Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

“You think the reporters will go for this?”

“I think so,” Mason said. “By the way, Paul, what became of the decoy coffee can that she planted?”

Drake shook his head. “I’ll be damned if I know, Perry.”

Mason said, “There was a fellow pole fishing in a boat. He started up his boat about the time that boat put out from the Bancroft house.”

“I know he did,” Drake said, “but I swear he didn’t get up to where that can was.”

“Well, what happened to the can?”

“It disappeared.”

“It did what?”

“It disappeared,” Drake said.

“What do you mean, it disappeared?”

“It was floating there for a while and I saw it, both with my naked eye and through the binoculars. Then I pulled in the water-skiing outfit and looked for it again, and the thing was gone.”

“What boats had been near there?”

“There wasn’t a boat. The thing simply disappeared.”

“You mean it sank?” Mason asked.

“It must have.”

“But didn’t you have the cover put on tight?”

“That’s the trouble, Perry. That’s where I’m afraid we may have slipped up on the thing. We had to make that substitution awfully fast. This girl was in the water. She took a spill just at the psychological time and in the right place. She grabbed this coffee can and put it in the hollow swivel container I put on the ski rope. Then she put out the substitute coffee can. Now, all I can think of is that the lid of that substitute can must have hit against the water-ski when we dumped it and let enough water in so the can sank.”

“That,” Mason said, “is going to be bad.”

“I know,” Drake said. “I’m sorry about it, but it’s one of those things that you can’t help.”

“But no other boat tried to cut in, tried to get near that coffee can?”

Drake shook his head. “No other boat. There were some over on the far side of the bank. There were some other water-skiers. There was this fellow fishing. No one else was near.”

Mason said, “I can’t figure it, unless the blackmailers had you spotted as a detective and were afraid to make a try for the coffee can with you hanging around.”

“I don’t think so,” Drake said. “I was wearing those wind goggles and a cap, and I kept pretty well down in the boat.”

“Pretty well down and pretty well surrounded with women,” Mason said.

“Well,” Drake said grinning, “what would you have done?”

Mason grinned back at him, said, “Okay, Paul. Get your boat out of there, let the starlet get dressed and go to the lifeguard... Now, you say she has her own transportation?”

“That’s right. I had her drive her car down and join us at the landing ramp. There are only twenty-three more payments to make and it’s all hers.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Now, I want the names of everyone who rented boats at the marina this afternoon, and you’ve had an operative getting the licence numbers of every boat that was launched from private automobiles?”

“That’s right,” Drake said. “I have a man here. He’s got the licence numbers of the cars and the trailers and the licence numbers of the boats.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Tell him to clear out and go home so the police don’t spot him.”

“And this whole can of money goes to the police?”

“Every cent of it,” Mason said.

“Perhaps someone will give Eve Amory a reward,” Drake said. “I’ll tell her there’s a possibility of that.”

“You tell her to keep her bikini bathing suit handy,” Mason said. “That’s all she needs to do.”

Perry Mason entered his office at nine-thirty.

“Hi, Della,” he said. “What’s new?”

“You have a very, very irate client in the outer office,” she said.

“Harlow Bissinger Bancroft?” Mason asked.

She nodded.

Mason grinned. “Let him come in.”

Della Street went to the door and a moment later returned with Bancroft.

“Mason,” Bancroft said, “what the devil’s this?”

“What?” Mason asked.

Bancroft flung down a morning paper.

Featured on the front page was the photograph of a young woman in a very abbreviated bathing suit and the caption: bathing beauty finds fortune.

“Well, well, well,” Mason said.

“What the hell!” Bancroft said. “I trusted you to use discretion. What’s the idea of raising the ante from fifteen hundred dollars to three thousand? And this business of a woman almost naked?”

Bancroft whipped over a page and said, “Here you are — a photostatic copy of the blackmail note. My God, that thing was to be handled in the strictest confidence.”

“Well, well, well,” Mason said, “what do you know.”

“What do I know!” Bancroft shouted at him. “What do you know? You were supposed to handle this thing discreetly.”

“Your stepdaughter tossed the can and the blackmail note overboard?” Mason asked.

“I suppose so, I haven’t asked her about it. She hasn’t seen fit to confide in me, and I certainly haven’t asked her any questions. But here’s the whole blackmail note spread out in the public press and the demand has been raised to three thousand dollars!”

Mason grinned. “Eve Amory certainly got good coverage, didn’t she?”

“It depends on what you call coverage,” Bancroft snorted. “That bathing suit is just as near to nothing as the law allows. You’d think this was some nudist magazine.”

“Oh, she’s a long way from being nude,” Mason said, reading the account thoughtfully. “What do you know!” he said at length.

“What do I know?” Bancroft told him. “I know that I feel I’ve been let down. I trusted your discretion. I trusted your integrity, and I certainly wanted certain aspects of the matter kept discreetly confidential.”

“It’s confidential,” Mason said.

“Confidential?” Bancroft said, putting the paper on the desk and pounding it with his fist. “God knows how many million readers are going to see this! They tell me it’s been picked up by the wire services and will be syndicated in half the newspapers in the country.”

“It does make quite a story, doesn’t it,” Mason said.

“Is that the best you can say?” Bancroft said.

Mason said, “Sit down, Bancroft, and cool off. Now, let me tell you something.”

Bancroft slowly sat down, glowering at the lawyer.

“In the first place,” Mason said, “publicity is the one thing you wanted to avoid.”

“I’m glad you’re telling me,” Bancroft said sarcastically.

“And, in the second place,” Mason said, “publicity is the one thing a blackmailer has to avoid. He can only work under cover and surreptitiously.

“Now then, quite obviously the blackmailer’s victim didn’t go to the police. The victim did exactly as the blackmailer had instructed. The money was placed in the can, the can was tossed overboard, presumably in accordance with instructions that had been given as to time and place. Therefore, the blackmailer can’t accuse his victim of bad faith.”

“The thing I don’t understand,” Bancroft said, “is how it happened that ante got doubled. When I saw that note, the demand was for fifteen hundred dollars. Now, you saw that note — in fact, you photographed it. Now, how the devil did the blackmailer increase the demand to three thousand dollars?”

“I did that,” Mason said.

“You what?”

“I increased the demand to three thousand,” Mason said.

“But my stepdaughter drew fifteen hundred out of the bank and presumably that was all she had to put in the coffee can. Yet, according to police, the sum of three thousand dollars, together with this note and the ten silver dollars was in the can.”