The Case of the Horrified Heirs

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Back in his office, Mason said, «How about working late tonight, Della, and then having dinner?»

Della Street smiled. «You know I never go home until you do when we're working on a case.»

Mason patted her shoulder. «Good girl,» he said. «I can always depend on you. Put some paper in the typewriter, Della. I'm going to give you a list of questions.»

«Questions?» she asked.

Mason nodded. «Somehow I have a feeling that I'm letting my client down in this case simply because I'm not using my head and breaking the case down to basic fundamentals.

«Someone in the background is carrying out a preconceived plan or, rather, has carried out a preconceived plan.

«That plan makes sense to him, but the outward manifestations of it, which we see in the light of events which have taken place, simply don't make sense.

«When that happens, it means we're looking at only a part of the picture. Let's start taking things up one at a time and trying to see if we can get answers.

«We'll start with question number one,» Mason said. «Why did someone plant a shipment of contraband in Virginia Baxter's suitcase?»

Della Street duly typed the question.

Mason started pacing the floor. «First answer,» he said, «and the most obvious answer is that this person wanted Virginia Baxter convicted of a felony.

«Question number two: Why did this person want Virginia Baxter convicted of a felony?

«First and most obvious answer is that he knew she was a subscribing witness to Lauretta Trent's will. He intended to do something which would indicate that will was a forgery and, therefore, wanted to be able to weaken her credibility as a witness.

«Question number three: Why did anyone go to Virginia Baxter and ask her to type two fraudulent wills?

«The obvious answer to that, of course, is that he intended to plant those carbon copies somewhere where they could be used to his advantage.

«Next question: Why could those spurious carbon copies be used to his advantage? What did he expect to gain by them?»

Mason, pacing the floor, paused, shook his head and said, «And the answer to that question is not obvious.

«Then we have the question: Why did Lauretta Trent want to talk with Virginia Baxter?

«The obvious answer to that is that she knew, in some way, conspirators were trying to use Virginia Baxter. Probably, she knew about the spurious wills. Or perhaps she just wanted to interrogate Virginia about the location of the carbon copies of the wills Bannock had drawn.

«There again, however,» Mason went on, «we run up against a blank wall, because why would Lauretta Trent bother about any will which she was supposed to have executed years ago? If she had wanted to make certain her will was the way she wanted it, she would have gone to an attorney and inside of an hour have had a new will properly executed.»

Mason paced the floor for a few minutes, then said, «Those are the questions, Della.»

«Well, it seems to me you've got most of the answers,» she said.

«The obvious answers,» Mason said, «but are they the right answers?»

«They certainly seem logical,» Della Street said encouragingly.

«We'll put one more question,» Mason said. «Why in that moment of supreme danger did Lauretta Trent grab her handbag? Or, putting it another way, why wasn't Lauretta Trent's handbag found in the automobile when the car was fished out of the ocean?»

«Perhaps she had the strap of her handbag over her arm,» Della Street said.

«She wouldn't have been riding with the strap over her arm,» Mason said. «Even if she'd picked it up at the time of the collision, when she was catapulted into cold ocean water she would at least have tried to swim. When you try to swim, you're using your arms; and when you're using your arms under water, a handbag strap isn't going to stay over your arm.»

«Well,» Della Street said, «we have a rather imposing list of questions.»

Mason paced the floor for a few minutes, said, «You know, Della, when you're trying to recall a name and can't do it, you sometimes think about something else and then the name pops into your mind. I think I'll try thinking about something else for a while and see what happens with these questions.»

«All right,» she said, «what else would you like to think about?»

«You,» he told her, grinning. «Let's drive out someplace where we can have a cocktail and a nice, quiet dinner.

«How about going to one of the mountain resorts where we can sit in a dining room looking out over the lights of the city and feel far removed from everyone and anything?»

«And I take it,» Della Street said, pushing back her secretarial chair and putting a plastic cover on the typewriter, «we take this list of questions and answers with us?»

«We take those with us,» Mason said, «but we try not to think about them until after dinner.»