Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Reluctant Model

“He’d pick up every piece of gossip, every little thing from lots of different people and then he’d start correlating them, putting them all together, fitting them into a pattern until gradually he knew more about you than you could possibly realize.”

“Blackmail?” Mason asked.

“It wasn’t exactly blackmail,” she said. “It was trying to build himself up, trying to get what he wanted, trying to get influence. I don’t think he used it for money but— Still, I don’t know.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Nearly three years.”

“And what was his hold on you?”

She looked up at Mason, then lowered her eyes, started to say something, checked herself.

“Go on,” Mason said. “I’m going to find out anyway. You may as well tell me.”

She said after a moment, “He knew certain things about me.”

“I gathered as much,” Mason said dryly and waited for her to go on.

She didn’t go on, but sipped her coffee with weary resignation.

“All right,” Mason said, ‘let’s begin on another angle. Who’s Phoebe Stigler?”

“My sister.”

“Married?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Happily?”

“Very happy.”

“What’s her husband’s name?”

“Homer Hardin Stigler. He’s a big real estate operator and financier in Eugene.”

“What,” Mason asked, “was Durant’s hold on you?”

“I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Because it... it’s something I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Come, come,” Mason said, “the world has moved a long ways since the time when some purple chapter in a girl’s history would—”

She said, “Oh, don’t be silly! It isn’t anything of that sort. After all, Mr. Mason, I’ve been around. I’ve made a living being an artists’ model. I’m not a prude and I’m not dumb.”

Mason, watching her shrewdly, tried a shot in the dark. “I know,” he said sympathetically, “it’s not that it involves you, but it does involve your sister.”

She stiffened as though she had been shocked with an electric current. “What are you saying?... What do you know?”

“I know a great deal,” Mason said, “and I intend to find out more — if I have to.”

“How could you possibly find those things out?”

“The way I find out everything,” Mason said. “It costs money but I get the information. How did I know you were here? How did I know you had wired your sister to send you twenty-five dollars here and waive identification? How did I know where you were? How did I know that you had a hard time finding a motel you felt you could afford last night in Bakersfield?”

“How do you know these things?” she asked.

“I make it my business to find out,” Mason told her. “I have to do it. If you want to tell me about your sister, I’ll try and co-operate as far as I can. If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out anyway and then I won’t be under any obligations.”

“You mustn’t — you mustn’t ask questions, particularly around Eugene. That would be...”

She broke off as though the mere contemplation of what might happen filled her with panic.

“Then,” Mason said, “you’d better tell me of your own accord so I’ll know what to do and what not to do.”

Maxine hesitated for a moment, then refilled the coffee cup from the container, closed her eyes wearily, said, “I just don’t have the strength to struggle, Mr. Mason. I— No, I’m not going to tell you. I can’t, but Durant had a hold on me.”

“And,” Mason said, “he had a good racket. He’d brand a painting as a forgery, have you pass the word that he’d declared it a forgery. Then when a lawsuit was filed, you’d skip out and not be available. How many times has he worked this?”

“He’s never worked it. I didn’t know he ever did anything of the sort,” she said.

“The painting Lattimer Rankin sold that was supposed to have been forged?”

She said, “I just don’t understand that. There’s something weird about that.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “Tell me what happened.”

“Well,” she said, “we were at this party and Durant told me the painting was a forgery. I got mad because I knew that Rankin had sold that painting and I knew he wouldn’t be fooled on a matter of that sort and I didn’t like the idea of Collin Durant talking that way and I told him so. And he dared me to go and tell Rankin what he had said. Then he told me I must tell him.”

“So then what?”

“I thought it over for a while and then went to Mr. Rankin. I didn’t really intend to tell him what Collin had said, but I did ask him if there could be any possible doubt about the authenticity of that painting, and Rankin said ‘heavens no’ and wanted to know why I was asking... Finally he got the whole story out of me and was furious.

“So then I became frightened. I simply couldn’t have Collin angry with me. So I told him about my conversation with Rankin.”

“Was he angry?” Mason asked.

“No, he was pleased. He said I’d done exactly what he wanted. He told me that I was to stay with it, that if Rankin went to a lawyer and they asked me to make an affidavit that I was to tell exactly what had happened and swear to it.

“He said he wanted Rankin to see a lawyer. He was tremendously pleased — that is, at first.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“Well, of course my talk with Rankin started things. The next thing I knew you were sending for me and asking me questions and wanting me to sign an affidavit.”

“And then what happened?”

She said, “Your secretary, Della Street, may not remember it but while she was preparing the affidavit I said I wanted to call a friend of mine. The person I called was Collin Durant. I told him that I found myself in your office and that your secretary was preparing an affidavit for me to sign.”

“And what did he say?”

“He laughed and told me that was exactly what he wanted and to go ahead and sign it. He said he wanted me to be a witness.”

“Then what?”

“Then the suit was filed and there was that newspaper publicity and then Durant came to me and told me I had to get out of the country.”

“Now, that was last night?” Mason asked.

“Yes. Things have been happening so fast it seems like a week ago. Yes, it was last night.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “this is important. It’s very important. What time was it that he came to you?”

“It was about six o’clock.”

Mason said, “Then that would have been an hour or an hour and a half before he came to me.”

“He saw you yesterday?”

“That’s right. He came to me in a restaurant and told me that you were a publicity seeker, that you were trying to stir up trouble in order to further your own interests, and that no little trollop, as he expressed it, was going to bounce her curves off his reputation just in order to bask in the limelight.”

“And that was when?”

“That was no later than seven-thirty.” Mason said.

“But I can’t understand it,” she said. “He wanted me to tell Rankin.”

Mason said, “Let’s get this straight. He came to you yesterday and told you you had to leave the country, didn’t he?”

“He told me that I had to disappear, yes. That I had to get out of town so that no one could find me. He said that I mustn’t be available so that my deposition could be taken and that I mustn’t be a witness, and that I would have to go where you couldn’t find me.”

“And you started right away?”

“No, no. He was coming back.”

“What was he coming back for?”

“To give me money.”