Erle Gardner - Case of the Beautiful Beggar

“Please deposit this to the account of Horace Shelby,” he said.

The teller looked at the seventy five thousand dollars in surprise. “A cash deposit for seventy five thousand dollars?” he asked.

“Exactly,” Mason said.

“I think that account has been transferred,” the teller said. “I’m sorry but—”

“Can’t the bank take a deposit?”

“Yes, I guess we could.”

“Then, please deposit this to the account of Horace Shelby.”

The teller said, “Just a moment. I’m going to have to ask someone about this.”

He was gone a few minutes, then returned and said, “If you insist on making the deposit, Mr. Mason, we have no alternative but to accept it.”

“Very well,” Mason said. “I want to make the deposit.”

The teller stamped and signed the duplicate deposit slips.

“Now then,” Mason said, taking the endorsed check of Daphne Shelby from his pocket, “I have a check here that I would like to cash. A check for a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.”

“You want to cash a check for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars?” the teller asked.

“That’s right,” Mason said, and handed the check through the window.

The teller looked at the check in frowning incredulity; then, suddenly, a light dawned on his face.

“Just a minute,” he said. “I’ll also have to check on this.”

He left the window and was back in a few moments. “It happens,” he said, “that there is just enough money in the account to pay this check.”

“I’m not interested in the amount of the account,” Mason said. “I only want to cash the check.”

The teller said, “This is a most unusual situation, Mr. Mason.”

Mason yawned. “Perhaps it’s unusual for you,” he said, and glanced significantly at his wrist watch.

The teller said, “How do you want this, Mr. Mason?”

“In thousand dollar bills,” Mason said.

The teller opened his drawer, carefully counted out the seventy five thousand that Mason had deposited, then counted out twenty thousand more bills, summoned the messenger to go to the vault, said, “Just moment, please,” and, a few minutes later, handed Mason the balance of the money in thousand dollar bills.

“Thank you,” Mason said.

He put the money in his pocket, walked over to the enclosure in which Stanley Paxton had his desk and said, “Mr. Paxton, I borrowed seventy five thousand dollars from the bank a short time ago.”

“Yes, indeed,” Paxton said. “It was a short term thirty day note on your personal security, Mr. Mason.”

“Exactly,” Mason said.

“I find that I have no further use for the money,” Mason said, “and would like to pay off the note.”

“Why, that’s most unusual!” Paxton said.

“I know it is,” Mason said. “As I figure the interest for one day, it amounts to about twelve dollars and thirty two cents.”

The lawyer gravely put seventy-five thousand dollar bills, a ten dollar bill, two one dollar bills, and thirty two cents on the banker’s desk.

“Well, this is most unusual!” Paxton said. “However, if you insist on paying off the note, I guess we have no alternative but to accept it. Just a moment, please.” Paxton took the money, put it in the drawer of his desk, picked up an inter-office telephone and said, “Send me in the Perry Mason note for seventy five thousand dollars, please. Mark it ‘Paid’... That’s right, I know it just came in... That’s right. Mark it ‘Paid’! ”

After some three minutes, a young man approached the desk with the promissory note.

“Here you are,” Paxton said. “I’m sorry you didn’t have further use for the money. We like to put our money out at interest on a good security.”

“Oh, I understand,” Mason said. “Now, I have one other request. I have fifty thousand dollars in cash. I would like to buy ten cashier’s checks for five thousand dollars each, payable to Daphne Shelby. I believe you are acquainted with Miss Shelby.”

“Oh, yes,” Paxton said, “we know her quite well. She does all the business for her uncle. You wanted ten cashier’s checks of five thousand dollars each?”

“That’s right.”

“If you can wait for just a few more minutes,” Paxton said.

He took the fifty thousand dollars, left his desk and within a matter of fifteen minutes returned with the ten cashier’s checks.

“Thank you very much,” Mason said. The banker stood up.

“I’ve shaken hands with you once, Mr. Mason,” he said. “I’m going to shake hands with you again, and I hope you’ll forgive me for my momentary doubts as to your ingenuity. When I really violated a confidence to give you information in your office, I was hoping against hope that you’d find some way of handling the matter, and then I felt my hopes dashed to the ground. I realize now that I should have had more confidence.”

The banker gripped the lawyer’s hand firmly, then patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck, Mr. Mason,” he said.

“Thanks very much,” Mason said. “And thanks to the Investors National Bank for the interest it takes in its clients. I can assure you that this action will eventually rebound to your benefit.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much,” Paxton said.

The lawyer, with the ten cashier’s checks in his inside pocket, left the bank, went to Daphne Shelby’s hotel.

“Daphne,” he said when he confronted the young woman, “you’re no longer a beautiful beggar.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Mason took the ten cashier’s checks from his pocket.

She looked at each one incredulously. “What in the world!” she asked.

Mason said, “Just endorse this one check ‘Pay to the order of Perry Mason.’ ”

“That’s your fee?” she asked.

“We’re not talking about a fee yet,” Mason said. “I’m having you endorse this so I can get five thousand dollars in cash and send it over to you. That’s all you should have on your person at the present time. In fact, you’d better get traveler’s checks for about forty five hundred dollars with it. The other checks you should hold against a rainy day.”

Mason had been back in his office less than an hour when Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door.

Della Street admitted the detective and Drake said, “Well, I’ve got Ralph Exeter pegged.”

“What about him?” Mason asked

Drake said, “Exeter’s real name is Cameron. His first name is a queer one — Bosley, B-O-S-L-E-Y. He’s from Las Vegas. He’s a gambler, and he’s holding Borden Finchley’s IOUs for over a hundred and fifty thousand bucks.”

“So that explains a lot,” Mason said.

“There’s more to it than that,” Drake went on. “Cameron became involved himself and, until he can get the money on those IOUs of Finchley, Cameron can’t get back in good standing with his own crowd. So Cameron is hiding out. That’s why he has taken the name of Ralph Exeter of Boston, Massachusetts.”

Mason said, “That’s darned good work, Paul. You did a wonderful job.”

Drake shook his head and said, “I didn’t really do anything. I just happened to cross the back trail of people who are trying to find Cameron.”

“How?”

“Well, it was just a combination of circumstances. Finchley gave a rather synthetic background of where he had been and what he had been doing, but the person that comes in to do the house cleaning noticed that there were Las Vegas stickers on his baggage when he first came there, and that Finchley was at great pains to scrub them off the second day he was there.

“You remember Finchley said they were driving in Exeter’s car. I traced the license plates on Exeter’s car. They were Massachusetts license plates all right, but I used the long distance telephone, got some quick action, and found the person who was registered as owning that car when it left Massachusetts.