Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

“Come, now, it can’t be that serious,” Mason told him.

“It is.”

“Suppose you tell me just what’s bothering you,” Mason said, “and we’ll see what we can do about it.”

Almost pathetically, Bancroft extended his two hands. “Do you see these?” he asked.

Mason nodded.

“I have built everything in life with these two hands,” Bancroft said. “They have been my means of support. I have worked as a day labourer. I have fought and struggled to get ahead. I have gone into debt until I felt there was no possible way of paying off the indebtedness and achieving financial stability. I have sat tight when it seemed that my whole empire was about to come crashing down. I have fought through adverse conditions and faced enemies with not a single ace in the hole but an ability to bluff them into submission. I have gambled by staking my fortune to buy when everyone else was in a panic to sell, and now these hands hold my undoing.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Because of the fingertips,” Bancroft said.

“Go on,” Mason told him, his eyes narrowing.

“I am a so-called self-made man,” Bancroft said. “I ran away from home when there wasn’t much of a home to keep me. I got tangled up with some rather wild associates, I learned a lot of things that I shouldn’t have known. I learned how to short-cut the ignition wiring on cars, I learned how to make a living in dark alleys, so to speak, by stealing hubcaps, spare tyres and automobiles.

“I was finally caught and sent to the penitentiary, which probably was the best thing that ever happened to me.

“When I went to the penitentiary, I had a resentment against society. I thought that I had been caught simply because I had been imprudent and I resolved to be more cunning when I got out and to continue my nefarious work so that I wouldn’t be caught again.

“There was a chaplain in that prison who took an interest in me. I won’t say that he gave me religion, because, in a way, he didn’t. He simply gave me confidence in myself and my fellow man, and in a divine scheme of the universe.

“He pointed out that life was too complicated to be accidental, that it took a master plan to account for life, as we knew it; that fledglings emerged from the egg, grew feathers and poised on the edge of the nest with the desire to fly because of what we call instinct; that instinct was merely a divine plan and a means by which the architect of that divine plan communicated with the living units.

“He asked me to consult my own instincts, not my selfish inclinations but the feelings that came to me when I could deliberately disregard my environment and put myself in harmony with the universe. He dared me to surrender myself in the solitude of night to the great heart of the universe.”

“And you did?” Mason asked.

“I did it because he told me I was afraid to do it, and I wanted to show him I wasn’t. I wanted to prove he was wrong.”

“And he wasn’t wrong?”

“Something came to me — I don’t know what it was. A feeling of awareness, a desire to make something of myself. I started to read, study and think.”

Mason regarded him curiously. “You have travelled considerably, Mr Bancroft. What do you do about passports?”

“Fortunately,” Bancroft said, “I started out with enough family pride to conceal my real name. The one I used in the penitentiary, the name that I used during all of the period of wildness, was not the name with which I had been christened. I managed to preserve my incognito.”

“But your fingerprints?” Mason asked.

“There’s the rub,” Bancroft said. “If my fingerprints are ever taken and sent to the FBI, within a matter of minutes it will become known that Harlow Bissinger Bancroft, the great philanthropist and financier, is a criminal who served fourteen months in a penitentiary.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Quite evidently, someone has discovered the secret of your past.”

Bancroft nodded.

“And threatens to expose it?” Mason asked. “Are you being asked to pay blackmail?”

By way of answer, Bancroft took a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mason.

The paper had a typewritten message:

Get fifteen hundred dollars in ten and twenty dollar bills. Put them in a red coffee can, together with ten silver dollars. Put the lid on tight and await telephone instructions as to the time and place of disposal. Put this note in with the money so we’ll know the police won’t try to trace us through the typing. If you follow instructions to the letter, you have nothing to fear, otherwise the family will face the disgrace of knowing whose fingerprints are on file and where.

Mason studied the paper carefully. “And this was sent to you through the mail?”

“Not to me,” Bancroft said, “but to my stepdaughter, Rosena Andrews.”

Mason raised inquiring eyebrows.

“Seven years ago I married,” Bancroft said. “My wife was a widow. She had a daughter, Rosena, who was then sixteen. She is now twenty-three. A very beautiful, intense young woman, who is engaged to be married to Jetson Blair of the socially prominent Blair family.”

Mason’s eyes became thoughtful. “Why would they strike at her instead of at you?”

“Because,” Bancroft said, “they wanted to emphasize the fact that she was the more vulnerable, particularly during this period of her engagement.”

“A wedding date has been set?” Mason asked.

“It has not been formally announced, but they expect to be married in about three months.”

“And how did you get this?” Mason asked.

“I knew that my stepdaughter was tremendously upset over something. She came in the door with an envelope in her hand and her face was as white as a sheet. She had planned to go swimming in the afternoon, but rang up Jetson Blair and cancelled the date, saying she wasn’t feeling well.

“I knew something was wrong.

“Rosena made an excuse to leave and go to the city. I assumed she wanted to see her mother, who was spending the night in our apartment here in the city. She left early this morning. Well, Mr Mason, after she had left I went to her room. I found this letter under the blotter of her desk.”

“Now, let’s get this straight,” Mason said. “You say she came to the city and you assumed she wanted to see her mother.”

“Her mother is in the city, making arrangements for a charity ball. She spent yesterday and last night in our apartment here. I have been staying with Rosena out at the lake. Rosena’s mother is due back at the lake tonight. That’s why I wanted to see you at the earliest possible moment. I want to get back to the lake and put this letter where I found it, before Rosena returns.”

“Did you tell your wife anything about your criminal record?” Mason asked.

“Heaven help me,” Bancroft said, “I did not. I should have. I have cursed myself a thousand times for being too cowardly to do so, but I was very much in love. I knew that, regardless of how much Phyllis loved me, she would never jeopardize the social career of her daughter by marrying a man with a criminal record.

“Now, Mr Mason, you know my secret. You are the only living person who does.”

“Other than the person or persons who sent this letter,” Mason said.

Bancroft nodded.

“Rosena has enough money to fulfil these demands?” Mason asked.

“Certainly,” Bancroft said. “She has an account of several thousand dollars in her own name, and, of course, she can always get any amount of money from me whenever she asks for it.”

“You don’t know whether she intends to ignore this demand or to comply with it.”

“I feel certain she intends to comply with it.”