Erle Gardner - The Case of the Empty Tin

She looked up and said, “I had written him saying that I wanted a pony for Christmas.”

“Your mother?” Mason asked.

“She died when I was six, just before Dad went to China.”

“Go ahead.”

She turned back to the letter and read, “ ‘I have a very fine business here now, but I can’t tell you what it is. I have a partner. His name is Karr. Don’t you think that is a funny way for a man to spell his name? But he is a good partner, and he has lots of courage. Three weeks ago we were on a trip up the Yangtze River, and the boat he was in tipped over. Some of the Chinese boatmen clung to the overturned boat, but one of them was swept away. The current was very swift. This man couldn’t swim. He was only a Chinese, and over here the life of a laborer is not very valuable. I doubt if any one of the Chinese would have tried to rescue him, even if they had been strong swimmers. But my partner, Karr, swam out to the aid of this Chinaboy and brought him back to the boat. By that time my boat had come alongside, and the coolies managed to get it turned right side up. But we lost a lot of things in the river which we never recovered.

“ ‘The water of this river is very yellow. It is filled with a kind of mud. Even after it flows out into the ocean, it stains the whole region around the mouth of the river. It is a very big river, and Shanghai is on a branch of it called the Whangpoo.

“ ‘Shanghai is a very big city. You would never dream of the noise and bustle of one of these Chinese cities. It seems as though everyone is always screaming something at the top of his voice. You wouldn’t believe people could make that much noise.

“ ‘Now daddy wants Doris to be a good little girl, and study hard in school. Your daddy is sorry he couldn’t send you that pony for Christmas, because there is no way of sending a pony from China to the United States, but some day soon when your daddy comes back, you shall have your pony. Lots of love from a lonely father to his little girl. Your loving DAD. P.S. When you write me over here, you can write the letter addressed to me, but be sure you put it care of Dow Tucker and send it care of the American Express Company. I will get it all right.’ ”

She folded the letter, held it for a moment in her fingers as though contemplating whether she should pass it over to Mason for his inspection. Then abruptly she pushed it back into the envelope, and said simply, “I saved that one because it was the last letter I ever received. There were other letters, and I lost them. This one I kept. I never heard any more from him. I didn’t know what had happened to him.”

Wenston tried to keep from seeming impressed. “You have something else? Some better proof, perhaps?”

She looked at him with the impersonal appraisal one would give an insect impaled on a pin and said, “I’ve got lots of proof. Here’s a picture — a family group taken the year my mother died. I was six at the time, almost seven.”

She extracted a somewhat faded photograph from her purse. It was of the peculiar muddy tone which characterized the matte-surface prints of that period. It was a square picture three and a half inches by three and a half inches, and showed a man and a woman seated on what was apparently the upper step of a front porch. The man was holding a girl on his knee. Despite the pigtails and extreme youth of the girl in the picture, the resemblance to Doris Wickford was very pronounced.

Wenston pursed his lips, caught Mason’s eye, and almost imperceptibly nodded.

“You remember your father?” Mason asked.

“Naturally. Of course, it’s the memory of a girl of seven years of age. I was seven the last time I saw him. I suppose there are some things on which my memory is distorted, and you’ll have to make allowances for youth, but aside from that, I remember him quite distinctly, numerous little things about him, his tolerance, his unfailing consideration of the rights of others, and, what didn’t impress me as being particularly remarkable at the time but what does now that I’ve seen more of the world, is that I never knew him to lose his temper over anything, or say a sharp word to anyone. And yet the man must have been beset by worries.”

“Where did you live?”

“The address is on this letter,” she said. “It was in Denver, Colorado.”

“You lived there all the time until your father disappeared?”

“He didn’t disappear. He simply went away. There weren’t any jobs in Denver, and...”

“All right, have it your own way,” Mason interposed. “Had you lived there long? I notice that your birth certificate says that you were born in California.”

“That’s right. We lived in California for a while, then went to Nevada, and then to Denver. My father had work in the mines. Conditions got so bad Dad made complaints and eventually started organizing the men. Unions had never gotten a hold in that locality, and the company fired him. Dad opened up a little store, and the miners all started buying their things from him. Then the company simply ruined him. They forced him into disastrous competition. They wanted to get him out of the country. They said his cracker-box socialism was going to ruin the country. That’s when he incurred all those debts. He...”

Wenston said, “I guess, Mr. Mason, we’re going to have to see the guv’nor, after all.”

Mason said, “We can check the incident of that upset boat in the Yangtze River before going any farther.”

“We don’t have to,” Wenston said. “I’ve heard the guv’nor speak of it half a dozen times.”

Mason sat at his desk for a moment drumming thoughtfully with his fingers on the edge of the desk. Abruptly, he asked Miss Wickford, “And you saw this ad in the paper this morning?”

“No. The one that appeared yesterday morning.”

“Why didn’t you answer it at once?”

“I was working, and I — well,” she said with a little smile, “I arranged with my relief to have today off. I went to a hairdresser and then called the number mentioned in the ad. I asked for Mr. Karr. Mr. Wenston answered, said he was handling the preliminary interviews, and made an appointment. I never did have a chance to tell him any of my story. He rushed me right up here. Now, if that ad is on the level, I want to see Mr. Karr. It’s a matter of money with me. I’m not going to kid you, Mr. Mason, and I’m not going to kid myself. If there’s any money coming to me from my father, I need it.”

“You’re employed?” Mason asked.

“Yes. I’m an actress, and I can’t get a part. I had some bits in New York. A man promised he could get me a part in pictures if I came to Hollywood. He lied. Right at present I’m working as cashier in a cafeteria. And I don’t like it. It would be worth a good deal to be able to slap the boss’s face and walk out.”

“With whom were you living while you were going to school?”

“An aunt. She died about three years ago. Really, Mr. Mason, all of this can be verified. If there’s really anything back of this ad in the paper, we’re wasting a lot of time.”

“I think the guv’nor would want to see her,” Wenston said to Mason and then added, “Right away.”

Mason reached for his hat. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”

The people in the room were grouped in a tense-faced circle around the wheelchair occupied by Elston A. Karr. The day had been warm, yet the blanket covered his legs. His skin was no longer wax-like but was flushed. As his hand touched Mason’s, the lawyer noticed that the skin was dry and hot. Karr turned over the photograph and the letter, looked first at Johns Blaine, then at Gow Loong, the number one boy.

“Well?” he asked.