The Case of the Lonely Heiress

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “How come?” Mason asked.

  “The heiress is in my office.”

  Mason whistled. “What does she want?”

  “I don’t know what she did want. I think she wanted Kenneth Barstow, but what she wants now is you.”

  “And she’s waiting?”

  “Yes, I told her I could get in touch with you sooner or later, that I’d leave word in case you happened to come to your office, and I’d keep working on your apartment.”

  “Is it that important?” Mason asked.

  “I think it is,” Drake said. “As I get the story, it’s quite a yarn. You want to talk with her, Perry?”

  Mason nodded.

  “The hell of it is,” Drake went on, “you may find yourself in an adverse position to your client.”

  “Which client?”

  “The one that was trying to find out about her.”

  “The relation of attorney and client in that matter is entirely separate, and it has been completed. He wanted me to do certain things and I did them. I charged him a fee and he paid it. That’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned. I don’t like to be double-crossed by a client and I don’t like chiselers.”

  “Okay,” Drake said, “I’ll bring her in.”

  Mason nodded.

  Della Street’s eyes were sparkling. “I knew she’d fallen for Kenneth Barstow. That one she met tonight couldn’t hold a candle to Barstow, not as far as appearance or anything else. And I’ll tell you something else. He wasn’t the greenie he was trying to appear, either. That boy knew his way around. I wouldn’t trust him any farther than I could toss that safe over there with one finger.”

  Mason settled himself at his office desk, took a cigarette from the humidor, and said, “This man Caddo is beginning to get on my nerves.”

  He smoked in silence for a few seconds. Then Drake’s steps sounded once more in the corridor. The pound of his heels was accompanied by the quick tapping of high heels as the woman at his side tried to keep up with Drake’s long strides.

  Drake pushed the door open for Marilyn Marlow to enter the office and said, “Miss Marlow, Mr. Mason, and Miss Street, his secretary. Go on in.”

  Drake followed her into the room.

  Marilyn Marlow bowed acknowledgment of the introduction. There was no cordiality in her snapping black eyes.

  “Well,” she said to Perry Mason, “you’ve got me in a sweet mess. Now suppose you try getting me out.”

  Mason smiled. “Suppose you sit down and relax while you tell me about it.”

  She sat down in a straight-backed chair across from Mason’s desk while Paul Drake slid once more into his favorite sprawling position in the client’s chair.

  “Well?” Mason asked.

  She said, “You framed that letter to me, and I answered it, like a fool, and then you ran that detective in on me.”

  “You’re making statements,” Mason said.

  “You’ve messed everything up for me!”

  “And why did you want to see me now?”

  She smiled. “I want you to un-mess things.”

  “If you’re calling on me as a lawyer and want me to do something for you, I think it’s only fair to warn you that I may not be free to accept you as a client. However, so we can quit beating around the bush, we may as well get certain facts straight.

  “Your mother was the special nurse who attended George P. Endicott in his last illness. Endicott had been in poor health for a long time and your mother had quite a hard job of it. Apparently, she did her work well. When Endicott died, he left a will by which he left your mother the bulk of his estate. His brothers, Ralph Endicott and Palmer E. Endicott, and his sister, Lorraine Endicott Parsons, inherited the house and a relatively small bequest. The will has already been submitted to probate. The amount of the estate is appraised at approximately three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and it is indicated that the brothers and sisters are going to file a contest after probate, claiming fraud, undue influence and all the rest of it. Your mother was killed in an automobile accident. You inherit all of her property. Now then, you …”

  “Have you been approached by any one of the Endi-cotts?” she interrupted.

  “No.”

  “Someone connected with Rose Keeling?”

  “Rose Keeling?” Mason repeated the name, then shook his head. “I don’t place her…. Oh, yes, Rose Keeling was one of the subscribing witnesses to the Endicott will.”

  “You don’t know her? You’ve never met her?”

  “No.”

  “And you don’t know the Endicotts?”

  “No.”

  Marilyn Marlow seemed debating some move in her own mind. Then she said suddenly and impulsively, “Will you help me?”

  “Let’s keep to generalities for a time,” Mason said. “I may not be in a position to help you. I may be disqualified. Generally, what do you want?”

  “I’m virtually certain the Endicotts are offering Rose Keeling a big bribe to sell out. I think she’s considering the offer. I’ve tried every way I know to get a line on the thing and I’m stumped. If she sells put, it leaves me out on a limb. I’m licked.”

  “Why did you advertise in that magazine?”

  “I wanted a man of a certain type.”

  “Why?”

  “Rose Keeling is romantic. She falls fast and hard. I wanted a man I could control, one of the type I could know all about who wouldn’t double-cross me. I wanted to have him get friendly with Rose, but report to me.”

  “Did you think you could pick up a man who would be so fascinating to Miss Keeling that she’d confide in him and tell him that …”

  “I feel certain I can. I know her pretty well. I know just the type she falls for. She’ll be suspicious of anyone who has a city background. But a tall man with a country background, a man who is shy but has plenty of latent oomph can knock her for a loop. I’d make the build-up myself, of course. I’d see that he met her under just the right circumstances.”

  “You are personally friendly?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s friendly enough, all right, but she’s got her hand-out. She’s been hinting lately that Mother told her that after the estate had been distributed she could count on something in the nature of a reward.”

  “Do you think your mother told her that?”

  “I know she didn’t,” Marilyn Marlow flamed. “Mother was a square-shooter and a hard worker. All she called these other two nurses in for was to act as witnesses. She could have picked out any one of a half-dozen nurses on the floor. That attitude of Rose Keeling’s makes it look as though there was something crooked about the whole business. And there wasn’t. It was all square shooting.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I … well, I just know!”

  “It’s necessary to have proof.”

  “But we’ve had the proof. Rose Keeling went on the stand and swore to exactly what happened.”

  “And now she wants to change her testimony?”

  “She would if she thought she could get away with it and get some money out of it. I understand she’s being asked to say she had stepped out of the room just before the will was signed.”

  “But after she returned, Endicott acknowledged to her that he had signed the will?”

  Marilyn Marlow said impatiently, “You’re a lawyer. Do I have to draw a diagram for you? She’d change her testimony just enough to make the will invalid. That’s what she’d be paid for. Naturally the Endicotts wouldn’t pay her a cent unless the will was knocked out.”

  “And do you think the Endicotts would suborn perjury?”

  Marilyn Marlow hesitated a minute and then said, “The Endicotts feel that my mother was an adventuress who took advantage of their brother. They’d do almost anything to upset that will because they think it would only be justice, after all, to have the will knocked out.”

  Mason said, “Suppose you tell me a little more about what you have in mind, Miss Marlow, what you are try
ing to do, why you put this ad in that magazine.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you. I’ll put my cards on the table. I knew that Rose Keeling had her hand out. For a while I thought that I might offer her something, but then I realized that I’d simply be bidding against the Endicotts, and there are two witnesses to that will. If I started paying one, I’d have to pay the other. I need two witnesses to make it stand up. The Endicotts only need one to tear it down. And I was opposed to doing anything crooked like that. I knew that Mother had been a square-shooter. She wouldn’t have paid anyone a nickel. I didn’t want to cheapen her memory.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “So I tried to get close to Rose Keeling. I thought perhaps she’d confide in me and tell me exactly what the score was; that the Endicotts had offered her money. She was too smart for that. She intimated and that’s all.”

  “So you wanted to get hold of a man?”

  “That’s right. I wanted a man of a certain type. Rose Keeling is very peculiar. She’s suspicious of every woman friend she ever had. But when she falls for a man, she falls hard and tells him everything.

  “I knew exactly the type of man she would fall for. I happen to know she’s going through a period of heartbreak right now, and she’d be a pushover for the right man. But, of course, I had to be certain of my man first. I wanted to get one who would fall for me, but who would make a play for Rose Keeling and get her to confide in him as a service to me. I couldn’t afford to get one.who would perhaps fall for Rose Keeling and tune me out. Before I introduced him to Rose, I had to make him … well, make him fall for me. See?”

  Mason nodded.

  She said, “In order to do that, I wanted a man of just a certain type. I didn’t want one who knew too much. I didn’t want one who thought he was too smart. I wanted one who would be honest. I wanted a man who really had something to him. And, of course, I had to work pretty fast. I had to know a good deal about this man—how far he’d go and—well, a lot about him.”

  Mason encouraged her to go on, with another sympathetic nod of his head.

  She said, “I put that ad in the magazine. I said right out in it that I was an heiress. … I knew that that would help me get replies. I knew that anyone who said he wasn’t interested in my money, after reading that ad, would be a hypocrite and a liar. I wanted a man who was frank—and truthful.”

  “You’ve had lots of replies?”

  “Hundreds of them. I’ve been meeting men every night for the last week. Then one I met last night was the one I wanted, and then he turned out to be a detective!”

  “How did you know he was a detective?”

  “The publisher of the magazine rang me up and told me about it. He said he was sorry that the ad had attracted the attention of undesirable parties, but that he felt it was his duty as publisher of the magazine to warn me that such was the case.”

  “How did he know where you were, your name and address?”

  “I don’t know. He said the magazine had a way of finding out those things. I don’t understand that, because the woman I had calling for replies at the magazine office was plenty smart. She carried the replies around with her for a ways and then dropped them in a branch post office, addressed to me, wrapping the whole day’s mail in a package that was sent to me first-class mail, special delivery. I’d get it in about two hours from the time she deposited it in the post office. In that way, it was impossible for anyone to follow her or to locate me through her.”

  Mason nodded.

  “However,” she said, “this publisher did ring me up and warn me about this man. I liked him. He’d signed the letter ‘Irvin. Green,’ but the publisher said he was a detective and that you had employed him.”

  Mason glanced significantly at Della Street. “And then what did the publisher do?”

  “He offered to do anything he could to help me. He wanted me to confide in him. I wasn’t ready to do that quite yet. I wanted to see something of him first. He offered to put his car at my disposal, in case I didn’t want to use my car, because of having the license number traced. He said he would drive his car as a chauffeur, and actually rented himself a chauffeur’s livery so he could make it convincing.”

  “Then how about the boy you met tonight?” Mason asked.

  She made a little grimace of disgust and said, “He was terrible! I didn’t like him in the first place. He wrote a nice letter, but when I sized him up he didn’t look like the sort I wanted. I almost didn’t speak to him, but finally I went up to him and we went out to dinner. I gave him the gate almost immediately. He was two-faced. He would have sold me out to Rose Keeling and—well, there was something repulsive about him. He was just promoting whatever he could get for himself.”

  “The one last night you liked?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s why you’re here?”

  She met his eyes and said, “Frankly, Mr. Mason, that’s why I’m here. That man who gave me the name of Green was exactly the type Rose Keeling would fall for, and I had a feeling that he’d be—well, he’d be loyal to me. I think I could hold him. I think he liked me—a lot.”

  “You liked him a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “When the publisher telephoned me and told me he was a detective who had been planted to get something on me, I was furious. I let him get in such a position that I could sever all connection with him without arousing suspicion, and I went ahead and did that—fast.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I got to thinking things over. After all, Mr. Mason, the fact that the man is a detective is nothing against him. It might be something in his favor. The more I got to thinking the thing over, the more I realized what a ninny I’d been, trying to play detective. It would be much better for me to have put my affairs in the hands of someone who knew all the ropes on that sort of stuff and knew how to go about it.”

  “And you thought that I controlled this man whom you knew as Green and that in order to get him, you’d have to play ball with me?”

  “Well, something like that.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “Then I got rid of Mr. Caddo, the publisher, and came up to your office. I asked the janitor who runs the elevator at night if you were in your office or if he thought you might be in. He said Mr. Paul Drake sometimes knew where you were, that Drake ran a detective agency on the same floor and—well, I put two and two together and assumed that this Mr. Green was Mr. Drake’s man. As soon as I talked with Mr. Drake, he said he couldn’t do anything until he got in touch with you, but that he’d try to reach you.”

  “You have a lawyer representing you?” Mason asked.

  “No, there’s a lawyer probating Mother’s estate, but that’s all. He’s not really representing me, just handling the estate.”

  “And what did you want me to do?”

  “Frankly, I want to put things in your hands. I want you to go ahead and do anything that needs to be done. I felt this detective I met last night was just the type. I thought that I could talk with him frankly and tell him what I wanted and he’d be loyal to me. He’d make a nice one to get in touch with Rose Keeling.”

  “Just how did you intend to go about doing something like that?”

  She said, “Rose loves to play tennis. I would fix up a foursome and get her to play. And she’s something of a pirate. She likes to steal other people’s—no, I won’t put it that way; but if she sees that someone is particularly devoted to me, it flatters her vanity if she can lure him away from me.”

  “Sort of a love pirate?”

  “It’s not that exactly, although that’s what I started to say. It’s just a complex she has. She likes to make passes at my men. If she doesn’t get anywhere, she’s furious. But if she can arouse their interest, it makes her feel better because she thinks that … anyhow, it gives her a lift.”

  “And this man Caddo doesn’t know you’ve come to me?”

  “Oh, no
. I just used him to help me out. I haven’t told him anything about this, but I’ve told him about the other.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “take my advice. Don’t tell him anything more; clam up on that man.”

  “He’s most anxious to help me, says he’ll do anything that he can to be of any assistance, because he feels I deserve it. He feels that … oh, I don’t know, I guess he’s just—you know.”

  “Making passes?” Mason asked.

  “He is the sort who paws a girl,” she said. “He’s always putting his hand on your shoulder and then letting it slide down the arm, and things like that. He can’t keep his hands off. I suppose he’s just like all the rest.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Can you do it?” she asked.

  Mason said, “I’ll let you know tomorrow. Give me a number where I can call you. I’ll think it over. I don’t think I’m disqualified because of any clients I’ve had so far. Frankly, my interest in you was simply to find out something about the ad.”

  “Who retained you, Mr. Mason? Who was your client?”

  Mason smiled and shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “I can’t imagine who would be interested.”

  “I certainly can’t tell you.”

  She said abruptly, “I don’t think I care too much for Mr. Caddo.”

  “But he cares for you?”

  “He wants to—I don’t know just what he wants. He wants to paw me, but there’s something that he has in his mind, something more specific than that.”

  “He knows about your inheritance?”

  “Yes. I told him a lot when I first met him.”

  “He wants to help you collect it?”

  “He hasn’t said so in so many words.”

  Mason said, “In the event that I should act as attorney for you, in case Mr. Caddo approaches you and wants anything, suggest that he come to me.”

  She nodded.

  “However,” Mason went on, “Caddo is the least of our worries right at the moment. You feel certain Rose Keeling is on the point of selling out?”

  “Yes.”

  Mason said, “There are, of course, two ways of handling that. One of them is to keep her from selling out. The other is to get the proof that she has sold out and confront her with it at the proper time.”