Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

Bancroft sighed. “All right. The thing is in your hands.”

“Now then,” Mason went on, “I’m going to do one more thing, with your permission.”

“What?”

“From the wording of the note it would seem there is more than one blackmailer. I’m going to break up the combination if possible.”

“How?” Bancroft said.

“It’s a scheme I’m turning over in my mind. I’ll have to give it further thought,” Mason said. “The trouble with a blackmailer is that he always has you on the defensive. He calls the turns. He tells you what to do, how much he wants, where you make the payment, when you make the payment, how you make the payment. You resent it and you sputter. But, in the long run, you give in.”

Bancroft nodded.

“There are just four ways to deal with a blackmailer,” Mason said, holding up his fingers and counting off the points as he made them.

“First, you pay the blackmailer off, thinking that will get him off your neck. That is like chasing a mirage in the desert. A blackmailer never quits.

“Second, you go to the police. You make a clean breast to the police and you lay a trap for the blackmailer and put him in prison, and the police protect your confidence.”

Bancroft shook his head decisively.

“Third,” Mason said, “you get the blackmailer on the defensive, so that he isn’t in a position to call the shots and tell you what to do and when to do it and how to do it. You get him worried. Now, if I’m going to handle this case and I can’t go to the police, I’m going to try the third way.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Bancroft asked.

“Sure, it’s dangerous,” Mason admitted. “But you don’t get anywhere in a deal of this kind unless you’re willing to take chances.”

“What’s the fourth way?” Bancroft asked.

“The fourth way,” Mason said, smiling wryly, “is to kill the blackmailer — and that has been done from time to time — sometimes with very satisfactory results — though I hardly recommend it.”

Bancroft thought for a moment, then said, “It’s in your hands. You’ll have to try it the third way. But at the start we’ll pay off. That will give us a little time.”

“That’s all you gain by paying off,” Mason said, “time.”

“How much money do you want?” Bancroft asked.

“Right at the start,” Mason said, “I want ten thousand dollars. I’m going to hire the Paul Drake Detective Agency, I’m going to put out a lot of operatives, I’m going to try to find out who these blackmailers are, and when I find out I’m going to keep them so busy with problems of their own that they won’t have any time to be putting you and your daughter on the defensive.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Bancroft said, “ if you can do it.”

“I know,” Mason said, “that’s a pretty big if. But that’s the only way I’ll handle it, unless you let me go to the police and tell them the whole story.”

Bancroft vehemently shook his head. “I’m too prominent. It would leak out,” he said.

“Let it leak,” Mason told him. “Proclaim it from the housetops. Go out and stand on your record. Show that rehabilitation is possible.”

“Not now, not now,” Bancroft said. “The results to my stepdaughter would be disastrous. My wife would never forgive me as long as she lived.”

Bancroft took out a chequebook and wrote a cheque for ten thousand dollars.

“I take it,” he said, “this is by way of retainer.”

“And to cover initial expenses,” Mason told him.

Mason opened a desk drawer, took out a small camera, screwed an extension barrel on the lens, put the blackmail letter down on the desk, mounted the camera on a tripod, took three exposures, said, “That should be enough.”

He folded the note and handed it back to Bancroft.

Bancroft said, “You’ll never know how much of a load you’ve taken off my shoulders, Mason.”

“It isn’t off yet,” Mason told him. “And before I get done, you’ll probably be cursing me.”

“Never,” Bancroft said. “I know too much about you, about your reputation for success. Your methods are daring and unconventional, but they pay off.”

“I’ll do my best,” Mason said, “but that’s all I can promise. Now, you’re going to put this note right back where your stepdaughter can find it when she returns with the money.”

“That’s right,” Bancroft said.

“And then what?”

“Then I’m going to leave things entirely up to you.”

“All right,” Mason said. “We’ll try making an end run, and then see if we can’t reverse the field.”

Paul Drake studied the copy of the blackmail note which Della Street had made on her typewriter.

“What do you make of it?” Mason asked.

“To whom was it sent?”

“To Rosena Andrews, who is the stepdaughter of Harlow Bissinger Bancroft.”

Drake whistled.

“Now then,” Mason said, “take another look at it. What do you make of it?”

“It’s the first bite,” Drake said. “If they fall for this, there will be another and another and another.”

Mason said, “I know. But look at the note again, Paul. Notice the business about the tightly sealed coffee can, and it has to be a red coffee can, capable of holding the money and ten silver dollars.”

“So?” Drake asked.

“So,” Mason said, “it means that the delivery is to be made by tossing the can in the water somewhere. And that, after all, is about the best way a blackmailer could work.

“The Bancrofts are at present living at their summer home out on Lake Merticito. Rosena Andrews, the stepdaughter, is an avid water-skier.

“My best guess is that the telephoned instructions will be for her to start out water-skiing with the can under her arm, to drop it at a certain spot in the lake, after making certain no other boats are around.”

“Then what?” Drake asked.

“Then the blackmailers’ boat will swoop out after Rosena is out of sight. They will pick up the coffee can, take out the money and the note, dump the can back in the water, with the lid off so it will sink, and the blackmailers will be merrily on their way.”

“And so?” Drake asked.

“So,” Mason said, “you’re going to have to work fast. I want you to round up some female operatives who will look good in bathing suits. If possible, get a starlet who would like to have some publicity in the newspapers. Dress the girls in the briefest bathing suits the law allows, and rent yourself the speediest boat you can find. Get one with twin motors that are souped up so the boat will be capable of having a burst of speed. Get a pair of powerful binoculars and get started.”

“What do I do?”

“Go out there and have the girls just act crazy,” Mason said. “Have them jumping in the water, flopping around, having water fights, taking sun baths. Run the boat at trolling speed, and if there is any fishing in the lake, you can have some fishing lines out. Then once in a while give the boat a burst of speed. All the time you’ll be hanging around the shoreline where you can keep a watch on the Bancroft residence.

“Sometime this afternoon or tomorrow, you’ll see Rosena Andrews coming out on water-skis and—”

“How will I recognize her?” Drake asked.

“If she’s your pigeon,” Mason said, “she’ll have a red coffee can under her arm, and the boat will leave from Bancroft’s summer home on the lake.”

“I see,” Drake said.

“She’ll go water-skiing or else just be running the boat,” Mason said. “You’re to make no effort to follow her. You’ll be loafing along the shoreline. You watch until she drops the red coffee can. When she drops that coffee can, your girls go crazy. You start the boat out at high speed — not directly for the coffee can, but to try and catch the waves made by the wake of Rosena’s boat. You splash up in the waves and have a great time, and then apparently by accident, you pick up this coffee can.