The Case of the Drowning Duck

Chapter 2

Lois took the conversational lead from her father easily and naturally. “After all,” she said, “this problem primarily concerns me.”

“It concerns your happiness,” her father said curtly. “Therefore, it concerns me.”

“My happiness,” she pointed out.

John Witherspoon glanced at Mason almost appealingly, then lapsed into silence.

“I’m in love,” Lois said. “I’ve been in love before. It was a lukewarm emotion. This time I’m playing for keeps. Nothing anyone can say, nothing anyone can do, is going to change it. Dad’s worried about my happiness. He’s worried because there are some things about the man I’m going to marry we don’t know, things that Marvin himself doesn’t know.”

“After all,” John Witherspoon pointed out, somewhat lamely, Mason thought, “family and background are important.”

Lois brushed the remark aside. She was a small-boned, vivacious girl with intense dark eyes and a volatile manner. She said, “About five years ago Marvin Adams and his mother, Sarah Adams, came to live in El Templo. Sarah was a widow. She had a little property. She put Marvin through school. I met him in high school. He was just another boy. We both went away to college. We came back for winter vacation and met again, and...” She snapped her fingers. “Something clicked.”

She looked at the two men as though wondering if they would understand, then shifted her eyes to Della Street.

Delia Street nodded.

“My Dad,” Lois went on, pouring out the words, “is nuts on family. He traces our ancestry back so far it makes the Mayflower look streamlined. Naturally, he was interested in finding out something about Marvin’s parents. He ran up against a snag. Mrs. Adams was very secretive. She’d come to the valley because she had tuberculosis, and thought the change of climate might help. It didn’t. Before she died, she finally admitted that she and her husband, whose name was Horace, had kidnapped Marvin. Marvin was then a child of three. They had held him for ransom. They didn’t get the ransom. Things began to get too hot for them, and they cleared out and came West. They became attached to the child, and finally decided to keep him and bring him up. Horace died when Marvin was about four years old. Mrs. Adams died without ever telling anyone who Marvin really was. She said he came from a good family and a wealthy one, and that was all she’d say. Marvin gathered, from what she said, that the kidnaping had taken place somewhere back East. She said his real parents were dead.”

“That was a public statement?” Mason asked. “Made to the authorities?”

“Definitely not,” Witherspoon said. “No one knows about it except Marvin, Lois, and myself.”

“You’re a widower?” Mason asked him.

He nodded.

“What do you want?” Mason asked.

Again Witherspoon seemed less positive than one would have expected.

“I want you to find out who the boy’s parents were. I want to find out all about him.”

“Exactly why?” Lois asked.

“I want to know who he is.”

Her eyes locked with those of her father. “Marvin would like to know, too,” she said. “But as far as I’m concerned, Dad, I don’t care whether his father was a ditchdigger or a Vermont Republican. I’m going to marry him.”

John Witherspoon bowed in a silent acquiescence which seemed altogether too docile. “If that’s the way you feel about it, my dear,” he said.

Lois looked at her watch, smiled at Mason, and said, “And, in the meantime, I’ve got a date — a party of us going for a horseback ride in the starlight. Don’t wait up for us, Dad, and don’t worry.”

She got to her feet, impulsively gave Mason her hand, and said, “Go ahead, do whatever Dad wants. It will make him feel better — and it won’t make one darn bit of difference to me.” Her eyes turned from Mason to Della Street, and something she saw in Della Street’s face caused her to turn hurriedly back to look at Mason. Then she smiled, extended her hand to Della Street, said, “I’ll see you again,” and was gone.

When she had left, Witherspoon settled down with the air of a man who is at last free to speak his mind. “It was a very nice story that Sarah Adams told,” he said. “It was told to forestall any inquiry on my part. You see, that was only a couple of months ago. Lois and Marvin were already in love. It was a great sacrifice made by a dying mother... It was a dramatic statement. On her very deathbed, she forfeited her son’s love and respect to secure his future happiness. Her statement wasn’t true.”

Mason raised his brows.

“That statement was made up out of whole cloth,” Witherspoon went on.

“For what possible reason?” Mason asked.

“I’ve already employed detectives,” Witherspoon said. “They find that Marvin Adams was born to Sarah Adams and Horace Legg Adams, and the birth certificate is duly on file. There’s no evidence of any unsolved kidnaping taking place at about the period mentioned in Mrs. Adams’ spurious confession.”

“Then why would she have made any such statement?” Della Street asked.

Witherspoon said grimly, “I’ll tell you exactly why. In January of 1924, Horace Legg Adams was convicted of first-degree murder. In May of 1925, he was executed. The story Mrs. Adams told was a pathetic, last-minute attempt to save the boy the disgrace incidental to having that matter made public, and having him lose the girl he loved. She knew that I was going to try to find out something about the boy’s father. She hoped her story would forestall that investigation, or turn it into a different and unproductive channel.”

“The boy doesn’t know, of course?” Mason asked.

“No.”

“Nor your daughter?” Della Street inquired.

“No.”

Witherspoon waited a moment while he twisted the stem of a brandy glass in his fingers; then said positively, “I am not going to have the son of a murderer in the Witherspoon family. I think even Lois will appreciate the importance of the facts when I tell them to her.”

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

Witherspoon said, “I have a transcript of the evidence in the entire case. To my mind, it proves conclusively that Horace Legg Adams was guilty of willful, first-degree murder. However, I want to be fair. I want to give Marvin the benefit of the doubt. I want you to look over the transcript of that case, Mr. Mason, and give me your opinion. If you think Marvin’s father was guilty, I shall tell my daughter the whole story, give her your opinion, and absolutely forbid her to see or speak with Marvin Adams again. It will be a shock to her, but she’ll do it. You’ll see why when you read the transcript.”

“And if I should think he might have been innocent?” Mason asked.

“Then you’ll have to prove it, reopen the old case, clear the record, and get a public recognition of the miscarriage of justice,” Witherspoon said grimly. “There will be no blot on the Witherspoon family name. I positively won’t have the son of a convicted murderer in the family.”

“A murder that’s eighteen years old,” Mason said thoughtfully. “That’s rather a large order.”

Witherspoon met his eyes. “I will pay rather a large fee,” he announced.

Della Street said, “After all, Mr. Witherspoon, supposing the man was guilty. Do you think that your daughter would change her mind because of that fact?”

Witherspoon said grimly, “If the father was guilty of that murder, there may be certain inherited tendencies in the son. I have already seen some things which indicate there are such tendencies. That boy is a potential murderer, Mr. Mason.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“If those tendencies are there,” Witherspoon went on, “and if my daughter won’t listen to reason, I will put Marvin in such a position that those inherent weaknesses of character will come out. I will do it in such a dramatic way that Lois will see them for herself.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” Mason asked.

Witherspoon said, “Understand me, Mason, I’ll do anything to protect my daughter’s happiness, literally anything.”

“I understand that, but just what do you mean?”

“I’ll put the young man in a position where apparently the only logical way out is to commit murder; then we’ll see what he does.”

“That will be rather tough on both your daughter and the person whom you happen to pick as a prospective victim,” Mason said.

“Don’t worry,” Witherspoon said. “It will be handled very adroitly. No one will actually be killed, but Marvin will think he’s killed someone. Then my daughter will see him in his true light.”

Mason shook his head. “You’re playing with dynamite.”

“It takes dynamite to move rock, Mr. Mason.”

For a moment, there was a silence; then Mason said, “I’ll read over that transcript of the trial. I’ll do that to satisfy my curiosity. And that’s the only reason I will read it, Mr. Witherspoon.”

Witherspoon motioned to the waiter. “Bring me the check,” he said.