The Case of the Troubled Trustee

Chapter One

Perry Mason, entering his office, grinned at Della Street and said, "What's in the mail, Della, anything startling?"

She indicated the pile of letters on Mason's desk. "Tile usual, people who want."

"Want what?"

"People who want you to make talks; write letters of endorsement, donate some intimate article for a celebrity auction."

"What else is new?" Mason asked.

Della Street rolled her eyes in an exaggerated pantomime of passionate interest.

"If," she said, "you want any efficiency whatever out of Gertie, your romantic receptionist, you had better get Kerry Dutton out of the office."

"And who is Kerry Dutton?" Mason asked.

"He is a youngish gentleman whose clothes are quietly elegant. He has a cameo-like profile, brown, wavy hair, steel-gray eyes, a very nice mouth; probably a thirty-six chest and a thirty waist. He is driving Gertie half crazy. She can't take her eyes off him."

"What does he want?" Mason asked.

"That," she said, "is the mystery. The man's card says that he is an investment counselor. He wants to see you about a matter that is very personal and exceedingly urgent."

Mason said, "I don't want to make any investments. I don't-"

"A professional matter," she interrupted.

Mason said, "My specialty is murder cases and trial work. What the devil would I want with an investment counselor?"

"I intimated as much," Della Street said.

"He wouldn't tell you what it was all about?"

"No, only that it was a highly personal matter involving something which must be handled in complete confidence and with the greatest of tact."

Mason said, "I'll take a look at him, at any rate that will get him away from Gertie's romantic gaze.

"How old is he, Della?"

"I would say thirty-one or thirty-two."

"And," Mason said, "I suppose his shoes are polished, his nails well manicured, his tie faultless, his appearance impeccable."

"Isn't all that supposed to go with an investment counselor?" Della Street asked.

Mason suddenly became thoughtful. "Hang it," he said, "I may have been doing the guy an injustice. Show him in, Della, and we'll find Out what he Wants."

Della Street nodded, left the office, and a few moments later returned, leading Kerry Dutton into the office.

"Mr. Dutton, Mr. Mason," she said.

Mason met the unflinching gray eyes, gave the man a brief appraisal from head to foot, then got up to shake hands. "How are you, Mr. Dutton?" he said.

"This is a great honor," Dutton said. "I am sorry I had to come without an appointment, Mr. Mason, but the matter is one of extreme urgency."

"Tell me generally what it's about," Mason invited. "I take it you're consulting me professionally?"

"Yes, indeed."

"My work," Mason said, "is largely in other fields. I doubt that I can help you. You're probably wasting time for both of us."

"You defend criminals, don't you?" Dutton asked.

"Yes."

"That's what I want you for."

"Who's the criminal?" Mason asked.

Dutton touched his breast with his left forefinger.

Mason studied his visitor with eyes that were steady and penetrating.

"You're been arrested and are out on bail?" he asked.

Dutton shook his head. "I haven't been arrested. That's why I came to you. I would like to keep from being arrested."

"You have perhaps embezzled money?"

"Yes."

"From whom?"

"From the account of one Desere Ellis."

"How much have you embezzled?"

"Looking at it one way it's a quarter of a million dollars."

Mason shook his head. "Every man," he said, "is entitled to his day in court. Every man is entitled to a lawyer to represent him, but a lawyer is not a partner in crime. From the facts as you tell them, you not only cannot escape arrest but, if I were to represent you, I would pick up that telephone and call the police."

"Wait a minute. You don't know the facts."

"I know enough of them from your own admissions."

"May I tell the story my way?"

Mason looked at his wrist watch. "I'll give you two minutes," he said, "but I'm busy. Your case doesn't appeal to me and your type doesn't appeal to me."

Dutton flushed.

Mason gave him no invitation to sit down, and Dutton remained standing.

"Templeton Ellis, the father of Desere Ellis, was one of my clients," he said. "He died four years ago. At the time of her father's death, Desere was twenty-three and was mixed up with a lot of people of whom her father didn't approve.

"He left a will containing a spendthrift trust. I was the trustee. Desere was to have the income as I saw fit to give it to her for her needs. She could have as much of the principal as I felt was advisable. I was given sole discretion in handling the funds; the right to invest and reinvest. I was to serve without bond."

"I see," Mason said. "He left you with absolute power."

"Yes. He did that to protect his daughter from herself."

"And what did he do," Mason asked pointedly, "to protect his daughter from you?"

"Nothing," Dutton said.

Mason's silence was eloquent.

"Now then," Dutton went on, "the amount of money that he left was around one hundred thousand dollars. In the four years since his death, I have given his daughter approximately a hundred and ten thousand dollars."

Mason frowned. "I thought you said you had embezzled a quarter of a million."

"In a way, I have."

"I don't understand."

"Desere's father wanted me to keep intact the securities he had left, but I had the power to buy and sell.

"All right. I bought and I sold.

"One of her father's favorite stocks was a dog, the Steer Ridge Oil and Refining Company. I sold that stock without letting anyone know I had done so. I sold some of the other no-goods in the portfolio, stocks the father had held onto more for sentimental reasons than for sound business reasons." Dutton said. "I divided the money I received into three approximately equal amounts. One third I invested in blue-chip securities; the other I invested in securities which I felt had a strong opportunity for gain; and the remaining third, I used in real estate speculation in communities where I felt there would be development. I turned these properties over at a profit, put them in my own name, pyramided profits, and have netted a quarter of a million dollars."

"What about taxes?" Mason asked.

"I had the profit-making properties in my own name. I paid the capital gains taxes from the profits."

"What about annual accountings?"

"I have never made one, and the beneficiary has never asked for one."

"Hasn't she wanted to know what was happening to her money?"

"She thinks she knows. She thinks she has just about exhausted all the trust funds. I have given her more than two thousand dollars a month for all the period the trust has been in effect."

"Has she saved any of that?" Mason asked.

"Saved any? Heavens, no! She's spent that and probably has a few IOUs out. She is a pushover for all sorts of worthy and unworthy causes."

Mason caught Della Street 's eye. "I see," he said.

Dutton watched him anxiously. "I hope you do," he said.

Mason studied his visitor for a moment, then said, "You have been guilty of all sorts of legal violations. You have mingled trust funds with your own; you have embezzled property; you have defrauded your client and betrayed your trust."

"Exactly," Dutton said. "I felt, however, that it was the thing to do."

"And what do you want me to do about all this?" Mason asked.

Dutton said, "Within three months, the trust will terminate. I have to make an accounting at that time and turn over all of the trust monies to Desere."

"And I take it," Mason said, "you're not going to be able to make restitution."

"Restitution?" Dutton said in surprise. "Why, I have the entire fund intact. I have simply kept the properties in my name."

Mason regarded him thoughtfully. "Sit down," he suddenly invited.

"Thank you," Dutton said, and took a seat.

"Suppose you tell me," Mason said, "exactly what was the idea."

Dutton said, "I tried to do my best to protect Desere's interests. One hundred thousand dollars is not a great deal of money if you look at it in one way; in another way, it is a very gTeat deal of money.

"At the time of her father's death, the people with whom Desere was running around had long hair, wore beards, had dirty fingernails, were left-wing idealists, and looked down on her as an heiress. They dipped into her money right and left, patronized her and considered her a square. She went overboard trying to live up to their ideals so they'd respect her. They took her money but always looked on her as an outsider. She's a sensitive young woman who was hurt, lonely, and eager to be accepted as one of the crowd.

"Her father thought four years would give her a more mature perspective."

"And it was to protect her from that type of associate that her father made this spendthrift trust?"

"Yes. He wanted to protect her from herself. Undoubtedly her father's idea was that I would clamp down on the money she was to receive; that I would bring financial pressure to bear to force her to drop her friends and form her friendships from another environment. In fact, he intimated as much to me before his death."

"Why didn't you do it?" Mason asked.

"Because that would have been the wrong way to play my cards," Dutton said. "I realized that if she represented a large sum of money to these individuals, an attempt would be made to exploit her simply to secure a financial advantage. I wanted her friends to believe the trust fund would be exhausted.

"If, on the other hand, I could build up enough speculative profits which she knew nothing about so that I could afford to dish out her money to her with a liberal hand, she would spend it and any prospective fortune hunter would then regard her as a woman who had gone through her inheritance and, as -such, she would be ostracized from the beatnik crowd."

"And you risked going to jail for this?" Mason asked.

"I want you to keep me from going to jail," Dutton said. "While I had taken chances on mingling the trust funds with my own assets, I had always held them in my name as trustee without disclosing the beneficiary of the trust."

"Suppose you had died?" Mason asked.

"I am in good health. I have no intention of dying in the near future."

Mason said, "Every week several hundred persons are slaughtered on the highways in a red harvest. None of these people had any intention of dying when they started out."

Dutton grinned. "I am one of those who didn't get killed on a weekend."

Mason looked at Dutton and said, "You're a young man."

"It depends on what you consider young. I consider myself quite mature. I'm thirty-two."

"And Desere?"

"She'll be twenty-seven in a few months."

"When you started handling this trust you were still in your late twenties?"

Dutton flushed and said, "That's right."

"Do you," Mason asked suddenly, "love her that much?"

"What!" Dutton exclaimed, snapping back in the chair and sitting very straight.

Mason said, "You have your career ahead of you. Apparently, you have a remarkable aptitude in your chosen profession. In order to protect Desere Ellis and keep her from being the victim of fortune hunters, you have jeopardized your entire professional career and apparently haven't gained a thing by it.

"Now you are talking to a lawyer. Lawyers are not noted for being particularly naive, so perhaps you had better tell me the real story."

Dutton sighed, looked for an embarrassed moment at Della Street, then blurted out, "All right, I love her. I have always loved her, and I don't want her to know it the way things are now."

"Why?"

"Because she would never think of me in that way. Her attitude toward me is one she would show to a much older man… Well, I'm sort of a big brother; a species of uncle. I don't talk her language. I don't mingle with the set that appeals to her. At the present time, she regards me only as the custodian of her money. Her set regards me as 'square.'"

"Were you so successful four years ago," Mason asked, "that Desere's father thought his daughter's financial affairs would be better in your hands than in those of some more experienced and older banker?"

Dutton hesitated.

"Go on," Mason said.

"All right," Dutton told him, "her father wanted to- Well, he liked me. He thought I might have a steadying influence on Desere- She was running with that crazy crowd. She went overboard for a lot of fads and fancies."

"And her father hoped that if she had to see a lot of you in connection with money matters she'd fall in love with you?"

"I guess that was partly his idea. He wanted to protect her from herself, and he may have had some idea of having her fall in love with me. He knew how I felt toward her.

"Actually, like so many schemes which fail to take human nature into consideration, the thing worked out just the opposite. She thinks of me as a moneygrubber. Our difference in ages has been accentuated."

"And you've been in love with her for four years?"

"Five."

"And never told her how you felt?"

"Of course I did. That was more than four years ago."

"What did she say?"

"She felt sorry for me. She said it was simply that I'd built up a synthetic feeling for her. She said she'd be a younger sister to me if I'd take her on that basis; that if I was going to persist in this crazy idea of being in love with her it would mean she couldn't see me any more. It would spoil the friendship."

"So you took it on that basis?" Mason asked.

"I've been waiting," Dutton said.

"Did her father have any idea he was dying?"

"Yes. He knew. The doctors gave him eight months. They were too optimistic. He lasted six."

"And now you feel that the will and the spendthrift trust didn't work out the way he had anticipated?"

Dutton said, "It had exactly the opposite effect. For a few months, Desere was so terribly hurt and angry that she would hardly speak to me.

"She felt that her father had repudiated her; that he had insulted her intelligence; that he was trying to dominate her life even after he had passed away and- Well, she's like a wild colt. She doesn't want any restrictions. Show her a fence and she tries to jump it. Come toward her with a halter and she wants to run; and if she gets cornered, she wants to bite and kick.

"After the will was read, she felt her father had crowded her into a corner, so she started biting and kicking."

"And, I take it," Mason said, "you were the target?"

"That's right."

"And you felt that embezzling the trust assets would make everything all right?"

"I wasn't trying to make things all right. I was trying to keep them from going all wrong."

"How?"

"She'd be a target for dead-beat fortune hunters if they knew the truth. Even as it is, she has a beatnik nogood moving in on her. He wants to marry her and 'manage' the few thousand she's going to get on the termination of the trust."

Mason smiled. "You don't approve of him as a husband for Desere?"

Dutton said grimly, "If he marries her, I'll-I don't know what I would do, but someone should shoot the guy."

Mason regarded Dutton thoughtfully. "Perhaps," he suggested, "you should be a little more aggressive in your romantic affairs."

"I have to play the waiting game a little longer," Dutton said.

"You've been playing it without any results for four years now," Mason said.

"Five," Dutton corrected. "I felt that as Desere grew more mature the difference in our ages would become insignificant. I want her to stop thinking of me as an older brother-a much older brother."

Mason said, "All right, I'm glad you've come clean. Now, I want you to do three things. First, make me a check for a thousand dollars as a retainer. Second, sign an undated declaration of trust, listing all the securities that are in your name but which you are holding as trustee for Desere Ellis. You don't necessarily need to tell her about it, but get a record that these properties are being held only as a trustee under the will, then if you die she is protected."

"Third?" Dutton asked.

"Try to get Miss Ellis to come in to see me," Mason said. "I want to talk with her."

"Why?"

"Someone has to tell her that there is more money coming to her at the termination of the trust than she had anticipated, and someone has to tell her why. If you try to tell her, you have to sketch yourself its a heel. If I tell her, I may be able to put you in the position of a hero."

"Look here," Dutton said, "you can't tell her how 1 feel toward her. You can't-"

"Don't be foolish," Mason interrupted. "I'm riot running a matrimonial agency; I'm running a law office. You're going to pay me to keep you out of trouble. I want to keep you out of trouble.

"Your love life is none of my business except as it affects the job I have to do."

Dutton took a checkbook from his pocket and started writing a check.