Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

“Well,” Kelsey said, “it seems that Fordyce was an assumed name, that the man who went under the name of Fordyce was related to someone very high socially and if the true identity of Fordyce and his criminal record became known, the very high society wedding between Rosena Andrews, a member of the Bancroft family, and Jetson Blair, a member of the socially prominent Blair family, would never come off.”

“So what was done?”

“Without anything being said that would let Fordyce have any idea we were acting on the information, Gilly and I decided to use the information for our own benefit and turn it into money.”

“Now, what did you do with relation to that decision?”

“Well, I looked up the families a little bit and found the Bancroft family was lousy with money and the Blair family was stronger on social position than money. I felt that it would be easy to get some money out of the Bancroft family.”

“How much money?”

“Fifteen hundred dollars in one bite, a thousand in another.”

“That was all you intended to get?”

“Certainly not. We intended to test out the information that we had. We figured that fifteen hundred dollars and a second payment of a grand would be enough to make it worth while, but not too much to cause undue alarm on the part of Rosena Andrews. We felt that we’d just see how good the tip was. If she was willing to pay fifteen hundred dollars, and her mother another thousand, then we’d wait a week or so and put the bite on her for more and then keep crowding her until we found just what the limit was. At least that was the understanding Gilly and I had.”

“All right, what happened?”

“Well, we wrote a blackmail note and put it on the front seat of Rosena Andrews’ car. We didn’t want to send it through the mail. Gilly had a typewriter and was a good typist. I couldn’t run one of the things. So Gilly wrote the note. He showed me the note, however, and it met with my approval.”

“And what were the terms of the note?”

“That Rosena had to pay fifteen hundred dollars in accordance with instructions that we would give over the telephone unless she wanted to have the information made public that would disgrace the family.”

“That was intended in the nature of a trial balloon?” Hastings asked.

“That’s right. And then Gilly contacted the defendant and put the same story up to her and she decorated the mahogany with a thousand. Neither knew the other had been milked on a shakedown.”

“Go ahead. Then what happened?”

“Well, we kept watch until we were sure Rosena had got her note. She got in the automobile and saw the note on the front seat and picked it up, looked at it, read it a couple of times and then drove off.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well,” Kelsey said ruefully, “without my knowledge, after I had seen the note, Gilly apparently had crossed out the fifteen hundred dollars and put the bite on her for three thousand.”

“Without telling you?”

“Without telling me.”

“What was the object of that?” Hastings asked.

“He was trying to cut himself another fifteen hundred dollars. You see, according to the way we figured out our instructions, we’d take a boat out on the lake — the Bancrofts were staying at their summer house on the lake — and Gilly was quite a water diver — that is, a skin-diver... My idea was that we’d rent a boat, just like a couple of ordinary fishermen, and Gilly would have his skin-diving outfit in the boat. We’d put out and I’d go fishing. He would skin-dive and be at a certain place at a certain time and then we’d have Rosena Andrews drop the money overboard in this coffee can. Gilly would skin-dive under the coffee can, scoop it down under the water, then swim over to the shore line where he’d be undetected and I’d put the boat over in to the shore as though I were looking for fish there. Gilly would climb in and change his clothes and put the skin-diving outfit in the big hamper we had and we’d go on back and turn the boat in and drive away. That way, even if there’d been a squawk to police no one could catch us.”

“What happened?” Hastings asked.

“I guess by this time everybody knows what happened,” Kelsey said. “We told her to put the money in a coffee can — a red coffee can — and as luck would have it, it just happened there were two red coffee cans. One of them was just an empty can that someone had tossed overboard from a boat after using it for bait, and the other one was the can with the money. Well, it happened that a water-skier picked up the can with the money and turned it over to the police, and Gilly grabbed the empty can that had been used as a bait can.”

“You discussed the matter with him?”

“After we saw in the paper what had happened, I discussed the matter of his double-cross with him.”

“What do you mean by double-cross?”

“About his trying to get three thousand instead of fifteen hundred and holding out the fifteen hundred.”

“And what did he say with reference to that?”

“He swore he hadn’t made the change in the letter, that someone had double-crossed him and he accused me of doing it so I could get an extra fifteen hundred.”

“All right, then what happened?”

“Well, after we found out we’d picked up the wrong coffee can, Gilly called Rosena and told her that she hadn’t followed instructions and she accused him of being a nosy newspaper reporter and hung up. So then he called the mother and she said to meet her down at the float at the Blue Sky Yacht Club and she’d take him out in the yacht and pay the money there and then put him ashore and in that way they could both be sure that nobody was watching, that she thought some private detectives were in on the deal and she wanted privacy just as much as anybody.”

“And what time was he to meet her?”

“Seven o’clock on the float at the Blue Sky Yacht Club.”

“Do you know whether he did meet her or not?”

“I’m just telling you what I know from what I heard on the telephone and from what Gilly told me. All I know for sure is that Gilly took off for the Blue Sky Yacht Club and that was the last I ever saw of him.”

“Cross-examine,” Hastings said.

“ How did he take off for the Blue Sky Yacht Club?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. The last I saw of him was when he was eating dinner in his room. That was about six-thirty. He always went for canned pork and beans in a big way, and my last talk with him was when he was sitting there gulping down canned pork and beans. He said he’d have to leave a little before seven, and that before midnight we’d have our three thousand dollars.”

“Then what?”

“Then I went out on some business of my own. After that I went back to the Ajax-Delsey. I also had a room there. I waited and waited for Gilly to come back. When he hadn’t come in by midnight, I figured he’d collected the three grand and had taken a powder so he wouldn’t have to split with me.”

“You knew that Gilly had posed as a friend of Irwin Fordyce?”

“Certainly.”

“And under the guise of friendship had got Fordyce to confide in him?”

“Of course.”

“And then had deliberately used that information for the purposes of blackmail?”

“Sure,” Kelsey said. “I’m no angel. I’m not trying to pose as an angel, and Gilly was in every bit as deep as I was.”

“And you had a plan to double-cross Gilly? You planned to force Eve Amory to sign a paper saying the three thousand found in the coffee can was hers, that the whole idea was a scheme for personal publicity for her and that she wanted the police to turn the money back to her, and then you were going to force her to turn it over to you on another blackmailing scheme?”