The Case of the Phantom Fortune

Chapter 4

Promptly at ten o'clock Masonrescued Della Street from a group of men who were at no pains to conceal theiradmiration, said good night to his host and hostess and watched while JudsonOlney made quite a production of saying good night, including a kiss on DellaStreet's right cheek.

"Now that I've found you,"he said, "I don't intend to lose you again." And then he added withsubtle emphasis, "And I mean every word of this, Della."

Mrs Warren said, "Having stakedout your claim you'd better stay in possession of it, Judson, or someone'sgoing to jump it."

Olney said, "You just watchme."

Mason, turning his head, caught aglance of malevolent hatred directed at Della Street. He knew that the young woman with theblazing eyes was named Chester, and he had heard someone call her Adelle. The lawyer made a mentalnote to interrogate Della about her when they reached the office.

Horace Warren shook hands with Masonwarmly "We're very much indebted to Judson Olney," he said, "andto Miss Street. Believe me, it was a real treat meeting you, Mr Mason, and I certainlyhope we see more of you."

Mason bowed, thanked him, and with Della Street on his arm left the house. When they cameto the place where they had parked the car, he helped Della in and started themotor.

She laughed merrily. "You looklike a man who is just getting out of the dentist's chair."

Mason guided the car out of thedriveway, said, "I'm bored by small talk, I'm tired of standing up andwalking around from group to group, I detest women who deliberately getthemselves boiled and then try to simulate owlish sobriety"

"There was only one," Della Street said. "The others weredelightful"

"That one was enough,"Mason said. "She'd follow me around with a cocktail glass in her lefthand, her right forefinger hooking at the lapel of my coat as though she wasafraid I was going to get away… Who is the bottled blonde who regarded you asan insect of some sort?"

"That," Della Street said, "was Adelle Chester. GeorgeBarrington brought her up and introduced us. She managed to take an instantdislike to me. She wasn't the only one. There was one other woman there,Rosalie Harvey I don't know whether you noticed her. She was dark-haired withgreen eyes. She was wearing a -"

"I noticed her," Masoninterrupted. "Isn't she connected with the business in some way?"

"Judson Olney's secretary,"Della said. "She's been with him for five years. I think she smelled a ratand I also think she was bursting with curiosity, but she didn't quite dare askdirect questions."

"Well," Mason said,"it's easy to account for the enmity of these two girls. Barrington was making a great play for you andneglected the girl he was with, so that explains Adelle Chester's attitude.Then after the buildup Olney gave you and told how he had lost his heart to youin the moonlight, it's not difficult to understand the attitude of his devotedsecretary who has secretly been idolizing him for years but who never gets atumble.

"There wasn't any evidence ofhostility on the part of anyone else -Just how does Judson Olney fit into thepicture?"

"As manager of most of theenterprises, he's Horace Warren's right hand."

"Rather young for such aresponsible position, isn't he?"

"It depends on how you look atit. He's smart believe me, he's smart, and he was doing a lot ofthinking."

"About what?"

"About you being there."

"Yes," Mason said, "Isuppose it would take a lot of doing to palm that off as simply being anaccidental circumstance, particularly in view of the fact that I keep my sociallife sharply limited. What was supposed to be the occasion for the gathering,Della?"

"That," Della said,"I don't know. I assume they do a lot of entertaining, with that house andthe set-up they have. But this was a conglomerate party Barrington was invited because of business reasons.Some of the people were from the organization. A couple of them wereneighbours. Others, it seems, were members of a bridge club Mrs Warren belongsto, and that was about it… I gather you didn't have a good time?"

"I earned my five hundreddollars," Mason said. "Don't think I'm an old grouch, Della, but aprofessional man can seldom enjoy himself at a gathering of that kind. I musthave had five different people come to me and start talking in general termsabout the law and about my career and then finally get around to bringing upsome little legal problem of their own on which they wanted my advice.

"A doctor can seldom attend asocial gathering without having people start reciting symptoms and asking himfor his opinion."

"Where did you and HoraceWarren go after you went out to the swimming pool?" Della asked. "Itried to keep my eye on you but you disappeared somewhere out by theshower."

"We went through a door into abathroom," Mason said. "Then through the bathroom into Lorna Warren'sbedroom."

Della raised her eyebrows.

"Warren wanted to show me a suitcase which he saidhad forty-seven thousand dollars in it, which his wife was keeping in hercloset."

"You saw that suitcase?"she asked.

"I saw the suitcase,"Mason said, "but all that was in it at the time we looked were somenewspapers."

"Then she'd already paid theblackmail?"

"That's what Warren thinks."

"You don't?"

Mason said, "When a person paysblackmail he turns over the money. If Mrs Warren had been blackmailed she'dhave put the suitcase on the bed, opened the suitcase, taken out theforty-seven thousand dollars, given it to the blackmailer and put the empty suitcaseback in the closet.

"When a person takes money outof a suitcase and then stuffs old newspapers into the suitcase to give itapproximately the same weight, that looks more like the work of aburglar."

"Good heavens, if someone hadstolen forty-seven thousand dollars …!" Della Street said, and then let her voice trail off,into silence.

"Exactly," Mason said,"but it goes deeper than that. If someone is putting a bite on Mrs Warrenfor that amount of money, it's something rather important, and when Mrs Warrengoes to pay him off and opens the suitcase and finds that in place of the moneyshe had left in there, there's nothing but a stack of old newspapers, the fatis apt to be in the fire. You can't pay a blackmailer with a stack of oldnewspapers."

"I should say not," Dellasaid, and then became silent as she contemplated the picture of what mighthappen if Mrs Warren, not knowing the money had disappeared, should open thesuitcase. After a moment she asked, "But who could have taken the money?"

Mason said, "The blackmailer,knowing she had the money in cash waiting to pay him, could have sneaked in,stolen the money, and then, denying he knew anything of the theft, demandedpayment."

"That's a thought!" sheexclaimed.

"Or," Mason went on,"someone who didn't want her to pay the blackmail could have taken themoney out of the suitcase and substituted old newspapers."

"Someone who didn't want her topay blackmail?" she echoed.

"Exactly," Mason said.

"But that could have been thehusband!" she exclaimed.

Mason's silence was eloquent.

Della Street, thinking over thevarious possibilities brought up by this idea, said, "And then, when shewent to pay the blackmailer and told him she'd had the money there but had beenrobbed, he'd call her a liar and … and then there would be complications …and you'd have been retained to protect her, and – Chief, that's what didhappen! Warren must have removed the money himself."

"We can't prove it," Masonsaid.

After that they were silent untilthey reached Mason's office.

"I take it that you had a goodtime," Mason said, as he switched on the office lights.

"I had a wonderful time,"she told him.

Mason said, "Probably we shouldhave a more active social life. We keep running from one murder case to anotherlike a hummingbird flitting from one -"

"Now, don't compare murderswith honeysuckle," she interrupted, "and don't be so grim. This caseis just an ordinary blackmail case."

Mason shook his head. "It isn'tordinary, Della, and I'm not even certain it's blackmail."

"Why?"

Mason said, "I have never had acase where the client was at such pains to avoid me."

"What do you mean? Mr Warrentook you around the house, he was talking with you a dozen times during theevening, and – "

"Oh, that," Masoninterposed. "That's the preliminary buildup. That's all right, but younotice that Warren has been at great pains to impress upon methat he isn't going to be available, that there's no way I can reach him when Iwant to without jeopardizing the things he wants to accomplish."

Della Street brought out the coffee percolator, filledit, connected it to the electric socket.

"The Drake Catering Service didquite a job," she said.

"A fine job. That was goodchampagne, too."

"Do you suppose we'll beinvited again to another one?" Della said.

"I doubt it. Warren wanted to get us familiar with thesituation and then keep us at arm's length."

She smiled. "You forget I havemy old cruising crush, Judson Olney."

"Yes," Mason said,"you have him. He started out acting under orders from Warren, but I had the feeling that he was puttinga lot of enthusiasm into his acting along toward the last."

"A lot of enthusiasm isright," she said. "He wants to find out what it's all about. Andspeaking of acting, did you know that Horace Warren had always wanted to be anactor, that he still practices in front of a mirror, using a tape recorder?"

Mason settled himself comfortably ina chair, pulled up another chair for his feet, and lit a cigarette. "Thetrouble with a man of that sort is that he overdoes it," he said. "Hebecomes too much of a ham. He gets to thinking how good he is and adds just alittle too much emotion, a little too much expression, a little too much in theway of gestures."

Drake's knuckles tapped his codeknock on the door of Mason's private office.

Della Street let him in.

"Hello, caterer," Masonsaid. "We didn't expect you so soon."

"I got away early. My share ofthe work was done," Drake said, then went on with a grin, "When youbecome an executive you can leave the dirty dishes for others."

"They aren't washing thosedishes are they?" Mason asked.

"Not in that outfit, no. Theytake them to the main plant to be processed. Every one of those dishes is driedby hand and then they are polished with a towel so that there isn't thefaintest sign of a fingerprint on them and every bit of the glass is smooth andclean."

"The fingerprint crew workedefficiently?"

"Very."

"All right, what did you findout, Paul?"

"We found out who made thefingerprint you wanted to know about but we didn't find out until right at thelast."

"How come?"

"The fingerprint was made bysomeone we weren't particularly interested in. We were lifting fingerprintsfrom the other glasses and dishes and only took this one as a lastresort."

"Whose fingerprint wasit?" Mason asked.

Drake said, "The fingerprint ofMrs Warren."

"Lorna Warren, eh?" Masonsaid thoughtfully. "I might have known."

"How could you possibly haveknown that?" Della asked.

"Remember Warren's peculiar attitude and his somewhatpeculiar instructions? He said I was to protect his wife from the person whomade that fingerprint no matter who the person was and no matter how much itcost. Then he took elaborate precautions to see that we weren't in a positionto advise him what we had discovered concerning the fingerprint."

"You mean," Della Street said, "that he's paying a price inorder to have you protect his wife from herself?"

Mason nodded, turned to Paul Drake."Paul, did you get enough fingerprints so you can get aclassification?"

"On nearly everyonethere," Drake said. "Some of them were smudged but for the most partwe managed to get ten reasonably clear fingerprints of everyone there."

"Including Mrs Warren?"

"I know we got hers."

"All right," Mason said."Have some police friend get in touch with the FBI. See if she's got acriminal record."

"A criminal record!" Drakesaid. "Are you nuts?"

"I don't think so, Paul. Youdon't blackmail a person unless you have a club."

"But she's big-timestuff," Drake objected.

"The bigger the quarry, thebigger the club," Mason told him.

"How much time have Igot?" Drake asked.

"If you get along with livehours' sleep tonight," Mason said, "you'll have until nine o'clock tomorrow morning our time. That will be noon Washington time."

"That's going to take someawfully fast action on the part of the police and FBI," Drake pointed out,"and I'm going to have to go without a lot of shut-eye tonight in order toget those ten fingerprints collected and classified."

Mason indicated the coffeepercolator. "Della Street will see that you have enough coffee to keep you awake, Paul – before Iescort her home."

Drake passed over his coffee cup,sighed, and said, "With plenty of cream and sugar, Della, please."