Erle Gardner: The Case of the Drowning Duck

“Prior to 1929,” Mason said, “kids had too much of everything. Then after the crash, they didn’t have enough of anything. So they became too much concerned with economic problems. We began to think too much about sharing the wealth, instead of creating it. Youth should create something, and it should have something to create.

“The modem youngsters are coming into a different scheme of things. There’ll be heartaches. There’ll be fighting, and hardships — and death — but those who survive will have been tempered in a crucible of fire. They won’t put up with makeshifts. Make no mistake about it, Witherspoon, you and I are going to be living in a different world when this war is over, and it’s going to be different because of the young men who have suffered, and fought — and learned.”

“I hadn’t thought of youth in that way,” Witherspoon said. “Somehow, I’ve never seen youth as a conquering force.”

“You must have seen it in uniform in the last war, but then its back wasn’t against the wall,” Mason said. “The ‘youth’ of 1929 is middle-aged today. You’re due for a surprise... This young man of yours interests me. Tell me more about him.”

Witherspoon said, “There’s something in his past. He doesn’t know who he is.”

“You mean he doesn’t know his father?”

“Neither his father nor his mother. Marvin Adams was told by the woman whom he’d always considered his mother that he had been kidnapped at the age of three. She made that statement when she was on her deathbed. Of course, the disclosure, which came about two months ago, was a great shock to him.”

“Interesting,” Mason said, frowning at the toes of his shoes. “What does your daughter say about that?”

“She says...”

A feminine voice from the second row of chairs which sat back to back, and directly behind Mason’s chair, said, “Suppose you let her say it for herself, Dad.”

Witherspoon jerked his head around. Mason, moving with the leisurely grace of a tall man who carries no extra weight, got to his feet to look down at the animated girl who had now turned so that she was kneeling on the seat of the chair, her arms flung over its leather back. A book slipped to the floor with a hard thud.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping. Dad, honest. I was sitting here reading. Then I heard Marvin’s name — and — suppose we have it out.”

John Witherspoon said, “I see no reason for discussing this in your presence, Lois. There’s nothing for us to have out — yet.”

Mason looked from one face to the other, said, “Why not? Here’s my secretary, Miss Street. Suppose the four of us go into the cocktail lounge, have a drink, and discuss it in a civilized fashion. Even if we don’t reach an understanding, we won’t be bored. I rather think, Witherspoon, that this might be an interesting case.”

Lois took the conversational lead from her father easily and naturally. “After all,” she said, “this problem primarily concerns me .”

“It concerns your happiness,” her father said curtly. “Therefore, it concerns me.”

“ My happiness,” she pointed out.

John Witherspoon glanced at Mason almost appealingly, then lapsed into silence.

“I’m in love,” Lois said. “I’ve been in love before. It was a lukewarm emotion. This time I’m playing for keeps. Nothing anyone can say, nothing anyone can do, is going to change it. Dad’s worried about my happiness. He’s worried because there are some things about the man I’m going to marry we don’t know, things that Marvin himself doesn’t know.”

“After all,” John Witherspoon pointed out, somewhat lamely, Mason thought, “family and background are important.”

Lois brushed the remark aside. She was a small-boned, vivacious girl with intense dark eyes and a volatile manner. She said, “About five years ago Marvin Adams and his mother, Sarah Adams, came to live in El Templo. Sarah was a widow. She had a little property. She put Marvin through school. I met him in high school. He was just another boy. We both went away to college. We came back for winter vacation and met again, and...” She snapped her fingers. “Something clicked.”

She looked at the two men as though wondering if they would understand, then shifted her eyes to Della Street.

Delia Street nodded.

“My Dad,” Lois went on, pouring out the words, “is nuts on family. He traces our ancestry back so far it makes the Mayflower look streamlined. Naturally, he was interested in finding out something about Marvin’s parents. He ran up against a snag. Mrs. Adams was very secretive. She’d come to the valley because she had tuberculosis, and thought the change of climate might help. It didn’t. Before she died, she finally admitted that she and her husband, whose name was Horace, had kidnapped Marvin. Marvin was then a child of three. They had held him for ransom. They didn’t get the ransom. Things began to get too hot for them, and they cleared out and came West. They became attached to the child, and finally decided to keep him and bring him up. Horace died when Marvin was about four years old. Mrs. Adams died without ever telling anyone who Marvin really was. She said he came from a good family and a wealthy one, and that was all she’d say. Marvin gathered, from what she said, that the kidnaping had taken place somewhere back East. She said his real parents were dead.”

“That was a public statement?” Mason asked. “Made to the authorities?”

“Definitely not,” Witherspoon said. “No one knows about it except Marvin, Lois, and myself.”

“You’re a widower?” Mason asked him.

He nodded.

“What do you want?” Mason asked.

Again Witherspoon seemed less positive than one would have expected.

“I want you to find out who the boy’s parents were. I want to find out all about him.”

“Exactly why?” Lois asked.

“I want to know who he is.”

Her eyes locked with those of her father. “Marvin would like to know, too,” she said. “But as far as I’m concerned, Dad, I don’t care whether his father was a ditchdigger or a Vermont Republican. I’m going to marry him.”

John Witherspoon bowed in a silent acquiescence which seemed altogether too docile. “If that’s the way you feel about it, my dear,” he said.

Lois looked at her watch, smiled at Mason, and said, “And, in the meantime, I’ve got a date — a party of us going for a horseback ride in the starlight. Don’t wait up for us, Dad, and don’t worry.”

She got to her feet, impulsively gave Mason her hand, and said, “Go ahead, do whatever Dad wants. It will make him feel better — and it won’t make one darn bit of difference to me.” Her eyes turned from Mason to Della Street, and something she saw in Della Street’s face caused her to turn hurriedly back to look at Mason. Then she smiled, extended her hand to Della Street, said, “I’ll see you again,” and was gone.

When she had left, Witherspoon settled down with the air of a man who is at last free to speak his mind. “It was a very nice story that Sarah Adams told,” he said. “It was told to forestall any inquiry on my part. You see, that was only a couple of months ago. Lois and Marvin were already in love. It was a great sacrifice made by a dying mother... It was a dramatic statement. On her very deathbed, she forfeited her son’s love and respect to secure his future happiness. Her statement wasn’t true.”

Mason raised his brows.

“That statement was made up out of whole cloth,” Witherspoon went on.

“For what possible reason?” Mason asked.

“I’ve already employed detectives,” Witherspoon said. “They find that Marvin Adams was born to Sarah Adams and Horace Legg Adams, and the birth certificate is duly on file. There’s no evidence of any unsolved kidnaping taking place at about the period mentioned in Mrs. Adams’ spurious confession.”