“In what way?”
“The check drawn upon us is apparently signed by Lola Faxon Allred. The check drawn on the First National Bank at Las Olitas is quite possibly forged.”
“The deuce, it is!” Mason ejaculated.
“That’s right The forgery can be demonstrated.”
“How?”
“By the aid of a microscope. Someone traced the signature on the check with a piece of carbon paper. That’s one of the oldest forms of forgery known and a modification of the tracing formula. A person gets a paper bearing the genuine signature of the one whose name he wants to forge. He puts a sheet of carbon paper under that signature and the document which is to be forged, underneath the carbon paper. Then very gently the forger runs a toothpick or other pointed instrument over the lines of the genuine signature. The pressure is light enough so that it leaves a barely perceptible carbon paper imprint of the signature on the paper beneath.”
“Then what?” Mason asked.
“Then the forger takes a pen, usually a pen with a quite heavy ink, such perhaps as black drawing ink, or any India ink.”
“Go ahead.”
“And traces loop by loop, line by line, over the carbon paper signature. Frankly, Mr. Mason, it makes a most excellent forgery, one, which when skillfully done, can only be detected by an expert—depending somewhat upon the age, the mentality, and the emotions of the person forging the signature. The pen, of course, moves more slowly than in the case of a genuine signature. Therefore, if a person is nervous, there are more apt to be microscopic irregularities in the lines of the signature, due to tremors. But if a person has a steady hand and is free from mental excitement, the forgery can be made quite convincing.”
Mason merely nodded.
“The forged check in this instance,” Canby went on, “was made either by someone who had passed middle age or someone who was under an emotional tension. While the naked eye shows nothing, the microscope does show very distinct tremor lines.”
“Indeed,” Mason said.
“So,” Canby went on, “I wanted to get in touch with you and find out exactly what you know about that check.”
“Why not get in touch with Mrs. Allred?”
“We’ve tried that. It seems that she is not available at the moment.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“She apparently left with friends on a motor trip. Her husband seems to take her absence very lightly, says that he hasn’t the faintest idea where to reach her and won’t have until she sends him word from somewhere. He says she went off with some friends of hers who are interested in photography and they’re just wandering about.”
“Doesn’t seem to be the least bit disturbed about her absence?”
Canby looked at Mason sharply. “Any reason why he should?”
Mason said irritably, “Don’t try that stuff on me, Canby. My questions are for the purpose of trying to help you. If you’re going to adopt that attitude, I’ll simply wash my hands of the whole affair.”
“Of course, you deposited the check,” Canby pointed out.
“Certainly, I did,” Mason said, “and I’ll tell you where I got it. I got it through the mail, in an envelope, and that’s all I’ll tell you.”
“It puts the bank in a very peculiar position,” Canby said. “Of course, Mason, there is always a chance that the check that was drawn on us is a forgery.”
“I thought you said your expert pronounced the signature genuine?”
“He has made a preliminary examination in which he says that there are indications the signature is genuine. In other words, there are no definite indications of forgery which he’s been able to discover on that check, as yet.”
“Well,” Mason asked, “what are you trying to do? Did you come to tell me that you weren’t going to honor the check?”
“No, no, not at all.”
“Well, what?”
“However,” Canby said, “under the circumstances, I thought that you should know, and you might care to withdraw that check until such time as you can satisfy yourself.”
“I’m satisfied now,” Mason said. “The cashier says it’s a good check. Your handwriting expert says it’s a good check.”
“But the check which was deposited with it was quite evidently a forgery, a very clever forgery.”
“Well?”
“That, of course, would make the check drawn on us a subject for careful scrutiny.”
“Hang it,” Mason said, “give it careful scrutiny. That’s what I’ve wanted all along. That’s what I told you to do.”
“I’d like to know something more about the circumstances under which those checks were received, Mr. Mason. And I hope you’ll agree with me that the safe thing to do, under the circumstances, is to hold up payment until we can contact Mrs. Allred.”
“Isn’t the check good?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not notify the police?”
“That, of course, might prove very embarrassing,” Canby said, shifting his position uneasily. “The family is quite wealthy, Mr. Mason.”
Mason said, “Look, you have a lawyer. I’m not your lawyer. Why not ask him what to do about it. You’re holding a check which may be forged. If it is forged, you want to apprehend the forger.”
“Of course,” Canby murmured, “our handwriting expert has been unable as yet to discover anything significant. It may take several days for him to get his records established. Even then he may run into some complicating circumstance. Generally, Mr. Mason, the bank is liable for payment of the forged check, whereas payment of a raised check depends on a question of negligence.”
Mason grinned at him and said, “You’ll pardon me, Canby. It’s your baby.”
“But it’s your check—the one that’s forged.”
“So it is,” Mason said.
“And we can’t pass it for payment.”
“That’s your problem, Canby.”
Gertie, the receptionist, appeared in the door with a telegram.
Mason nodded to Della Street. “See what it is, Della.”
Della Street opened the telegram, looked at Mason rather quizzically, then glanced at Canby.
“Go ahead,” Mason said. “Read it.”
Della Street took it over and handed it to the lawyer.
Mason looked at it, said, “Humph,” then read the wire aloud:
MAILED YOU CHECK FOR TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS PROTECT MY DAUGHTER PATRICIA IN CASE SHE NEEDS HELP BUT DON’T QUESTION HER ABOUT ANYTHING
LOLA FAXON ALLRED
“This wire,” Mason said, “was sent from Springfield,” and handed the message to the banker.
Canby studied it, said, “It’s a day letter sent at nine o’clock this morning from Springfield. She refers to a twenty-five hundred dollar retainer, but, as I understand it, you received two twenty-five hundred dollar checks.”
“That’s right,” Mason said. “One of them is apparently a forgery.”
“Yes, yes, so it is.”
“The other check apparently isn’t. Mrs. Allred wants me to do something for her daughter. If you hold up payment on that check, it’s your responsibility.”
“Well,” Canby said, “this wire is all our bank needs. The twenty-five hundred dollar check drawn on us will be put through to your account, Mr. Mason.”
“I take it,” Mason said quite casually, “there are ample funds in Mrs. Allred’s account to cover the check.”
The banker smiled. “Her account is very substantial, Mr. Mason.”
“Just idle money?”
“She liked to have large cash balances, I believe.”
“Do you know anything about this account at Las Olitas?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, thanks for calling,” Mason said somewhat abruptly and Canby, recognizing that the interview was over, shook hands and departed, a quiet shadowy man, obviously dissatisfied with his interview.
As soon as the door closed, Maso
n said to Della Street, “That’s a typical banker for you, Della. His handwriting expert can’t find anything wrong with that first check, yet the bank is so cautious, it won’t pay. Then along comes a telegram which has only a type written signature, but is on a sheet of perfectly genuine Western Union yellow paper, and the bank falls over itself being co-operative.
“Anyone can send a telegram he wants and sign any name to it he feels like—but bankers swallow anything which seems ‘in due course’ and choke to death over the unusual. The ideal way to approach a banker is with a rubber stamp.
“Go down the hall, Della; get Paul Drake of the Drake Detective Agency to come in here. I want to find out who actually sent the wire.”
Chapter 4
Paul Drake draped his loose-jointed length over the big client’s chair, twisting around until he had a comfortable position. Then after a moment, he squirmed about until his legs were hanging over the overstuffed arm of the chair.
Paul Drake carefully cultivated a nondescript appearance and a lugubrious countenance. There was, to him, no romance in connection with the operation of a detective agency. He looked upon his profession with an air of pessimistic detachment, did his work competently and deprecatingly.
“Know anything about Bertrand C. Allred, Paul?” Mason asked.
“Very little. He’s a big shot in the mining business. Wait a minute, I do know something too. I heard something just the other day. He’s mixed up in a suit for fraud.”
“His wife has skipped out,” Mason said.
“‘Okay, where do I come in?”
Mason handed Paul Drake the telegram he had received, said, “I want to talk with Mrs. Allred. Here’s a telegram that was sent earlier this morning from Springfield. I want you to find her.”
“Got a description?” Drake asked.
Mason shook his head, said, “That’s up to you, Paul. You’ll have to work fast. She has a daughter, Patricia Faxon, the one mentioned in the wire. Mrs. Allred’s supposed to be running away with a man, Robert Fleetwood. That is highly confidential. The family doesn’t want it to get out.”
“When did she leave?”
“Saturday night on a guess. She sent me a check drawn on a local bank here for twenty-five hundred dollars. At any rate, the check seems to have been signed by her. That check was mailed Saturday night. This morning I received another check, drawn on the First National Bank of Las Olitas, also for twenty-five hundred dollars and also purporting to be signed by her.”
“In the telegram,” Drake pointed out, “she only refers to one check.”
“That’s right. One check of twenty-five hundred. That’s the only one the bank says is good.”
“What about the other one?”
“Handwriting experts say it’s forged. The signature was transferred and re-traced.”
“How about the checks, other than the signature?”
“In typewriting,” Mason said. “Both checks are the same on that score, and the interesting thing is that as nearly as I can tell from an examination of the envelopes, they were both typed on the same typewriter.”
“Okay,” Drake said. “Give.”
Mason gave him the two envelopes in which the checks had been received.
“Where are the checks?”
“One of them has been cleared,” Mason said, grinning, “and the other is in the hands of the bank. The bank may be contemplating turning it over to the police.”
“The bank hasn’t asked for the envelopes in which the checks came?”
“Not yet. It will. Have those envelopes photographed. Then have some enlargements made so we can check that typewriting. Get an expert to tell the make and model of typewriter on which they were written.”
“That all?”
“That’s all I can tell you. You’ll probably think of something else as you go along.”
Drake heaved himself up out of the chair. “How about this daughter, Patricia? Can I tell her about the wire?”
“I don’t see why not”
“Tell her I’m from your”
Mason thought for a moment, then said, “Tell her you’re a newspaper reporter first. Let’s see what story she has for publication. Then tell her who you are and say you’re working for me. See if it changes her story.”
“Anything else?” Drake asked.
Mason said, “I don’t need to draw you a diagram, Paul. Police records are full of cases of wealthy wives who disappear, husbands who think up one story and then another. It all follows a pattern.”
“You mean the husband bops the wife over the head, puts the body in the cellar, pours on a little cement, and then tells the neighbors his spouse has gone to visit ‘Aunt Mary’?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“In this case there’s a second person, Fleetwood.”
“It may be a big cellar.”
“Not let anyone know what’s cooking, I suppose?”
“That’s right.”
“Shall I let Patricia know why you’re looking for Mom?”
“No. Let her do the talking—and acting.”
“Okay,” Drake said. “How soon do you want this stuff?”
“Soon as I can get it,” Mason said.
“You always do,” Drake told him, and went out.
Mason said to Della Street, “You hold the fort, Della. I’m going to take a run out to Las Olitas. With luck I can see the bank president before he goes to lunch.”
Chapter 5
Las Olitas clung to the orchard covered foothills in drowsy contentment.
Here were the homes of ranchers who were making a good living from the country. Here also were the houses of wealthy people who had removed themselves from the hurry and the bustle of the city to the tranquillity of the rich little suburb.
Situated a thousand feet higher than the plain below, with a backdrop of rugged mountains behind it, Las Olitas was bathed in sunshine. From its residential section, one looked out over a bluish haze of atmospheric impurities to the place where the big city belched nauseous gases into the air.
It was a forty minute drive from Mason’s office to the main street of Las Olitas, and Mason paused for a moment to admire the clear blue of the sky, the slopes of the mountains in the background. Then the lawyer left his car in a parking lot and walked a short distance to the First National Bank.
The institution seemed to reflect the temperament of the community. Large, spacious and carefully designed by skillful architects, the bank was permeated with an atmosphere of placid stability.
Mason, running his eyes down the row of open offices back of a marble partition, found a brass plaque bearing the words, “C.E. Pawling, President.” Mason also noticed that Mr. Pawling was, for the moment, disengaged.
The lawyer moved over to the marble partition and studied the president, a man of around sixty who wore an expensively tailored suit with an air of distinction, whose keen, steady eyes managed to radiate a smiling welcome to the world at large, yet all the time those eyes were making a hard appraisal based on shrewd objective observation.
Mason bowed and the man behind the desk instantly arose and came over to the marble counter.
“My name is Mason,” the lawyer said.
Pawling extended his hand.
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Yes, Mr. … not Perry Mason?”
“Yes.”
“Well, well, Mr. Mason! This is indeed a pleasure! Won’t you come in? I’ve read a lot about you. Are you thinking of opening an account, Mr. Mason?”
“No,” Mason said, as he walked through the mahogany gate which the bank president had opened. “I came to see you about a matter which, quite frankly, has puzzled me—the matter having to do with the interest and welfare of one of your depositors.”
“Indeed, Mr. Mason. Do sit down. Tell me about it.”
Mason said, “I received a check in the mail this morning, a check drawn on this bank in an amount of twenty-five hundred dollars.”
“Ah, yes,” Pawling said, his tone indicating that twenty-five hundred dollar retainers could well be paid by the majority of the depositors in his bank.
“I deposited that check with my own bank in the city, the Farmers, Merchants & Mechanics Bank.”
Pawling nodded.
“You have perhaps heard about it?” Mason asked.
Pawling said suavely, “I’d have to learn more of the details, Mr. Mason.”
“The person who signed that check,” Mason said, “was Lola Faxon Allred. She has an account also at this same bank where I carry my account. In examining the signature on the check, the bank officials became suspicious, called in a handwriting expert, and the handwriting expert pronounced the check a forgery.”
“Indeed.”
“I suppose that you were notified.”
“What is it you wish, Mr. Mason?”
Mason said, “I also received another check from Lola Faxon Allred, in an amount of twenty-five hundred dollars.”
Pawling was sitting quite straight in his chair now, his head tilted slightly so that he would be sure to catch every word the lawyer said.
“That check,” Mason said, “was good as gold. It was sent to me by way of a retainer to represent Mrs. Allred in certain matters which concerned her. I am, therefore, in the position of having been a recipient of a forged check and the payee in a genuine check. I am also in the position of being Mrs. Allred’s attorney.”
“Ah, yes,” Pawling said.
Mason said, “My client is not available at the moment.”
“Indeed.”
“It occurs to me that the check on this bank which I received may not have been the only forgery which was perpetrated. Mrs. Allred, I believe, customarily makes her checks on a typewriter, does she not?”
“I believe so. Yes.”
“And only the signature in her handwriting?”
Pawling nodded.
Mason said, “I gather from certain things that I learned, that her account here is not too active. Of course, if a bank pays a forged check, the liability is that of the bank. But, I feel certain that my client would wish to take immediate steps to see that no further forgeries are perpetrated.”
The Case of the Lazy Lover Page 3
