The Case of the Blonde Bonanza (11 page)

"Perhaps if you'll tell me what the matter is," Winlock said, "it won't be necessary to take up so much of the limited time at our disposal searching into my background."

"Very well," Mason said. "Do you know a Dianne Alder?"

"Alder, Alder," Winlock said, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "Now, it's difficult to answer that question, Mr. Mason, because my business interests are very complex and I have quite an involved social life here. I don't have too good a memory for names, offhand, and usually when a matter of that sort comes up I have to refer the inquiry to my secretary who keeps an alphabetical list of names that are important to me… May I ask if this person you mention, this Dianne Alder, is a client of yours?"

"She is," Mason said.

"An interest which pivots about the affairs of some other client?" Winlock asked.

Mason laughed and said, "Now you're cross-examining me, Mr. Winlock."

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"

"If you are not acquainted with Dianne Alder, there is no reason why you should," Mason said.

"And if I am acquainted with this person?"

"Then," Mason said, "a great deal depends upon the nature of that knowledge-or, to put it another way, on the measure of the association."

"Are you implying in any way that there has been an undue intimacy?" Winlock asked coldly.

"I am not implying any such thing," Mason said. "I am simply trying to get a plain answer to a simple question as to whether you know Dianne Alder."

"I'm afraid I'm not in a position to answer that question definitely at the moment, Mason. I might be able to let you know later on."

"Put it this way," Mason said. "The name means nothing to you at this time? You wouldn't know whether you were acquainted with her unless you had your secretary look it up on an alphabetical index?"

"I didn't exactly say that," Winlock said. "I told you generally something about my background in regard to people and names and then I asked you some questions which I consider very pertinent as to the nature and extent of your interest in ascertaining my knowledge or lack of it as far as the party in question is concerned."

"All right," Mason said, "I'll stop sparring with you, Mr. Winlock, and start putting cards on the table. Dianne Alder's father disappeared fourteen years ago. He was presumed to have been drowned. Now then, is there any possibility that prior to the time you came to Riverside there was a period in your life where you suffered from amnesia? Is it possible that, as a result of some injury or otherwise, you are not able to recall the circumstances of your life prior to arriving in Riverside? Is it possible that you could have had a family and perhaps a daughter and that your memory has become a blank as to such matters?

"Now, I am putting that in the form of a question, Mr. Winlock. I am not making it as a statement, I am not making it as an accusation, I am not making it as a suggestion. I am simply putting it in the form of a question because I am interested in the answer. If the answer is no, then the interview is terminated as far as I am concerned."

"You are acting upon the assumption that Dianne Alder may be my natural daughter?" Winlock asked.

"I am making no such statement, no such suggestion, and am acting upon no such assumption," Mason said. "I am simply asking you if, prior to the time you arrived in Riverside, there is any possibility that there is a hiatus in your memory due to amnesia, traumatic or otherwise."

Winlock got to his feet. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Mason, but there is no hiatus in my memory. I have never been bothered with amnesia and I remember my past life perfectly in all its details.

"I believe that answers your question, and, as you remarked, an answer of this sort would terminate the interview as far as you are concerned."

"That is quite correct," Mason said, getting to his feet. "I just wanted to be certain, that's all."

"And may I ask why you came to me with this question?" Winlock asked, as he started escorting Mason to the door.

"Because," Mason said, "if there had been any possibility of such a situation existing, I might have been in a position to have spared you a great deal of embarrassment and trouble."

"I see," Winlock said, hesitating somewhat in his stride.

Mason stopped, faced the other man. "One more question," he said. "Do you know a Harrison T. Boring who is at the moment registered in Unit io at the Restawhile Motel?"

"Boring… Boring," Winlock said, frowning. "Now, there again, Mr. Mason, I'm going to have to point out to you that one of my pet peeves is having someone pull a name out of a hat and say, "Do you know this person or that person?" My business affairs are rather complex and-"

"I know, I know," Mason interrupted, "and your social life is not by any means simple. Buf if you know Harrison T. Boring in the way that you would know him if my surmise is correct, you wouldn't need to ask your secretary to look up his name on an alphabetical list."

"And just what is your surmise, Mr. Mason?"

"My surmise," Mason said, "is that regardless of whom he may be contacting, Harrison Boring tied Dianne Alder up in a contract by which he was in a position to collect a full fifty per cent of any gross income from any source whatever which Dianne might receive during the period of the next few years. He then dropped Dianne and repudiated the contract, indicating he had opened up a more lucrative market for any knowledge he might have."

Winlock stood very stiff and very still. Then said, at length, "You know that he made such a contract?"

"Yes."

"May I ask the source of your information, Mr. Mason?"

"I've seen the contract and know of its subsequent repudiation. If, therefore, you are not being frank with me, Mr. Winlock, you should realize what the repudiation of Dianne's contract means. It means that Boring feels he could get more than half of what Dianne is entitled to. This means he has opened up a new source of income which he intends to use to the limit."

"I think," Winlock said, "you had better come back here and sit down, Mr. Mason. The situation is a little more complex than I had anticipated."

Winlock walked back to the chair he had just vacated, seated himself and indicated that Mason was to seat himself in the other chair.

Mason sat down and waited.

There was a long period of silence.

At length Mason took out his cigarette case, offered one to Winlock, who shook his head.

"Mind if I smoke?" Mason asked.

"Go right ahead. There's an ash tray there on the table."

Mason lit the cigarette.

Winlock said, after a moment, "What you have just told me, Mr. Mason, is very much of a shock to me."

Mason said nothing.

"All right," Winlock said. "I see that you are starting an investigation, Mr. Mason, and I may as well forestall some of the results of that investigation. I had hoped that it never would be necessary for me to tell anyone the things I am going to tell you.

"My true name is George Alder. I was married to Eunice Alder. A little over fourteen years ago I started for Catalina Island in an open boat with an outboard motor. The boat ran out of fuel when we encountered head winds and heavy tide currents. We drifted about for a while, then a storm came up and the boat capsized. The accident happened at night. I am a good swimmer. I tried to keep in touch with my companion, but lost him in the darkness. I managed to keep myself afloat for some two hours. Then, as it was getting daylight, I saw a boat approaching. I managed to wave and shout and finally got the attention of one of the girls on the boat. She called out to the man at the wheel and the boat veered over and picked me up.

"I was near exhaustion.

"My married life had not been happy. My wife, Eunice, and I had, as it turned out, very little in common other than the first rush of passion which had brought about the marriage. When that wore off and we settled down to a day-by-day relationship, we became mutually dissatisfied. She evidenced that dissatisfaction by finding fault with just about everything I did. If I drove a car, I was driving either too fast or too slow. If I reached a decision, she always questioned the decision.

"I evidenced my dissatisfaction by staying away from home a great deal and in the course of time developed other emotional interests.

"During the long hours I was swimming I felt that the situation was hopeless. I reviewed my past life. I realized that I should have separated from her while she was still young enough to have attracted some other man. An attempt to sacrifice both of our lives simply in order to furnish a home to a young daughter was, in my opinion, poor judgment."

"It's difficult to judge a matter of that sort," Mason said, "because the judgment is usually made in connection with the selfish interests of the person considering the situation."

"Meaning that you don't agree with me?" Winlock said.

"Meaning that I was merely making a marginal comment," Mason said. "However, all that is in the past. If you want to justify your course of conduct I'm very glad to listen to you, but I feel that in view of what you have said we're getting to a point where time is short."

"Exactly," Winlock said. "I'll put it this way. The boat that picked me up was headed for Catalina. I explained to them that I had been on a somewhat drunken party on another boat; that I had made a wager that I could swim to Catalina before the boat got there and had been drunk enough and foolish enough to plunge overboard to try it and the others had let me go, with a lot of jeering and facetious comments.

"I told my rescuers that I had a responsible position and that I certainly couldn't afford any publicity. So they fitted me out with clothes, which I agreed to return, and put me ashore at Catalina and said nothing about it.

"Now then, recently Harrison T. Boring found out in some way what had happened and that I was actually George Alder."

"And he has been asking money?"

"He has been paid money," Winlock said. "I gave him four separate payments, all of which represented blackmail. Boring came to Riverside in order to collect yet another payment. This time it was a very substantial payment and it was represented to me it would be a final payment."

"How much?" Mason asked.

"Ten thousand dollars in cash," Winlock said.

"Can you afford blackmail of that sort?" Mason asked.

"I can't afford not to pay blackmail. This man is in a position to wipe me out. Because I didn't dare to answer the questions in connection with the vital statistics required on a marriage license, I persuaded my present wife that there were reasons why I didn't want to go through with another marriage and, because she was a divorced woman and the interlocutory degree had not become final, we simply announced to our friends that we had run away and had been married in Nevada over a week end.

"I may state that at that time the circle of my friends was much more limited than is the case at the present time, and what we did-or rather, what we said we had done-attracted very little attention. There was, I believe, a small article in the society column of the local newspaper."

"But how do you feel about Dianne?" Mason asked. "You simply walked out of her life. You deprived her of a father, you never let her know-"

"I couldn't let her know," Winlock said. "I had to make a clean break. There was no other way out of it. However, I may state that I have kept in touch with Dianne without her knowing anything at all about it. If she ever had any real need for money, I'd have seen that she had it.

"She had a very good job as a secretary with Corning, Chester and Corning of Bolero Beach. She has perhaps no realization of just how she secured that job. If it hadn't been for the influence of a firm of attorneys here in Riverside, who, in turn, were indebted to me, I doubt very much that Dianne would have secured such a good job so early in her career.

"However, that's neither here nor there. I am not trying to justify myself to you, Mr. Mason. I am simply pointing out that your statement to me is a great shock, because it is now apparent that Boring is not interested in a lump sum settlement as he told me, but plans to bleed me white.

"This would kill my wife. To have a scandal come out at this particular time, to have it appear our relationship was illicit, to lose her social prestige- Well, I can't even bear to think of it."

"Your wife has a son by another marriage?"

"That's right. And as far as he is concerned, I- Well, I am not talking about him. If something happened that would- If that young man had to go out and stand on his two feet- Oh, well, that's neither here nor there. There's no use discussing it."