Erle Gardner - Case of the Beautiful Beggar

“Did you,” Mason asked, “tell him about the evidence that had been brought out in court, that you weren’t actually related to him?”

She said, “I don’t think I want to talk about that for a while, but I can tell you this, he’s made his will now.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “I was afraid of that,” he said. “I wish you’d got in touch with me. That was the one thing he should never have done.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you see,” Mason said, “you’re playing right into their hands. They claimed that if you could ever get him where he was under your control, you’d have him make a will and you’d get his property.

“That letter he wrote with the check for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars was just the sort of thing they needed and, if they can show that you had him make a will in your favor as soon as you got him out of the sanitarium, that also will be ammunition they can use.”

“But this was his own idea,” she said. “He wanted to do it. He insisted on it. He’d been trying to make a will so there couldn’t be any question.”

“Then he should have done it through an attorney and in the regular way,” Mason said. “The document should have been formally witnessed... What kind of a will did he make?”

“He said that in this state a will is good if it’s entirely written, dated and signed in the handwriting of the testator and you had told me the same thing, so that’s the sort of will he made.”

“Who has it?” Mason asked.

“I do.”

“Give it to me.”

She hesitated a moment, then opened her purse, took out a folded document and handed it to Mason.

Mason read the will. “This is all in his handwriting?”

“Yes.”

Mason checked the points Dated... Signed... Purporting to be a last will and testament... “You’d better let me keep this, Daphne.”

“I want you to.”

“And,” Mason said, “say nothing about it unless you’re asked. I want to get hold of Horace Shelby and in the event he’s competent, I want him to make a will setting forth whatever he wants to put in it, and I want to make certain it will be a valid will.

“Now then, let’s go and see Horace Shelby.”

She shook her head. “I am not going to tell you where he is.”

“Suppose,” Mason said, “that you just take a little ride with me and we’ll go to see him.”

She smiled. “And you can’t bluff me, Mr. Mason. I know you regard me as a naive child but I’m not as green as some people think.”

“I’ll say you’re not,” Mason said. He nodded significantly to Della Street and gestured toward the telephone directory.

Della moved quietly behind Daphne’s chair to consult the directory and then, when she had the address she wanted, made a surreptitious note and nodded to Mason.

Daphne Shelby, in the meantime, had been glaring at Mason defiantly.

“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “And you’re not going to bluff me by making me think you know so that I’ll say something that will be a giveaway. I know all about that technique of getting information.”

Mason smiled. “I’m sure you do,” he said. “Well, get your hat and coat and we’ll take a little ride.”

“I’ll ride with you,” she said, “but I’m not going to give you any information about where Uncle Horace is. He needs rest he needs to have the assurance that he’s his own man once more. You just can’t imagine what a devastating experience this has been for him.”

“You gave him forty thousand dollars?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I endorsed seven cashier’s checks for five thousand dollars over to him and I gave him five thousand dollars in cash.”

“A man in his condition shouldn’t be carrying that money around with him,” Mason said. “In fact, nobody should carry that much, but particularly your Uncle Horace shouldn’t have it.”

“It’s his money!” she blazed. “And that’s the only way he’s ever going to snap out of it — is to feel that he’s his own master, that he can do what he wants to with his own money.”

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s get in the car. Perhaps you’d better follow us in your car, Paul.”

“Will do,” Paul Drake said.

“Perhaps you’d be so good as to tell me where you’re taking me?” Daphne asked.

Mason grinned. “Just down the road a piece. We’ll bring you back in due course. There’s a man down there I want to see.”

Her head held high, she stalked out to Mason’s car.

Mason, Della Street and Daphne got into the front seat. With Paul Drake following, they drove down the thoroughfare, turned to the right, cruised past the Northern Lights Motel. Mason frequently glanced at Daphne’s face.

The young woman kept looking straight ahead, not even her eyes turned as they cruised slowly past the motel.

Paul Drake, in the car behind Mason, snapped his lights on and off, gave two quick taps on the horn button.

Mason swung to the curb, rolled down the window on his side and waited.

Drake’s car pulled alongside.

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“Cops,” Drake said tersely.

“Where?”

“Other end of the motel. Two cars.”

“Oh-oh,” Mason said.

“What do we do?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “We pull around the corner and wait. You go ask questions. Not pointed questions but adroit questions.”

“Will do,” Drake said.

As the detective pulled away, Mason turned to Daphne and said, “That’s what comes of trying to give your own attorney a double cross and taking things into your own hands.

“Now you can see what’s happened. Finchley has found out where your Uncle Horace is. He’s charged him with escaping from a sanitarium where he was confined under a Court order and has probably brought in police to take him back.”

Daphne, who had been bravely silent, suddenly started to cry. “If they take him back to that sanitarium and strap him in bed, it will kill him,” she said.

“We’ll try not to let it happen,” Mason told her. “We’ll get out of the way and park and see what we can do.”

The lawyer eased the car into motion, came to the cross street and started to turn. A police car, with siren moaning a low but peremptory message for the right-of-way, came around the corner. Mason pulled to the curb.

The police car, traveling at slow speed, started past the lawyer’s car, then suddenly stopped. The beam of a red spotlight illuminated the interior of Mason’s car.

“Well, well, well,” Lieutenant Tragg’s voice said. “Look who’s here!”

“Why, hello, Lieutenant,” Mason said. “What are you doing here?”

“I think I’ll ask you first and make the question official,” Tragg said. “What are you doing here?”

“I had been out to see a client on a probate matter,” Mason said, “and—”

“Your client live at the Northern Lights Motel?” Tragg interrupted.

Mason grinned and shook his head. “Why?”

“We’re investigating what seems to be a homicide,” Tragg said.

“A what?” Mason asked.

“Some fellow out here in Unit 21,” Tragg said. “Evidently somebody fed him some Chinese food that was drugged with a barbiturate and then, when he went to sleep, turned the gas stove on and didn’t light it. Occupants of an adjoining unit smelled the gas, called the proprietor, the proprietor got in the door, opened the windows, shut the gas off. It was too late.”

“Dead?” Mason asked.

“As a mackerel!” Lieutenant Tragg said. “You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

“About the man’s death?” Mason asked. “Heavens, no! I had no idea there had been a death until you told me just now.”