Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

Mason grinned slowly at Bancroft.

Bancroft started to say something, then, at the lawyer’s grin, his expression suddenly changed.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed.

“Exactly,” Mason said. “This note was written on a Monarch portable typewriter. I secured an old Monarch and crossed out the fifteen-hundred-dollar demand and made it three thousand dollars. Then after we picked up the can, we added fifteen hundred dollars to it, so that it made a total of three thousand.”

“ You put in fifteen hundred dollars?” Bancroft asked.

“Of your money,” Mason told him, still grinning. “That’s why I told you the expenses would be high.”

“But what... You mean...?”

Mason said, “I am assuming that this was at least a two man job. You’ll notice the note says, ‘we.’ Of course, that may have been simply a blind, but somehow I don’t think it was.

“Now, suppose you were part of a criminal conspiracy and you had a partner. You sent him out to collect fifteen hundred dollars’ blackmail money. The collection was bungled and the police got hold of the money. But by the time the police received the money, it turned out the ante had been boosted to three thousand dollars. Wouldn’t you naturally assume that your partner had double-crossed you and tried to raise an extra fifteen hundred that he was going to hold out on you? And if you reached such an assumption, would the denial of your partner do any good?

“I think we may safely assume that with the publication of this note, we have put the blackmailers on the defensive, and with the fact that the amount in the can actually was three thousand dollars instead of fifteen hundred, we have sowed the seeds of potential discord.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Bancroft said.

“Furthermore,” Mason told him, “I think we’re going to get a line on the blackmailers. And once we do that, I’m going to try to keep them occupied with something to think about.”

“Such as what?” Bancroft asked.

“Oh,” Mason said, “we’ll think up things to keep them busy. The trouble with blackmailers is that, while they make their living out of skeletons which are in other people’s closets, they necessarily have to have a whole closet full of their own skeletons. Unless they are rank amateurs, they must necessarily have been making their living out of crime and out of blackmail. That leaves a back trail that bothers them, in case the police should pick it up.”

Bancroft slowly got to his feet. “Mason,” he said, “I owe you an apology. The more I think of it, that’s the cleverest damned move, the most daring move, and the most skilful move anybody could possibly dream up. You’ve put the shoe on the other foot and — damn it, it’s well worth the three thousand dollars.”

“Hold everything,” Mason said. “You haven’t lost a penny of the three thousand dollars yet. It isn’t in the custody of the blackmailers, it’s in the custody of the police.

“Now then, what would you do if you were a blackmailer? Would you go to the police and say, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but that money was intended for me’?”

“No, of course not,” Bancroft said. “But they will, of course, make other demands.”

“Sure, they’ll make other demands,” Mason said, “but they’d have made other demands anyway. And when they make other demands, we’ll find some way of dealing with those demands.”

Bancroft reached out and gripped the lawyer’s hand. “Mason,” he said, “you go ahead, you play this your own way. You call on me for anything you want.”

“I warned you,” Mason said, “that I wouldn’t play this in a conventional manner.”

“You warned me,” Bancroft said, “and you sure as hell meant what you said... Do you want some more money?”

“Not yet,” Mason told him. “At the proper time, I’ll get that money back from the police.”

“How?”

“When I sent my secretary down to the bank to get some money in ten and twenty-dollar bills,” Mason said, “I gave her a cheque for three thousand dollars, which she cashed in tens and twenties. I put fifteen hundred dollars in the safe and took fifteen hundred dollars to plant in that coffee can. At the proper time, I’ll tell the police that the money that was put in the can was bait for a blackmailer and show them my cancelled cheque for three thousand dollars to prove it, with a statement from the banker that the money was paid to my secretary in tens and twenties.”

Bancroft paused for a moment, thinking that over, then suddenly threw back his head and laughed.

He started for the exit door, turned and said, “Mason, when I came into this office I was breathing fire. I’m going out walking on air.”

“Don’t be too sure of yourself yet,” Mason said. “You aren’t out of the woods, but we’re starting a backfire and the blackmailers are going to have to watch out they don’t get burned.”

“I’ll say they’re going to have to watch out,” Bancroft said.

When the door had closed behind him, Mason pulled the paper over and grinned at the photograph of Eve Amory.

“There are more photographs on the back page,” Della Street said, “photographs showing her on the water-skis, showing what happened when she fell in the water and saw the red coffee can floating nearby. Chief, what’s going to happen to her?”

“She’ll probably get a pretty darned good contract,” Mason said.

“But she’s going to be in danger.”

“Sure, she’s going to be in danger,” Mason said. “And, as her attorney, I’m going to see she gets protection. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, somebody is going to telephone her, making an anonymous threat.”

At ten thirty, Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door of Mason’s office.

Della Street let him in.

“Well,” the detective said, perching himself on a corner of Mason’s desk, “you certainly got publicity.”

“Eve Amory got publicity,” Mason said.

“And that isn’t all,” Drake said. “The newspapers went for this lock, stock and barrel, just as you said. At first, they thought it was some kind of publicity stunt, but the three thousand bucks in tens and twenties was a stage prop that no press agent could afford. So they figured it was genuine.”

Mason nodded. “How does Eve feel?”

Drake grinned and said, “Eve feels on the top of cloud nine. She’s being asked to make a television appearance tonight on one of the newscaster’s shows.”

“What are the police doing?”

“The police have consulted the examiner of questioned documents. He has come up with the information that the typewriter on which the demand was written was a Monarch Ten portable.”

Mason grinned.

“And,” Drake went on, “the news being quiet at the moment, the newspapers have assigned some of their ace reporters to find out who is being blackmailed. They are acting on the assumption that the victim was someone living along the shores of Lake Merticito and was some wealthy individual. They assume that the coffee can with the money in it was, of course, prepared in accordance with the written instructions and tossed out in the water, pursuant to telephoned instructions, where it was inadvertently picked up by Eve Amory.”

“Better and better,” Mason said.

“Don’t be too sure,” Drake said. “Those reporters are pretty damned competent individuals. They may start getting pretty close to the truth.”

“Whatever the truth is,” Mason said.

“Of course,” Drake told him, “you haven’t confided all the details to me, and I’m not asking you to, but I’m just warning you.”

“Thanks,” Mason told him. “I will heed it.”