Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lonely Heiress

“You have a lawyer representing you?” Mason asked.

“No, there’s a lawyer probating Mother’s estate, but that’s all. He’s not really representing me, just handling the estate.”

“And what did you want me to do?”

“Frankly, I want to put things in your hands, I want you to go ahead and do anything that needs to be done. I felt this detective I met last night was just the type. I thought that I could talk with him frankly and tell him what I wanted and he’d be loyal to me. He’d make a nice one to get in touch with Rose Keeling.”

“Just how did you intend to go about doing that?”

She said, “Rose loves to play tennis. I would fix up a foursome and get her to play. And she’s something of a pirate. She likes to steal other people’s — no, I won’t put it that way; but if she sees that someone is particularly devoted to me, it flatters her vanity if she can lure him away from me.”

“Sort of a love pirate?”

“It’s not that exactly, although that’s what I started to say. It’s just a complex she has. She likes to make passes at my men. If she doesn’t get anywhere, she’s furious. But if she can arouse their interest, it makes her feel better because she thinks that... anyhow, it gives her a lift.”

“And this man Caddo doesn’t know you’ve come to me?”

“Oh, no. I just used him to help me out. I haven’t told him anything about this, but I’ve told him about the other.”

“All right,” Mason said, “take my advice. Don’t tell him anything more; clam up on that man.”

“He’s most anxious to help me, says he’ll do anything that he can to be of any assistance, because he feels I deserve it. He feels that... oh, I don’t know, I guess he’s just — you know.”

“Making passes?” Mason asked.

“He is the sort who paws a girl,” she said. “He’s always putting his hand on your shoulder and then letting it slide down the arm, and things like that. He can’t keep his hands off. I suppose he’s just like all the rest.”

Mason nodded.

“Can you do it?” she asked.

Mason said, “I’ll let you know tomorrow. Give me a number where I can call you. I’ll think it over. I don’t think I’m disqualified because of any clients I’ve had so far. Frankly, my interest in you was simply to find out something about the ad.”

“Who retained you, Mr. Mason? Who was your client?”

Mason smiled and shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”

“I can’t imagine who would be interested.”

“I certainly can’t tell you.”

She said abruptly, “I don’t think I care too much for Mr. Caddo.”

“But he cares for you?”

“He wants to — I don’t know just what he wants. He wants to paw me, but there’s something that he has in his mind, something more specific than that.”

“He knows about your inheritance?”

“Yes. I told him a lot when I first met him.”

“He wants to help you collect it?”

“He hasn’t said so in so many words.”

Mason said, “In the event that I should act as attorney for you, in case Mr. Caddo approaches you and wants anything, suggest that he come to me.”

She nodded.

“However,” Mason went on, “Caddo is the least of our worries right at the moment. You feel certain Rose Keeling is on the point of selling out?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “There are, of course, two ways of handling that. One of them is to keep her from selling out. The other is to get the proof that she has sold out and confront her with it at the proper time.”

“Yes. I hadn’t thought of that last.”

Mason said, “I’m not certain but what I should go and have a talk with her. After all, she’s already gone on the stand and testified at the time the will was first admitted to probate.”

“That’s what Mr. Caddo told me,” Marilyn said. “He told me that since she’s dote that, she’d have a hard time changing her testimony; that the thing for me to do is to see if I can’t get her to leave the country or something of that sort. And then, when the will was contested, her testimony could be read right into the record, the testimony she had given at the time the will was probated.”

“Caddo told you that?”

“Yes. He said that, under the circumstances, the parties to the controversy having been the same, I could simply read her testimony, on showing that she was out of the country and wasn’t available. He seemed to think I should get her out of the country.”

“I see,” Mason commented.

She said, “Mr. Caddo keeps asking questions about Rose Keeling. I don’t know just where he fits into the picture.”

“Perhaps he wants to be the frame,” Mason suggested.

She puckered her forehead. “Now, just what do you mean by that?”

“A frame always has a very advantageous position, so far as the picture is concerned. However, let me think it over. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow morning.”

“Could I have this man Green work for me?”

Mason said with a smile, “That’s one of the things I was thinking of, young lady. I think that perhaps it might be better for you to retain the Drake Detective Agency and get Green to work with you as a detective, than to bother with my legal advice.”

“But, Mr. Mason, I’d love to have you. I’ve heard a lot about you and I think that you know a lot about the case, and if you’ll just tell me frankly that you weren’t representing anyone...”

“I’m not representing anyone connected with the will case,” Mason said. “I’m not representing anyone who has any interest in the estate or in any part of it. The person I was representing was interested only because he wanted to find out something about that ad.”

“But why would anyone hire a lawyer to — my God!”

“What is it?” Mason asked as she stopped abruptly.

“Why, there’s only one person it could have been,” she said. “So that’s how he knew that the man I was talking with was a detective! Mr. Mason, do you mean to say that Mr. Caddo would have hired you, and then have warned me?”

Mason said dryly, “I not only don’t mean to say anything about Mr. Caddo, I’m not saying anything about Mr. Caddo.”

The dark eyes showed startled understanding.

“So,” Mason said, turning to Drake, “I guess there’s no reason why Miss Marlow can’t have your operative working for her. His name, by the way, is Kenneth Barstow, not Irvin B. Green.”

“Oh, I like that name,” Marilyn Marlow said.

“I thought perhaps you would,” Mason said, smiling at Drake.

She scribbled a telephone number on a card, pushed it across the desk to Mason. “You’ll call me in the morning?”

“In the morning,” Mason said, “I’ll let you know.”

Mason, entering his office shortly after ten o’clock the next morning, found Della Street waiting in the private office, her finger to her lips.

“Hi, Della. What’s up?” Mason said, keeping his voice low in response to her signal.

“There’s someone in the outer office you don’t want to see.”

“Man or woman?” Mason asked cheerfully.

“Woman.”

“What’s the pitch?”

“Mrs. Robert Caddo.”

Mason threw back his head and laughed. “ Why don’t I want to see her, Della?”

“She’s on the warpath.”

“What about?”

“She wouldn’t tell me.”

“This Caddo family is becoming a nuisance.”

“I told her you might not be in all day, that you saw people only by appointment, and that you wouldn’t see anyone unless I was able to give you a general idea of the nature of the business.”