The Case of the Stepdaughter’s Secret

Chapter Three

The palatial residence of Melton Varas Elliott was across the lake from Harlow Bancroft’s home and some distance to the south.

Mason and Della Street sat in the cool shade of the porch, the lawyer holding binoculars to his eyes.

At this hour of the afternoon on a weekday, there was little activity on the lake. Here and there a speedboat, carrying a graceful water-skier, cut smooth circles or long, graceful figure S curves. A gentle northerly breeze stirred small wavelets which interfered with the reflections.

A butler, who had been instructed over the telephone by Melton Elliott to see that his guests were given every comfort, brought them cooling drinks and hovered solicitously in the background.

Della, gazing toward the south, said, “I wonder if this is Paul Drake’s outfit.”

Mason turned the binoculars. Slowly a smile softened his features and he handed the binoculars to Della Street.

“Take a look,” he invited.

Della Street held the binoculars to her eyes.

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, then passed the binoculars back to Mason. “I think you’ll enjoy the scenery more than I will,” she added dryly.

Mason watched the graceful lines of the speedboat and those of the three feminine figures within it. They were attired in the briefest of bathing suits.

“Looks like Paul Drake at the helm,” he said, “well disguised with dark goggles.”

“And,” Della Street observed, “he’s getting paid for this — a generous salary and all expenses.”

“No doubt about it,” Mason said, “I took up the wrong profession.”

Drake’s boat turned in a burst of speed, came charging up the lake, swept past the Elliott house, then made a sharp turn.

The scantily clad young women screamed. Two of them clung to Drake for support.

“Is he grinning?” Della Street asked.

“I can’t even see his face,” Mason said, “there are too many girls.”

Drake abruptly slowed the boat to a trolling speed.

One of the young women produced water-skis, and Drake stopped the boat as she eased herself into the water, then, getting in the proper position, gave a signal.

Drake gunned the boat into speed and the young woman, gracefully coming to the surface of the water on the skis, executed a series of circling manoeuvres in back of the boat, crossing and recrossing the waves made by the wake.

“Don’t get so wrapped up in Paul Drake,” Della Street warned, “that you forget to look at the Bancroft residence. I think a boat just put out from there.”

Mason shifted the binoculars.

“It did, for a fact,” he said. “A boat with just one person in it. I had rather anticipated there’d be a water-skier.”

“Regulations provide for two people in the boat when a person is skiing,” Della Street said. “One person at the wheel and one person to watch the skier. Perhaps Rosena wants to handle this all by herself.”

Mason, studying the lake, said thoughtfully, “There’s a fisherman out there, apparently pole fishing with an anchor. There are some boats down nearer the south end of the lake, but no one else is around the Bancroft boat.”

“Can you see if she has a red can?” Della Street asked.

Mason shook his head.

Drake’s boat picked up speed and made a series of circles.

“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “I think she’s throwing something overboard. I got a glimpse of something going over, and — it looks as though there might be something red there... I can’t get a good look at it. There are too many waves, what with the wake of the boat and the waves generated by the wind.”

Abruptly, Drake’s boat shot into speed.

“Evidently Drake has seen it,” Mason said.

The water-skier was following in a straight line now, directly behind the boat, as Drake gunned the boat into power, rapidly shortening the distance to the boat which had put out from the Bancroft landing.

“Well,” Mason said, “he’s up to where he should be able to see the red coffee can if... Oh-oh, there’s an accident.”

The young woman who was water-skiing behind Drake’s boat tried to make a turn, evidently misjudged a wave and made a somersault into the water.

Drake promptly slowed the boat and circled.

“Damn!” Mason said.

Watching through the binoculars, Mason could see the boat circling to the rescue, saw the young woman in the water pick up the end of the rope Drake threw her, then slowly the boat jockeyed into position and as an arm flashed the signal, Drake once more gunned the boat and the water-skier came erect.

Drake made a series of circles.

Della Street said, “That other boat, the man who was fishing, seems to be pulling in his anchor and giving up.”

“So he does,” Mason said. “He’s taking a course which will intercept the wake of that boat from the Bancroft house... No, wait a minute, he’s making a wide circle. Here’s Drake cutting in front of him, and the water-skier almost flipping water in the fellow’s face. I’ll bet he’s one angry fisherman.”

“Or one exasperated blackmailer,” Della Street said.

Drake’s boat made another series of circles, then the water-skier gave a signal. Drake slowed the boat. The skier dropped into the water, then swam gracefully to the boat and another of the young women came out to put on the water-skis.

The second bathing beauty who took up water-skiing was not as adept as the first, and after about five minutes, she returned to the boat.

Drake hauled in all of the skiing paraphernalia, made a wide circle and headed back toward the southern end of the lake and the public beach.

The man who had been pole fishing in the boat moved slowly along, then turned and moved back toward a shaded bank, where he again took up pole fishing. The boat which had put out from Bancroft’s residence returned.

The wind freshened somewhat. There was little traffic on the lake.

Mason searched the waters with his binoculars.

“Can you see any red can?” Della Street asked.

Mason shook his head. “I thought once,” he said, “I had a flash of something red, just a brief glimpse of a red dot on the top of a wave. But I can’t see a thing now. Drake is returning, so evidently he has completed his mission. Either he’s done the job or he hasn’t.”

“I’ll bet he hates to part with those bathing beauties,” Della Street said. “This will be right down Drake’s alley.”

“He’ll telephone,” Mason said, “and let us know what has happened.”

The butler came out with another round of cooling drinks.

The breeze abruptly died away and the surface of the lake became placid. The shoreline seemed to drowse in an afternoon stupor.

The Elliott butler, plainly curious but concealing his curiosity as best he could, asked if he could serve them anything else.

“No, thank you,” Mason said. “I think we’re about finished.”

“Yes, sir. Would you care to come inside, sir? It’s air conditioned and quite comfortable.”

“No, thanks,” Mason said. “We’ll wait here.”

“But sometimes it’s quite warm in the afternoon on the porch, on this side of the lake. There’s a more shaded angle around the corner on the other side.”

“No, thanks,” Mason said. “We’re quite comfortable here.”

“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”

The butler withdrew.

Some twenty minutes later, the phone rang.

“For you, sir,” the butler said to Mason.

Mason took the telephone.

Paul Drake’s voice came over the wire. “Perry?”

“Yes.”

“Got it.”

“Any trouble?”

“No.”

“Anyone see you?”

“I don’t think so. The young woman who was doing the water-skiing was most adept. She made a flop in the water at just the right time and managed to make the substitution.”

“Where in the world was she carrying the can?” Mason asked.

“You’d be surprised.”

“No, I’m serious,” Mason said. “I’m wondering if she wasn’t detected.”

“It was in a fake swivel on the ski rope,” Drake said. “It was specially fixed up for the purpose.”

“And what was in the can?” Mason asked.

“The blackmail note, fifteen hundred dollars in money and ten silver dollars.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Wait until I get there. Don’t do a thing until I arrive.”

Mason hung up the telephone and nodded to Della. They thanked the butler, left the Elliott summer mansion, and drove at once to the public launching ramp at the south side of the lake.

Paul Drake met him.

Mason said, “Now, Paul, what you have to do is simple.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “What do we do?”

“You have a starlet there?”

“I’ll say we have. Boy, she’s a knockout!”

“And she wants publicity?”

“She’d stand on her head and wiggle her feet at the camera for publicity. That’s the breath of life to a starlet like this.”

“Okay,” Mason said. He took a portable typewriter from the back of the automobile and set it up on his lap. “Let’s see the can, Paul.”

Drake produced the red coffee can with the silver dollars in the bottom and the fifteen hundred dollars in bills and blackmail note on top. Mason took the note, ratcheted it into the typewriter, crossed out the figure, “fifteen hundred” and, over it, wrote “three thousand.”

Then the lawyer took fifteen hundred dollars in ten and twenty-dollar bills from his briefcase, added it to the money in the can, replaced the note, and handed the can back to Drake.

“You rented the boat under an assumed name?”

“I did better than that,” Drake said. “The boat never came from here at all. I picked it up from a friend and carried it down on a trailer. We simply paid a one-dollar launching fee to use the ramp. I’ve taken the boat out and we’re all ready to go.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Give this can and the note to the starlet and tell her to contact the lifeguard at the bathing beach and tell him that while she was water-skiing she picked up this coffee can because she thought it was a hazard to navigation. She took off the cover, looked inside and saw it was full of money, then she found this note.

“If the lifeguard doesn’t telephone the sheriff’s office, be sure that the starlet does... What’s her name, by the way?”

“Eve Amory.”

“You can count on her?”

“Give her publicity and you can count on her until hell freezes over,” Drake said. “Publicity is the one thing she wants. She drove down in her own car so she can be independent of us.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “she’s going to get lots of publicity.’

“Of course,” Drake pointed out, “with a setup like this, the newspapers will think it’s some kind of a press agent’s stunt.”

“Have her do exactly as I say,” Mason said, “and the money will guarantee her good faith.”

“What does she do with all this dough?” Drake asked.

“Turns it over to the police,” Mason said.

“The whole business?”

“The whole business.”

“That’s going to hurt,” Drake said. “This gal is—”

“That’s exactly it,” Mason interrupted. “She’s hungry. She’s operating on a shoestring. The fact that she’ll turn three thousand dollars over to the police is indicative of good faith, and the fact that it isn’t a publicity stunt. No half-hungry actress would put up three thousand bucks just to get her picture in the paper.”

“Okay,” Drake said, “you know what you’re doing.”

“Now, here’s her story,” Mason said. “She gets dressed, she goes to the lifeguard, she tells him the story. She doesn’t know the last names of the people with whom she was boating. She was out with a friend, but he wouldn’t want to have his name brought into it. The girls wanted to water-ski. She was teaching them some of the fine points. The girls were actresses or would-be actresses.”

“I understand,” Drake said. “She’ll give the impression that she was out with a potential sugar daddy who was willing to be the angel for a girlie show.”

“She’s willing to go for that?” Mason asked.

“She’ll go for anything, provided she gets her picture in the paper in a bikini bathing suit.”

“If I’m any judge of newspapers,” Mason said, “the reporters will want her to pose just the way she was when she found the can.”

“You think the reporters will go for this?”

“I think so,” Mason said. “By the way, Paul, what became of the decoy coffee can that she planted?”

Drake shook his head. “I’ll be damned if I know, Perry.”

Mason said, “There was a fellow pole fishing in a boat. He started up his boat about the time that boat put out from the Bancroft house.”

“I know he did,” Drake said, “but I swear he didn’t get up to where that can was.”

“Well, what happened to the can?”

“It disappeared.”

“It did what?”

“It disappeared,” Drake said.

“What do you mean, it disappeared?”

“It was floating there for a while and I saw it, both with my naked eye and through the binoculars. Then I pulled in the water-skiing outfit and looked for it again, and the thing was gone.”

“What boats had been near there?”

“There wasn’t a boat. The thing simply disappeared.”

“You mean it sank?” Mason asked.

“It must have.”

“But didn’t you have the cover put on tight?”

“That’s the trouble, Perry. That’s where I’m afraid we may have slipped up on the thing. We had to make that substitution awfully fast. This girl was in the water. She took a spill just at the psychological time and in the right place. She grabbed this coffee can and put it in the hollow swivel container I put on the ski rope. Then she put out the substitute coffee can. Now, all I can think of is that the lid of that substitute can must have hit against the water-ski when we dumped it and let enough water in so the can sank.”

“That,” Mason said, “is going to be bad.”

“I know,” Drake said. “I’m sorry about it, but it’s one of those things that you can’t help.”

“But no other boat tried to cut in, tried to get near that coffee can?”

Drake shook his head. “No other boat. There were some over on the far side of the bank. There were some other water-skiers. There was this fellow fishing. No one else was near.”

Mason said, “I can’t figure it, unless the blackmailers had you spotted as a detective and were afraid to make a try for the coffee can with you hanging around.”

“I don’t think so,” Drake said. “I was wearing those wind goggles and a cap, and I kept pretty well down in the boat.”

“Pretty well down and pretty well surrounded with women,” Mason said.

“Well,” Drake said grinning, “what would you have done?”

Mason grinned back at him, said, “Okay, Paul. Get your boat out of there, let the starlet get dressed and go to the lifeguard... Now, you say she has her own transportation?”

“That’s right. I had her drive her car down and join us at the landing ramp. There are only twenty-three more payments to make and it’s all hers.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Now, I want the names of everyone who rented boats at the marina this afternoon, and you’ve had an operative getting the licence numbers of every boat that was launched from private automobiles?”

“That’s right,” Drake said. “I have a man here. He’s got the licence numbers of the cars and the trailers and the licence numbers of the boats.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Tell him to clear out and go home so the police don’t spot him.”

“And this whole can of money goes to the police?”

“Every cent of it,” Mason said.

“Perhaps someone will give Eve Amory a reward,” Drake said. “I’ll tell her there’s a possibility of that.”

“You tell her to keep her bikini bathing suit handy,” Mason said. “That’s all she needs to do.”