Cast of Characters

PERRY MASON — His methods raised objections in court, but they got results

DELLA STREET — Not only Mason’s Girl Friday but all the other days of the week

PHYLLIS LEEDS — Niece and confidential secretary of wealthy old Alden Leeds

ALDEN LEEDS — He left the Klondike with gold in his pockets and something on his conscience

EMILY MILICANT — Alden Leeds’s December heartbeat

NED BARKLER — Salty old prospecting pal of Alden Leeds, with an eye for the girls

PAUL DRAKE — Head of the Drake Detective Agency, he always looked disinterested and so succeeded in fooling the public

L. C. CONWAY — When Alden Leeds made out a $20,000 check to him, the whole case began

GUY T. SERLE — He bought Conway’s crooked-dice business only to have the police raid his joint

MARCIA WHITTAKER — A beautiful blonde, hard as nails but soft about Conway, she cashed the controversial $20,000 check

JOHN MILICANT — To some he was known as Emily Milicant’s brother, but others knew him under a different name

JASON CARREL — He took Uncle Alden for a ride and committed him to a sanitarium

FREEMAN LEEDS — He hadn’t seen his brother Alden in fifty-three years but was quick to recognize him when he found out that Alden had come home rich

HAROLD LEEDS — Freeman’s son, he had a few vices his father didn’t know about

HAZEL STICKLAND — These two girls didn’t know each other,

INEZ COLTON — but both took a run-out powder on the night of the murder

Chapter 1

Perry Mason stared at the morning mail with evident distaste. He raised his eyes to where his secretary was standing at his elbow, and said, “Gosh, Della, can’t you scare me up a good mystery?”

Della Street said, “I’ve handled all the routine mail. This is the important stuff which needs your personal attention.”

Mason pushed the mail to one side. “Shucks, Della, I hate letters. Letters are inanimate. I like people. People are animate. I like to puzzle with human problems.”

Della Street regarded the discarded mail with solicitous eyes, and steeled herself against the magnetism of Mason’s boyish grin. “After all,” she said, “you can’t eat dessert all the time, Chief. You have to have some bread and butter.”

“Not dessert, Della,” Mason said. “I want meat, red meat, and lots of it. Come on, be a good girl, and tell me about the clients.”

Della Street sighed. “A Miss Leeds, a Miss Milicant, and a Mr. Barkler are waiting in the outer office. They’re together, but Miss Leeds wants to talk with you for a few moments before you see the others.”

“What’s it about, Della?”

“A rich man whose relatives want his money.”

“I don’t like rich people,” Mason said, pushing his hands down in his pockets. “I like poor people.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice showing her interest.

“Darned if I know,” Mason said. “Rich people worry too much, and their problems are too damn petty. They stew up a high blood pressure over a one-point drop in the interest rate. Poor people get right down to brass tacks: love, hunger, murder, forgery, embezzlement — things a man can sink his teeth into, things he can sympathize with.”

“I told them I thought you wouldn’t be interested,” Della Street said, “that you specialized in trial work.”

Mason sunk his chin on his chest and frowned thoughtfully. At length, he said, “I’ll see Miss Leeds anyway. She has my curiosity aroused. Three people come together. One person wants to see me before the other two... Send her in, Della”

Della Street looked pointedly at the pile of mail.

“I’ll answer it this afternoon,” he promised. “Let’s see Miss Leeds.”

She slipped through the door to the outer office to return in a few moments with a young woman whose quick, nervous step was indicative of an impatient temperament.

“Phyllis Leeds,” Della Street said.

Miss Leeds crossed rapidly over to Mason’s desk, giving the lawyer an impression of vivid blue eyes which studied him in swift appraisal.

“Thank you so much for seeing me, Mr. Mason,” she said as Della Street withdrew.

Mason bowed. “Sit down,” he said. “Tell me what it’s about.”

She sat down on the extreme edge of the big leather chair across from Mason’s desk, and said, “I can only keep the others waiting a minute or two. I want to give you the sketch.”

Mason opened his office humidor, extended a tray containing four of the better-known brands of cigarettes.

“Smoke?” he asked.

“Thanks,” she said.

As Mason held his match, she took a deep drag, exhaled streaming smoke from her nostrils, then, with a quick, nervous gesture, whipped the cigarette from her lips, and said, “I want to see you about my Uncle Alden — Alden E. Leeds.”

“What about him?” Mason asked.

“I have two cousins and two uncles living. Uncle Alden was the black sheep of the family. He ran away and went to sea when he was only fourteen. No one knows where he went or what he did. He doesn’t like to talk about his adventures, but he’s been all over the world. When I was fifteen, he came back here to settle down. I think the family were inclined to look down their noses at him until they found out that Uncle Alden was exceedingly wealthy.”

“How old is your Uncle Alden?” Mason asked.

“Seventy-two, I believe. He was the oldest of the boys. I’m living in his house, manage most of his financial affairs, and his correspondence.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

Phyllis Leeds said, “I’ll have to hit the high spots. Uncle Alden has never married. Recently he met Emily Milicant... She’s waiting in the outer office. He fell for her hard.

“The relatives are furious. They’re afraid they’ll lose out on the money. They want to have Uncle Alden declared incompetent.”

“And how do you feel about it?”

“I feel that it’s Uncle Alden’s money and he can do with it just as he pleases.”

“You’re friendly with Emily Milicant?”

“Not particularly.”

“But you’d be glad to see them married?”

“No,” she said, “I don’t think I would, but I do want Uncle Alden to be free to do what he wants.”

“And what,” Mason asked, “did you want me to do?”

“Isn’t it the law that a person can manage his own property unless his mind becomes so affected that other people can take advantage of him?”

“Something to that effect,” Mason said.

Phyllis Leeds said, “They’re trying to show that he can be imposed upon, and there are certain things they must never find out.”

“What for instance?”

She said, “That’s what I want Emily Milicant to tell you. But before she told you, I wanted you to — well, get the sketch. I think she wants to marry Uncle Alden. You’ll have to make allowances for that. Ned Barkler is one of Uncle Alden’s closest friends. He knew Uncle up in the Klondike years ago. I asked him to come along.”

“Shall I ask them to come in?” Mason inquired.

“If you will, please.”

Mason picked up the telephone, and said, “Ask Miss Milicant and Mr. Barkler to come in, please.” He dropped the receiver into place and glanced expectantly at the door to the outer office.

Emily Milicant had quite evidently tried to preserve the contours of youth although she was somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five. She had starved her face into submission, but her body was more obstinate. Despite the hollows under her cheekbones and the wide intensity of her staring, black eyes, she retained little rolls of fat just above the hipbones. Dieting had made her face gaunt, her neck almost scrawny, but the fit of her dress across the hips lacked the smooth symmetry which she had so evidently tried to achieve.

Barkler was in the late fifties, weatherbeaten, wiry and hard. He walked with a slight limp. Mason acknowledged introductions, motioned them to chairs, and waited.

Emily Milicant dropped into a chair and immediately seemed to become thin. Her black eyes, staring out from above the hollowing cheeks, conveyed the impression of an emotional intensity which was burning up her mental energy.

Barkler took a pipe from his pocket with the manner of a man who intended that his contribution to the conference was to be an attentive silence.

Emily Milicant’s eyes met those of Mason with the force of physical impact. “I presume,” she said, “that Phyllis has told you all about me. It was delicate and tactful of her, but entirely unnecessary. I could have covered the situation in fewer words. So far as the Leeds family are concerned, Mr. Mason, with the exception of Phyllis here,” — and she indicated Phyllis by rotating her forearm on the elbow and twisting the wrist quickly as though to shake a gesture off her fingertips, — “I’m an adventuress. I have ceased to be known as Emily Milicant. I am referred to as ‘that woman.’”

Mason nodded noncommittally.

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Mason,” she rushed on. “I can take it. But I’m not going to be pushed around.”

“I think,” Mason said, “Miss Leeds has covered the preliminaries. What is the specific point on which you wanted my advice?”

“Mr. Leeds is being blackmailed,” she said.

“How do you know?” Mason asked.

“I was with him day before yesterday,” she said, “when his bank telephoned. Alden — Mr. Leeds — seemed very much disturbed. I heard him say, ‘I don’t care if the check is for a million dollars, go ahead and cash it — and I don’t care if it’s presented by a newsboy or a streetwalker. That endorsement makes the check payable to bearer.’ He was getting ready to slam up the receiver when the man at the other end of the line said something else, and I could hear what it was.”

“What was it?” Mason asked.

She leaned forward impressively. “The cashier at the bank, I suppose it was, said, ‘Mr. Leeds, this young woman is flashily dressed. She’s asking for the twenty thousand dollars in cash.’ ‘That’s the face of the check, isn’t it?’ Leeds asked. The voice said, ‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Leeds. I just wanted to be certain.’ ‘You’re certain now,’ Alden said, and slammed the telephone receiver back into place.

“When he turned away from the telephone, I think he realized for the first time that I had heard his end of the conversation. He seemed to hold his breath for a moment as though thinking rapidly back over what had been said at his end of the line. Then he said to me, ‘Banks are a confounded nuisance. I gave a newsboy a check for twenty dollars last night and put an endorsement on the check that would enable him to cash it without any difficulty. And a bank underling has to start acting officious. You’d think I didn’t know how to run my own business.’”

Phyllis Leeds entered the conversation. “When Emily told me about it,” she said, “I realized right away what a dreadful thing it would be if Uncle Alden had been victimized by swindlers or blackmailers. Uncle Freeman would pounce on it at once as an excuse to show that Uncle Alden couldn’t be trusted to handle his own money.”

“So what did you do?” Mason asked.

“I went to the bank,” she said. “I handle Uncle Alden’s financial matters — keeping his bank account in balance and his correspondence and things like that. I told the bank I was having trouble in my accounts and asked them to give me the amount of Uncle Alden’s balance and the canceled checks. I think the bank cashier knew what I was after, and was really relieved. He got the checks for me at once. The last one was a check for twenty thousand dollars signed by Uncle Alden, and payable to L. C. Conway. It was endorsed on the back, ‘L. C. Conway’ and down below that appeared in Uncle’s handwriting, ‘This endorsement guaranteed. Check to be cashed without identification or further endorsement.”

“The effect,” Mason said, “being virtually to make it a check payable to bearer. Why didn’t he do that in the first place?”

“Because,” she said, “I don’t think he wanted this young woman’s name to appear on the check.”

“It was cashed by the bank without her endorsement?”

“Yes. The bank cashier insisted on her endorsing the check. She refused to do so. Then he rang up Uncle Alden and had the conversation Emily overheard. After that, the cashier told this woman she didn’t need to endorse the check, but that she’d have to leave her name and address and give a receipt before he’d let her have the money.”

“Then what happened?”

“The girl was furious. She wanted to telephone Uncle Alden, but she either didn’t know his number or pretended she didn’t. The cashier wouldn’t give her Uncle Alden’s unlisted number. So finally she wrote her name and address, and gave him a receipt.”

“Fictitious?” Mason asked.

“Apparently, it wasn’t. The cashier made her show her driving license, and an envelope addressed to her at that address.”

Mason said, “Your uncle might not welcome the cashier’s activities.”

“I’m quite certain that he wouldn’t,” she said.

Emily Milicant said, with quick nervousness, “You know blackmailers never quit.”

“You have the check?” Mason asked Phyllis Leeds.

“Yes.” She took the canceled check from her purse, and handed it to Mason.

“What,” Mason asked, “do you want me to do?”

“Find out about the blackmail, and if possible get the money back before the other relatives can find out about it.”

Mason smiled, and said, “That’s rather a large order.”

“It would be for most people. You can take it in your stride.”

“Have you any clues?” Mason asked.

“None, except those I gave you.”

Mason turned his eyes to Barkler who sat smoking placidly. “What’s your idea about this, Barkler?” he asked.

Barkler gave his pipe a couple of puffs, removed it from his mouth, said, “He ain’t being blackmailed,” and resumed his smoking.

Phyllis Leeds laughed nervously.

“Mr. Barkler knew Uncle Alden in the Klondike,” she said. “He claims no man on earth could blackmail him, says Uncle Alden’s too handy with a gun.”

Barkler said, by way of correction and without removing his pipe, “Not the Klondike, the Tanana.”

“It amounts to the same thing,” she said.

Barkler seemed not to have heard her.

“He and Uncle Alden stumbled onto each other a year ago,” Phyllis explained. “They’re great friends — old cronies, you know.”

“Cronies, hell! We’re pards,” Barkler said, “and don’t make no mistake about Alden. He ain’t being blackmailed.”

Phyllis Leeds said quietly to the lawyer, “The check you hold speaks for itself.”

Mason said, “If I take this case, I’ll need money — money for my services, money for investigation. I’ll hire a detective agency and put men to work. It’ll be expensive.”

Barkler took the pipe out of his mouth and said, “Cheap lawyers ain’t no good anyhow. Alden ain’t being blackmailed, Phyllis. He’s in trouble of some kind. Give Mason a check and let him go to work... But it ain’t blackmail. You can lay to that.”

Phyllis Leeds opened her purse and took out a checkbook.

“How much,” she asked Perry Mason, “do you want?”

Chapter 2

Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, relaxed all over the big, leather chair in Mason’s office. His backbone, seeming to have no more rigidity than a piece of garden hose, bent forward until his chin came close to his knees. His feet were propped against the opposite arm of the chair. He habitually sat sideways in the big chair, and adopted an attitude of extreme fatigue. His eyes were dull and expressionless, his voice had a tired drawl. His appearance of general lassitude and lugubrious disinterest in life kept anyone from suspecting he might be a private detective.

Drake said, “Give me a cigarette, Perry, and I’ll tell you the sad news.”

“Get it?” Mason said to Della Street, tossing the detective his cigarette case. “The big moocher comes in here and bums my cigarettes to report that he’s foozled a case.”

“Nuts to you,” Drake said, extracting a cigarette and snapping a match into flame. “I did some good work on that case. The blonde who cashed the check gave the name of Marcia Whittaker. Her address checked with the address on her automobile license — but it wasn’t her address. However, the name was right, and it didn’t take me long to locate where she’d been living.”

“ Been living?” Mason asked.

“Sure,” Drake said. “She hadn’t figured on having to give her name at the bank. When the cashier demanded it, she was smart enough to give him the right name so it checked with her driving license. She was also smart enough to go home, pack up her things and move out that afternoon.”

“Any back trail?” Mason asked.

“Of course not. What the hell do you think she moved for?”

“And that,” Mason said sarcastically, “represents the result of your complete investigation, I take it.”

Drake was silent while he drew in a lungful of smoke, then blew it out, and resumed his account as casually as though he had not heard Mason’s comment. “I did a little snooping around the place where she had her apartment. The banker had described her as hard. That was only the first half.”

“You mean hard and fast?” Della Street asked.

“You guessed it,” Drake said. “So I hunted up the landlady and ran a blazer on her about the kind of joint she was running and scared her into convulsions. She said she’d do anything she could, but the girl hadn’t left any forwarding address and all that. I told her I wanted to know something about the men who had called on Marcia Whittaker. That lead didn’t pan out. Then I asked the manager if she gave apartments to every tramp who showed up without asking for references. She said she certainly didn’t. She usually asked for references, although she admitted that if a girl gave references that sounded all right and didn’t hesitate or ‘hem and haw’ about it, she seldom wrote to the references.

“So we looked up Marcia Whittaker and found that when she’d taken the place, she’d given as a reference an L. C. Conway, manager of the Conway Appliance Company at 692 Herrod Avenue.”

Mason lit a cigarette. “Not bad, Paul.”

“Just luck,” Drake said, wearily. “Don’t give me any credit for that — although you’d have been the first to blame me if the name hadn’t been there. Anyway, it was a lucky break. I went down to 692 Herrod Avenue. The Conway Appliance Company had had an office there for a couple of months. It had received lots of mail, and then it had moved out suddenly and left no forwarding address.

“I got a description of L. C. Conway.” Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket, opened it, and read, “L. C. Conway, about fifty-five, around five foot ten, weight a hundred and ninety pounds, bald in front, with dark, curly hair coming to a point about the top middle of his head. Has a slight limp, due to something wrong with right foot... No one knew where he lived or what he did.”

Mason frowned.

“Couldn’t find a thing?” he asked.

“Nope,” Drake said, “but I found one thing that was significant.”

“What?”

“The day after he moved, all mail quit coming to the office.”

Mason studied his cigarette thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “Meaning a forwarding address had been left at the post office?”

“Yep.”

“Any chance of getting it?”

“None whatever,” Drake said, “but I bought a post office money order for twenty-five bucks payable to the Conway Appliance Company, scribbled a note that it was in payment of the merchandise I’d ordered a couple of months ago, and asked him to send it by mail to a phony address. I sent it to 692 Herrod Avenue.”

“How did you know what kind of merchandise he was selling?” Mason asked.

“I didn’t,” Drake said, “but a guy like that isn’t going to turn down twenty-five bucks, and he isn’t going to take a chance on cashing a post office money order without giving the sucker some sort of run for his money.”

Mason nodded. “Good work, Paul. Get an answer?”

“Yep,” Drake said, squirming around sideways so that he could get his left hand into the inside pocket of his coat. “Found out what the bird’s selling all right and got his address.”

“What’s he selling?”

“Crooked crap dice by the looks of things,” Drake said, pulling a letter from his pocket and reading.

“Dear Sir, It is our policy to make deliveries by messenger and never through the mail. Your valued order received, but you neglected to state whether you had any preference in color or size. Unless we hear from you to the contrary, we will deliver two pair of our regular ivory cubes. There will, of course, be the usual premium.”

“How’s it signed?” Mason asked.

“Signed ‘Guy T. Serle, President,’ ” Drake said.

“Address?” Mason asked.

“Uh-huh. 209 East Ranchester. ”

“So then what?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “Thought I’d drop in for instructions. Think I’d better let him make a delivery?”

“Yes,” Mason said, “and tail the man who makes it. Try and pick up Conway and put a tail on him. Find out who Serle is.”

Drake said, “Okay, Perry. Of course, this delivery guy will probably be a rat-faced punk who thinks he’s a big shot because he’s peddling phoney dice, but he may lead to something. I’ll...”

He broke off as Mason’s telephone shrilled into sound.

Mason said, “All right, Paul, be seeing you. Keep me posted,” and picked up the receiver. The girl at the switchboard said, “Miss Leeds on the line, says it’s a matter of the greatest importance.”

Mason said, “Put her on,” then, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, said to Drake, who was halfway to the exit door, “Stick around a minute, Paul. This is the Leeds girl calling now... Yes, hello... Yes, this is Mr. Mason, Miss Leeds.”

Phyllis Leeds was so excited that her voice was high-pitched. “Mr. Mason,” she said, “the most terrible thing has happened.”

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s have it.”

“Jason Carrel, one of the relatives, has put Uncle Alden in a sanitarium and won’t tell me where it is.”

“How did that happen?” Mason asked.

“He called early this morning to take Uncle Alden for an automobile ride. When they didn’t come back within an hour, I got worried. Uncle Alden doesn’t like long rides, and I don’t think he likes to ride with Jason anyway. I went around to Jason’s house. Sure enough, his car was in the garage. I asked him where Uncle Alden was, and he said that Uncle Alden had been taken very sick while they were riding and that he’d rushed him to a sanitarium and called a doctor, that the doctor had insisted upon absolute rest and quiet for at least two days. He said he was just coming to tell me about it when I arrived.”

Mason said, “All right, I’ll fix that in short order. Now listen, this is more important than it sounds. Does your uncle love to gamble?”

“Why, no, not particularly.”

“Does he ever shoot craps for large stakes?”

“Why, no... well, wait a minute. He was in a little game a few days ago — oh, maybe a week ago.”

“With whom was he playing?”

“John Milicant.”

“Related to Emily?” Mason asked.

“Yes, he’s her brother.”

“How much did the brother lose?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. I think he won.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know. There was a little talk back and forth, a little kidding.”

“Was the game for high stakes?”

“No — just twenty-five cents a throw or something like that. I don’t know much about how to play the game.”

“Where can I find John Milicant?”

“I don’t know just where he lives. I can find out from Emily.”

Mason said, “Get him. Bring him into the office. I want to talk with him. Don’t worry about your uncle. I’ll get out a writ of habeas corpus and serve it on Jason Carrel.”

“And there’s nothing else for me to do?”

“No.”

“Nothing I can do to help Uncle?”

“Not a thing,” Mason said. “Bring in John Milicant and forget about it. Quit worrying.”

He hung up the telephone, said to Paul Drake, “Okay, Paul. It’s nothing important. The relatives are closing in on the old man, that’s all. Go ahead and get busy on the Conway Appliance Company.”

As Drake left the office, Mason said to Della Street, “Get out a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. I’ll present it to Judge Treadwell and we’ll give Jason Carrel a jolt right between the eyes.”

Chapter 3

When Mason and Della Street returned from lunch, Paul Drake had already returned and was waiting for them.

“What’s new, Paul?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “We’ve located Marcia Whittaker.”

“Good work, Paul. How did you do it?”

“Oh, just a lot of leg work,” Drake said wearily. “We covered the Bureau of Light, Water and Gas. She had an application in for electric lights and gas. It’s an unfurnished flat. She’s evidently buying furniture and settling down.”

Mason lit a cigarette and stared at the match for a long moment before shaking it out. “Marcia Whittaker’s this girl’s real name?” he asked.

“Yes. Why?”

Mason said, “As I get her character from your report, she’s a drifter. Now she gets a flat and starts buying furniture. What’s brought about this sudden stability?”

Drake hugged his knees. “Her split out of twenty thousand bucks.”

Mason slowly shook his head. “That would send her on a splurge, not make her settle down... Della, take a look at the papers — vital statistics. Just a chance, but maybe...”

The two men smoked in silence.

A few minutes later there was a triumphant grunt from Della. “This what you want? ‘L. C. Conway, 57, to Marcia Whittaker, 23.’ Notice of intention to wed.”

Drake slumped down dejectedly. “Oh — oh,” he said. “Here I thought I’d done something smart, when all I’d have had to do was sit in my office and open the newspaper... Just another case of the professional being trimmed by the gifted amateur.”

Mason grinned. “Anything more about Conway, Paul?”

“Nothing that helps. That twenty grand evidently made quite a difference to Conway. He sold his business to Guy T. Serle and gave Serle the right to keep on using the name of Conway Appliance Company.”

“Does Serle know where Conway is?”

“I don’t know. Look, Perry, what do you think of these?” He drew a pair of dice out of his pocket and threw them across the desk.

Mason looked at the dice, picked them up and rolled them three or four times, then laughed. “I’m ashamed of you, Paul,” he said.

Drake said seriously, “That’s the merchandise delivered to me by the Conway Appliance Company. Two pair of loaded dice, and a very special premium.”

Mason shook his head, slid open a desk drawer and threw the dice in it.

“What do you think the premium was, Perry?” Drake asked him.

“Marked cards.”

“No, a nice lottery ticket.”

Mason whistled. “You tailed the delivery?”

“Sure. He chased around to twenty or thirty addresses, then beat it back to the East Ranchester address. I picked up Serle — a guy about forty, nervous, quick-moving chap, six feet tall, pretty slender, bony features, pinkish blonde, gray-eyed, wears double-breasted suits. I put a tail on him to see if he has any contact with Conway... However, we have a cinch now. We can locate Conway by putting a shadow on the girl.”

Mason pinched out his cigarette with swift decision. “I’d rather talk with the girl than with Conway,” he said. “Della, when Phyllis Leeds calls, tell her Judge Treadwell has issued a writ of habeas corpus.”

“Why did you pick Treadwell?” Drake asked.

Mason grinned. “He has an arcus senilis.”

“What’s that?”

“One of the things psychiatrists like to pounce on in senile dementia cases. You’ll hear plenty about it in a day or two. Come on. Let’s go.”

Driving out in Paul Drake’s car, Mason said, “The way I figure it, Paul, I’m retained by Phyllis Leeds. I’m not working for Emily Milicant.”

Drake flashed him a sidelong glance. “Go on,” he said.

Mason lit a cigarette. “A word to the wise,” he said.

“I’m supposed to read your mind?” Drake asked.

Mason nodded.

They drove in silence for several blocks, then Drake turned a corner and said, “This is the place — any particular angle of approach?”

“No,” Mason said, “we’ll have to pick up the cards and decide how to play our hand when we see what are trumps.”

They rang the bell twice, then heard steps on the stairs. The door opened. A blonde, attired in gold and brown lounging pajamas, stared at them with evident disappointment, and said, “Oh, I thought you were the man with the drapes.”

Mason said, “Miss Whittaker?”

She said, “Yes. Now don’t you boys tell me you’re working your way through college.”

“We want to talk with you,” Mason said.

“What about?”

“About a private matter.”

As she continued to stand blocking the doorway, Mason added significantly, “Something which I think you’d prefer to discuss where the neighbors couldn’t hear.”

She glanced at the doors opening on the porch. “Come in,” she said.

Drake closed the door behind them. Marcia Whittaker silently led the way up the stairs.

The living-room had shades but no drapes. New rugs were on the hardwood floors. The furniture seemed stiff and unreal as though it had not as yet become accustomed to its new surroundings and settled down to homey comfort.

“Sit down,” she invited tonelessly.

Mason studied her face, the yellow hair with a darker fringe at the roots, her hard, blue eyes containing a hint of fear, her skin seeming smooth enough when her face was in repose but showing hard little lines which sprang into existence between her nose and the corners of her mouth as she placed a cigarette in her lips, adeptly scratched a match along the sole of one of her Chinese shoes, and said, “All right, let’s have it.”

Mason said, “It’s about that check you cashed.”

“My God,” she said, “can’t anyone cash a check without being hounded to death? You’d think I was the only person in the city who ever had a check to cash. I was a fool for giving my address. I found out afterwards I didn’t have to.”

“What was the consideration for that check?”

“None of your business.”

“The point,” Mason said, “is that this check was given by a man seventy-two years old who is now confined in a sanitarium.”

“That’s too bad,” she observed without sympathy.

“His relatives will appoint a guardian if they can,” Mason said, “and when the guardian is appointed he’ll demand all the papers. When he gets the papers, he’ll find that canceled check. Naturally, a guardian wouldn’t like anything better than to start making trouble about that check. It would give him a lawsuit, attorney’s fees, extraordinary compensation.”

“What trouble could he make,” she asked, and then added significantly, “for me?”

“Lots,” Mason said.

“Leeds didn’t give that check to me,” she said hotly. “I only cashed it.”

“You have the cash,” Mason said.

“No, I haven’t.”

“You’re marrying it, then.”

She glared at him, said nothing.

Mason, studying the expression in her eyes, said, “Why won’t Conway marry you?”

She flushed hotly. “Say, who cut you in on this deal?”

“I did,” Mason said.

“All right. Since you want to mess around in my private affairs, why doesn’t he marry me?”

Mason studied the end of his cigarette. “Do you think he ever intended to?”

“Of course, he intended to. He’d promised it all along, and then his family...” She broke off abruptly.

Mason said, “Well, if you ask me, I don’t think his family have any right to put on airs. You’re just as good as they are.”

“Say,” she said abruptly, her eyes narrowing, “how do you know all this?”

Mason said, “Oh, I get around.”

“Who are you?”

“The name’s Mason.”

“Who’s the guy with you?”

“His name’s Drake.”

“Well, what’s your racket?”

“Believe it or not,” Mason said, “we don’t have any. I thought I’d let you know about that check. Of course, Phyllis knows all about it.”

“Oh, she does, does she?”

“And Emily,” Mason observed.

For a split second, all trace of color left the girl’s face. Her eyes darkened with apprehension. “Emily knows about it!”

“Yes, Emily Hodgkins,” Mason went on.

Marcia Whittaker conveyed the cigarette to her lips, sucked in a deep drag, exhaled, tapped ashes from the end of the cigarette into the ash tray, and said, “Emily Hodgkins?”

“Yes, an assistant employed by Phyllis Leeds.”

“Oh!”

“You don’t know her?”

“I don’t know any of them.”

Mason said, “Your boy friend might be about twenty thousand bucks ahead if a guardian wasn’t appointed.”

She looked down at her Chinese slippers for several seconds, then raised her eyes to Mason, and said frankly, “Okay, I get you.”

“It’ll be too bad if your boy friend has a leaky face,” Mason said.

“I get you. I get you,” she said impatiently, “You don’t need to embroider the edges.”

Mason, getting to his feet, said, “Nice place you have here. Going to make a cozy little home.”

Sudden tears sprang to her eyes. “For Christ’s sake, don’t rub it in! I’ve tuned in on your program. You haven’t given your commercial yet, and I suppose you’re not going to. Now that you’re finished, why not get the hell off the air?”

“Thanks,” Mason said. “I will.”

She followed them as far as the head of the stairs. Her mouth corners were twitching. Tears were trickling down her cheeks, but she stood slim, straight, and defiant, watching the two men through the outer door.

As they walked across the street to the car, Mason said, “Judging from the way that banker talked, and your comments about her record in the apartment house, I thought we’d find a red light burning over the door.”

“Remember,” Drake said, “I was only taking the evidence of the people who had the apartment next door and the landlady who ran the joint.”

“All right,” Mason said, “suppose they were right? This kid’s young. Conway wanted to use her in that check business. The way he sold her was by promising to marry her when he made the stake.”

“Think he strung her along for the check business?” Drake asked, easing the car into gear.

“Of course, he did,” Mason said.

“How about his family?”

Mason said, “There may be something there.”

“Why all the agony over just cashing a check?” Drake asked. “That doesn’t amount to so much.”

“That,” Mason said, “is our most significant clue. It amounted to a hell of a lot in this case.”

Phyllis Leeds and John Milicant were waiting in Mason’s reception room when the lawyer returned to his office.

John Milicant, a baldish, black-haired, stocky man in the fifties, walked with an almost imperceptible limp — a slight favoring of his right foot. He shook hands, sat down, crossed well-creased, gray trousers, consulted his wrist watch and said, “Phyllis said you wanted to find out something about Alden Leeds. I’d appreciate it very much if you could rush things. I have an appointment I’m stalling off.”

Mason said, “You understand there’s going to be a family row?”

Milicant nodded. “Of course, Alden is right as a rivet. He’s a little peculiar at times, just a little eccentric. He’s no more crazy than I am.”

“You’ve had an opportunity to observe him during the last few weeks?” Mason asked.

“During the last month mostly,” Milicant said. “I drop in once in a while.”

Phyllis interposed. “Uncle Alden gets a great kick out of John. John’s about the only one who can give him a good fight over the chess board.”

Milicant said, “I don’t know whether he and Sis are going to hit it off or not. I don’t care. It’s up to them. I hope Sis has enough gumption to have it understood she’ll never touch a cent of his money. She doesn’t need it.”