Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

Drake made a series of circles.

Della Street said, “That other boat, the man who was fishing, seems to be pulling in his anchor and giving up.”

“So he does,” Mason said. “He’s taking a course which will intercept the wake of that boat from the Bancroft house... No, wait a minute, he’s making a wide circle. Here’s Drake cutting in front of him, and the water-skier almost flipping water in the fellow’s face. I’ll bet he’s one angry fisherman.”

“Or one exasperated blackmailer,” Della Street said.

Drake’s boat made another series of circles, then the water-skier gave a signal. Drake slowed the boat. The skier dropped into the water, then swam gracefully to the boat and another of the young women came out to put on the water-skis.

The second bathing beauty who took up water-skiing was not as adept as the first, and after about five minutes, she returned to the boat.

Drake hauled in all of the skiing paraphernalia, made a wide circle and headed back toward the southern end of the lake and the public beach.

The man who had been pole fishing in the boat moved slowly along, then turned and moved back toward a shaded bank, where he again took up pole fishing. The boat which had put out from Bancroft’s residence returned.

The wind freshened somewhat. There was little traffic on the lake.

Mason searched the waters with his binoculars.

“Can you see any red can?” Della Street asked.

Mason shook his head. “I thought once,” he said, “I had a flash of something red, just a brief glimpse of a red dot on the top of a wave. But I can’t see a thing now. Drake is returning, so evidently he has completed his mission. Either he’s done the job or he hasn’t.”

“I’ll bet he hates to part with those bathing beauties,” Della Street said. “This will be right down Drake’s alley.”

“He’ll telephone,” Mason said, “and let us know what has happened.”

The butler came out with another round of cooling drinks.

The breeze abruptly died away and the surface of the lake became placid. The shoreline seemed to drowse in an afternoon stupor.

The Elliott butler, plainly curious but concealing his curiosity as best he could, asked if he could serve them anything else.

“No, thank you,” Mason said. “I think we’re about finished.”

“Yes, sir. Would you care to come inside, sir? It’s air conditioned and quite comfortable.”

“No, thanks,” Mason said. “We’ll wait here.”

“But sometimes it’s quite warm in the afternoon on the porch, on this side of the lake. There’s a more shaded angle around the corner on the other side.”

“No, thanks,” Mason said. “We’re quite comfortable here.”

“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”

The butler withdrew.

Some twenty minutes later, the phone rang.

“For you, sir,” the butler said to Mason.

Mason took the telephone.

Paul Drake’s voice came over the wire. “Perry?”

“Yes.”

“Got it.”

“Any trouble?”

“No.”

“Anyone see you?”

“I don’t think so. The young woman who was doing the water-skiing was most adept. She made a flop in the water at just the right time and managed to make the substitution.”

“Where in the world was she carrying the can?” Mason asked.

“You’d be surprised.”

“No, I’m serious,” Mason said. “I’m wondering if she wasn’t detected.”

“It was in a fake swivel on the ski rope,” Drake said. “It was specially fixed up for the purpose.”

“And what was in the can?” Mason asked.

“The blackmail note, fifteen hundred dollars in money and ten silver dollars.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Wait until I get there. Don’t do a thing until I arrive.”

Mason hung up the telephone and nodded to Della. They thanked the butler, left the Elliott summer mansion, and drove at once to the public launching ramp at the south side of the lake.

Paul Drake met him.

Mason said, “Now, Paul, what you have to do is simple.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “What do we do?”

“You have a starlet there?”

“I’ll say we have. Boy, she’s a knockout!”

“And she wants publicity?”

“She’d stand on her head and wiggle her feet at the camera for publicity. That’s the breath of life to a starlet like this.”

“Okay,” Mason said. He took a portable typewriter from the back of the automobile and set it up on his lap. “Let’s see the can, Paul.”

Drake produced the red coffee can with the silver dollars in the bottom and the fifteen hundred dollars in bills and blackmail note on top. Mason took the note, ratcheted it into the typewriter, crossed out the figure, “fifteen hundred” and, over it, wrote “three thousand.”

Then the lawyer took fifteen hundred dollars in ten and twenty-dollar bills from his briefcase, added it to the money in the can, replaced the note, and handed the can back to Drake.

“You rented the boat under an assumed name?”

“I did better than that,” Drake said. “The boat never came from here at all. I picked it up from a friend and carried it down on a trailer. We simply paid a one-dollar launching fee to use the ramp. I’ve taken the boat out and we’re all ready to go.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Give this can and the note to the starlet and tell her to contact the lifeguard at the bathing beach and tell him that while she was water-skiing she picked up this coffee can because she thought it was a hazard to navigation. She took off the cover, looked inside and saw it was full of money, then she found this note.

“If the lifeguard doesn’t telephone the sheriff’s office, be sure that the starlet does... What’s her name, by the way?”

“Eve Amory.”

“You can count on her?”

“Give her publicity and you can count on her until hell freezes over,” Drake said. “Publicity is the one thing she wants. She drove down in her own car so she can be independent of us.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “she’s going to get lots of publicity.’

“Of course,” Drake pointed out, “with a setup like this, the newspapers will think it’s some kind of a press agent’s stunt.”

“Have her do exactly as I say,” Mason said, “and the money will guarantee her good faith.”

“What does she do with all this dough?” Drake asked.

“Turns it over to the police,” Mason said.

“The whole business?”

“The whole business.”

“That’s going to hurt,” Drake said. “This gal is—”

“That’s exactly it,” Mason interrupted. “She’s hungry. She’s operating on a shoestring. The fact that she’ll turn three thousand dollars over to the police is indicative of good faith, and the fact that it isn’t a publicity stunt. No half-hungry actress would put up three thousand bucks just to get her picture in the paper.”

“Okay,” Drake said, “you know what you’re doing.”

“Now, here’s her story,” Mason said. “She gets dressed, she goes to the lifeguard, she tells him the story. She doesn’t know the last names of the people with whom she was boating. She was out with a friend, but he wouldn’t want to have his name brought into it. The girls wanted to water-ski. She was teaching them some of the fine points. The girls were actresses or would-be actresses.”

“I understand,” Drake said. “She’ll give the impression that she was out with a potential sugar daddy who was willing to be the angel for a girlie show.”

“She’s willing to go for that?” Mason asked.

“She’ll go for anything, provided she gets her picture in the paper in a bikini bathing suit.”

“If I’m any judge of newspapers,” Mason said, “the reporters will want her to pose just the way she was when she found the can.”