Erle Gardner - The Case of the Empty Tin

Mason started for the door. “It’s lack of imagination, Paul. You should have told him you were a hijacker, or poured some bonded stuff in a bottle with a cheap label.”

Drake snorted. “Let’s see you try that stunt on this coot. Go right ahead, my lad. Hop to it.”

Out in the hallway, Mason asked, “These people waiting, Della?”

“Yes. I told them you were in conference in another lawyer’s office, and I couldn’t reach you on the telephone, as you’d left word you weren’t to be disturbed, but I thought I could go over, explain the situation, and get you to come back with me. How about it? Did you plant that tin?”

“Nothing to it,” Mason said. “I walked in with a bulging brief case and wearing gloves, said I wanted to look the premises over again, and particularly wanted to see the smudges of paint on the garage door. They sent Hester, the stolid servant who certainly seems none too intelligent, down to show me around. I waited until her back was turned and slipped the tin up on the shelf.”

“You don’t think she spotted it?”

“She didn’t even so much as look back when I started upstairs. She’s either just an ox, or she’s trying to keep out of the mess by seeming to be one. So now we’ve baited the trap, and we’ll wait to see what walks in.”

“I don’t like the bait,” Della said. “Be careful someone doesn’t steal it.”

“I’ll do that little thing,” Mason promised.

He unlocked the door of his private office, and pushed it open. Della Street said, “I’ll go and bring them in. Mr. Wenston wants to talk with you before you see this girl.”

“All right, get him in. Let’s see what’s on his mind.”

Wenston, looking very trim and military, entered Mason’s private office. He had a courteous bow for Della Street, a handclasp for Mason. “This ith a complication,” he said. “This girl ith an imposter. I have refused even to listen to her. I want you to hear her story the first time she tells it. I don’t want to take her to the guv’nor until after you’ve talked with her. After that, I won’t have to. You can trap her, and expose her as an impothtor.”

“What makes you think she’s an impostor if you haven’t talked with her?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know,” Wenston said, “unless it’s some sort of a telepathic intuition. She doesn’t theem genuine. There’s something phoney about her whole approach.”

“And you want me to talk with her?” Mason asked.

“I want you to cross-examine her — give her the works.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do that in front of Mr. Karr?”

“No. I know most of the facts. I want to see if she’s telling the truth. If she isn’t, I’m not going to let her even get near Karr.”

“And you want me to cross-examine?” Mason asked.

Wenston nodded.

Mason said, “Well, let’s have her in here and see what she looks like.”

Doris Wickford followed Della Street into the office. She was between twenty-seven and thirty, Mason judged, with very dark hair, dark, thin eyebrows, long lashes, slate-colored eyes, and a pale skin which, coupled with a poker-faced immobility of countenance, gave her a peculiarly detached manner. She said, “Good afternoon. You’re Mr. Mason, aren’t you?” and came over to give him her hand. The slate-gray eyes gave him a long, steady scrutiny. She said, “I presume Mr. Wenston has told you I’m an imposter.”

Mason laughed.

Wenston said with dignity, “I told him to give you a croth-examination.”

“I expected that,” she said. “The reason I didn’t tell Mr. Wenston all the details is that I don’t want to keep going over them again and again. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Mason, that I know Mr. Wenston isn’t the one who put that ad in the paper. For one thing, it’s very apparent that Mr. Wenston is rather young to have been in partnership with my father in 1920. I also know it because I know something about the persons with whom my father had that partnership. One of them was a man by the name of Karr, and I presume that he’s the one who’s really back of this ad in the paper. I’ve asked Mr. Wenston if that wasn’t a fact, and he refused to answer. I’ve asked him if he isn’t related to a Mr. Karr or employed by him, and he told me we’d go over that when we got to your office. Well, the way I look at it, if Mr. Karr is the one who’s really interested, why can’t we go to see him and then have it settled one way or the other?”

Wenston shook his head firmly. “I won’t subject the guv’nor to the strain of such an interview unleth I know it’s justified. You’ve got to convince me before you can ever see him.”

“How much convincing are you going to require?” Miss Wickford asked, her eyes surveying Wenston in a head-to-toe glance, which was something less than cordial.

“ I’m going to need lots of convincing.”

“All right, here goes,” Miss Wickford said cheerfully, drawing up a chair and unfastening the snap on a large purse which she had carried under her arm.

“Tell me the name of your father,” Wenston said, glancing at Mason meaningly. “It might save time.”

Her glance was scornful. “His name was Wickford. He had trouble with creditors, so he went to the Orient. While he was in Shanghai, he took the name of Tucker.”

Wenston frowningly studied her. “He had rather an unusual firtht name. Perhaps you can tell us what that was.”

“I can tell you what it was,” she said, “and I can tell you how he happened to take it. The name was D-O-W, and it consists of the initials of my name. Doris Octavia Wickford. Octavia was my mother’s name, and when my father wanted some distinctive first name, he coined the word Dow from those initials.”

This time Wenston managed to keep his face more of a mask. “What else?” he asked. “Have you any proof?”

She took a somewhat dog-eared envelope from her purse. The envelope had a Chinese stamp and postmark. She said, “This letter was sent from Shanghai, January 8, 1921.”

Wenston and Mason both moved over to take a look at the envelope. Wenston reached for it. She pushed his hand back with a quick gesture and said, “Naughty, naughty! You can look, and that’s all.”

“Your father wrote that?” Wenston asked.

“That’s right, and you’ll notice the name, Doris O. Wickford, written on the envelope.”

“The return address in the upper left-hand comer,” Mason said, “is that of George A. Wickford at Shanghai.”

“That’s right. That was his real name. Here’s a photostatic copy of his marriage license to my mother. September, 1912, and here’s a copy of my birth certificate, November, 1913. You’ll notice my mother’s name was Octavia, and you’ll note that I was christened Doris Octavia Wickford.”

Mason examined the photostatic copies of the documents, then raised his eyes to meet Wenston’s perplexed gaze.

She said, “Now I’ll read you some of the excerpts from this letter. After all, remember I was a child of eight at the time, and he’s written to me the way a father would write to a girl of that age.”

She took some folded sheets of paper from the envelope. They were written in pencil. The paper was a thin, limp rice paper characteristic of Chinese manufacture. She read, “ ‘My dear daughter: It seems like a very long time since your daddy has seen you. I miss you very much and hope you are being a good girl. I don’t know just when daddy is coming back to you, but I hope it won’t be long. Over here, I am doing some good business and expect to return and clean up all of the debts I owe. You must remember not to mention to anyone where daddy is because some of those people who made so much trouble for me would try to keep me from getting enough together to pay off what I owe. If they will only leave me alone for a little while longer, I can not only pay off everything, but have money left. Then I will come back to you, and we will be together for a long time. You can have nice dresses and a pony if you still want one.’ ”