formal notice.”

With that, she turned and marched abruptly out of the office.

Mason nodded to Della Street. “See if you can get Bancroft on the phone for me.”

A few moments later, Della Street nodded to Perry Mason and said, “He’s on the line.”

“Hello, Bancroft,” Mason said. “I’ve just received a visit from your stepdaughter. She’s breathing smoke and fire.”

“How in the world did she find out about you?”

“Apparently she knew you called me yesterday morning and came dashing in for an emergency appointment. She also felt certain that you had read the blackmail note while she was out of her room. You changed the position of the note somewhat.”

“Just what did Rosena want?” Bancroft asked.

“She wanted to serve notice on me personally and professionally that she didn’t need any attorney, that she was fully capable of taking care of herself, that she had her own plans and that she didn’t want any interference from me.”

“I don’t care what she said,” Bancroft said, “you stay on the job! She’s young and impulsive and self-reliant — too self-reliant. She thinks she can cope with professional blackmailers and she can’t do it.”

Mason said, “It might be a good plan if you went to her and had a frank talk, inasmuch as she knows you saw the letter, and inasmuch as she’s trying to protect you as well as herself. You might do well to sit down and discuss it with her.”

“No,” Bancroft said, “she has to come to me. She’s got to break the ice. So far, she hasn’t seen fit to confide in me, but this blackmail letter was intended for her and she’s playing her cards close to her chest. I’m not going to interfere.”

“In view of the fact that she has told me to keep the hell out of her affairs,” Mason said, “my hands are somewhat tied.”