The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

Chapter Eighteen

At four-thirty Bancroft was back in Mason’s office.

“Here,” he said, “is a chart showing the exact position of the boat when my wife jumped overboard. You see this wharf, here. That’s the oil and gas wharf. She estimates they were within thirty or forty feet of it when the anchor grabbed. The boat slued a little bit to the side and then started to drift. The tide was coming in at the time. She went overboard—”

“Which side?” Mason asked.

“The port side.”

“That was the one away from the wharf?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Mason said, “now get this straight. I don’t want her to answer any questions. No questions by anybody. She is simply to state that her attorney will do the talking.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Bancroft said. “I wanted to talk to you about that. As some of the newspapers have pointed out, that’s the poorest way to win public support. It makes everyone think she’s guilty right at the start.”

“I know,” Mason said. “Newspaper reporters get paid for the stories they get and publish. They want a story. They’re using all the arguments in the world.”

“But those arguments are logical, Mason.”

“Of course they’re logical,” Mason said, “They’re right. You can’t argue with logic.”

“Then why can’t she tell her story now?”

“Because,” Mason said, “she’s fighting a combination of circumstances that may prove too much for her if we’re not careful. Do you realize that the yachting attendant is going to testify that she went down on the wharf with Willmer Gilly earlier in the evening and personally took him out aboard the boat?”

“What!” Bancroft exclaimed.

“That’s a fact,” Mason said.

“Why, he’s crazy. That was Irwin Fordyce who was with her.”

“And where’s Irwin Fordyce now?”

“I don’t know. No one knows.”

“All right,” Mason said. “That yachting attendant has made an identification of Gilly as the—”

“Why, he couldn’t have,” Bancroft interrupted. “Why, that nearsighted old fuddy-duddy — you mean Drew Kirby?”

“I don’t know his name,” Mason said. “He’s the yachting attendant there.”

“That’s Drew Kirby. Why, that old... Why, that’s crazy.”

“It may be crazy,” Mason said, “but he’s made the identification. Now, you and your wife are going to have to do just as I tell you. I don’t want your wife to tell her story to anyone until I tell her to relate the story. Then it’s going to be told under the most dramatic circumstances possible and then we’re going to send divers down and find the purse and the gun.”

“Suppose the... Well, suppose the action of the tides or something has caused the purse and the gun to drift away?”

“I don’t think that’ll happen,” Mason said. “This is in a pretty sequestered part of the bay. The tide action is relatively gentle. We haven’t had any winds and—”

“You’re taking an awful chance,” Bancroft said.

“We’re taking an awful chance,” Mason agreed gravely, “but we’re going to have to play the cards the way they’re dealt to us and we’ve got to play them to the best advantage.”

Bancroft said, “All right, Mason, I’ll rely on your judgment. There’s nothing else I can do.”

“That’s right,” Mason told him. “There’s nothing else you can do.”