The Case of the Horrified Heirs (6 page)

"All right," Mason said, "here's my suggestion. File for a divorce on the ground of desertion or cruelty. Leave her name out of it, get it over with and get your freedom; and if there is anything out of the ordinary that happens within the next few days, anything suspicious, any anonymous telephone calls, anything that seems strange, call me immediately."

Mason patted her shoulder and said, "You're free now."

"But what do I do about your fee, Mr. Mason?"

Mason said, "Send me a check for a hundred dollars when you get around to it and find it convenient, but don't worry about it."

CHAPTER SEVEN

There had been a dearth of news the night before and as a result the story about "weighing" the evidence had been given considerable prominence.

Virginia Baxter read the papers with a growing sense of relief. The reporters had sensed that she had been framed and had done their best to see that her vindication was featured as top news.

The newspaper photographers, thoroughgoing professionals, had done an excellent job with their cameras, while Judge Albert, leaning over the scales, had placed a steadying and paternal hand on Virginia's shoulder.

It has been truthfully said that one picture tells more than ten thousand words, and in this case, the jurist's attitude left no doubt of his faith in Virginia Baxter's innocence.

The headlines in one of the newspapers read, FORMER LEGAL SECRETARY VINDICATED IN DOPE CASE.

One article made much of the fact that she had formerly been employed in a law office. While that office had in reality done little trial work, specializing in estate matters, the reporter had taken poetic license and had written that while Virginia Baxter had been working on criminal cases which Delano Bannock was defending, it probably had never occurred to her in even her wildest dreams that the time would come when she herself would stand before the bar of justice accused of a serious crime.

It was from an article in another evening paper that Virginia received a shock.

The reporter had done some background investigation and the article stated that Colton Baxter, estranged husband of Virginia Baxter, was, by coincidence, an employee of the very airline which had checked the suitcase to its destination. He was not immediately available for comment.

Virginia read that twice, then impulsively reached for the telephone and called Mason's office. Suddenly, realizing the hour, she was about to hang up when, 'to her surprise, she heard Della Street's voice on the line.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize how late it was. This is Virginia Baxter. I read something in the paper that startled me and… I never thought about it being so long after five."

"Do you want to talk with Mr. Mason?" Della Street asked. "Just a minute and I'll connect you. I think he wants to talk with you, too."

A moment later, Mason's voice said, "Hello, Virginia. I suppose you've read the papers and learned that your husband was located by one of the reporters."

"Yes, yes, Mr. Mason. That makes it just as clear as day. Don't you see what happened? Colton planted that stuff in my suitcase and then tipped off the newspapers. If I had been convicted, he could then have had perfect grounds for divorce. He'd claim that I had been a dope fiend all the time we were married; that I had been dealing in dope and that he had left me because of that."

"So," Mason said, "what do you want to do?"

"I want to have him arrested."

"You can't arrest him without proof," Mason said. "All you have so far is surmise."

"How much would it cost to get proof?"

"You'd have to employ a private detective and he'd charge you probably a minimum of fifty dollars a day and expenses, and then the chances are he'd be unable to get anything except more grounds for surmise."

"I have a little money. I'd… I'd spend it in order to catch him-"

"Not through me, you wouldn't," Mason interrupted. "As a client of mine I wouldn't let you spend that amount of money for that purpose. Even if you got some evidence it would only leave you exactly where you are now, with good grounds for divorce.

"Why don't you just wash your hands of that man; get rid of him, dissolve the marriage and begin all over again.

"If you had religious reasons for not getting a divorce, I would probably handle it in another way, but you're going to get a divorce sooner or later and-"

"I don't want to give him that satisfaction."

"Why?"

"That's what he's wanted all along, a divorce."

Mason said, "You're not doing yourself a particle of good. All you're doing is some real or fancied harm to your husband. For all you know you may be playing into his hands right now."

"What do you mean?"

"He's playing around with this other woman," Mason said. "He keeps telling her that if he could ever get a divorce he'd marry her, but you won't give him a divorce. The woman knows all this is true.

"But suppose you give him a divorce, then he's in a position where he is not only free to marry this woman, but he has to do it to make good on his promises. He may not really want to marry her.

"It may be that your husband is in exactly the position he wants to be in."

"I had never thought of it that way," she said, slowly, but then added quickly, "Then why did he plant the dope in my suitcase?"

"If he did, it was probably because he wanted to have you thoroughly discredited," Mason said. "Yours was one of those marriages that has been dissolved in hatred. You'd better quit looking back over your shoulder, turn around and face the future."

"Well, I-I'll sleep on it and let you know in the morning."

"Do that," Mason said.

"I'm sorry I disturbed you at this hour."

"Not at all. We were working on some briefs here in the office, and after I read that statement in the paper, I thought you might be calling, so I told Della to plug in an outside line.

"You're in the clear now, stop worrying."

"Thank you," she said, and hung up.

The phone had hardly been cradled when there was a buzz at the door of her apartment.

Virginia crossed over and opened the door a few inches.

The man who stood in the doorway was somewhere around forty-five years of age, with dark wavy hair, a closeclipped mustache and intense obsidian black eyes.

"You're Mrs. Baxter?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I'm very sorry to bother you at this time, Mrs. Baxter. I know how you must be feeling, but I come to you on a matter of some importance."

"What is it?" she asked, still keeping the chain on the door.

"My name," he told her, "is George Menard-I read about you in the paper. I don't like to bring up a disagreeable subject, but of course you know that the news of your trial has been in all the papers."

"Well?" she asked.

"I noticed in the paper that you had been the secretary of Delano Bannock, an attorney, during his lifetime."

"That's right."

"Mr. Bannock died several years ago, I believe."

"That also is correct."

"I am trying to find out what was done with his files," the man said.

"Why?"

"Frankly, I want to locate a paper."

"What sort of a paper?"

"A carbon copy of an agreement which Mr. Bannock drew up for me. I've lost the original and I don't want the other party to the agreement to know it. There are certain things that I have to do under that agreement and while I think I can remember what they are, it would be an enormous help if I could locate a carbon copy."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't help you."

"You were employed by him at the time of his death?"

"Yes."

"What happened to the office furniture and all that?"

"Why, the office was closed up. There was no reason for the estate to go on paying rent."

"But what happened to the office furniture?"

"I believe it was sold."

The man frowned. "To whom was it sold? You know who bought the desks, filing cases, chairs?"

"No, they were sold to some second-hand office furniture outfit. I kept the typewriter I had been using. Everything else was sold."

"Filing cases and everything?"

"Everything."

"What happened to the old papers?"

"They were destroyed-No, wait a minute, wait a minute. I remember talking with his brother and telling him that the papers should be kept. I remember now, I wanted him to keep the filing cases intact."

"The brother?"

"That's right. Julian Bannock. He was the sole heir. There weren't any other relatives. The estate was a small one.

"You see, Delano Bannock was one of those devoted attorneys who was more interested in doing a job than in getting a fee. He worked literally day and night. He had no wife or family and he spent four or five evenings a week in his office, working until ten or eleven o'clock. But the modern idea of keeping track of time by the hour just never occurred to him. He would put in hours and hours on some little agreement that had a point that interested him and then he'd make only a moderate charge. The result was that he didn't leave much of an estate."

"What about the fees that were due him at the time of his death?"

"I wouldn't know about that, but it's very well known that the estates of professional men have a lot of trouble with outstanding accounts."

"And where could I find Julian Bannock?"

"I don't know," she said.

"Do you know where he lived?"

"Someplace in the San Joaquin Valley, I think."

"Could you find out where?"

"I might be able to."

Virginia Baxter had been sizing up the man and finally unlatched the door chain. "Won't you come in?" she invited. "I think perhaps I can consult an old diary. I have been keeping diaries for years-" She laughed nervously-"not the romantic type, you understand, but business diaries that contain little comments about when I went to work at a certain place and how long I worked there, events of the day, when I received raises in salary and things of that sort.

"I know that I made some entries at the time of Mr. Bannock's death-oh, wait a minute, I remember now, J ulian Bannock lived near Bakersfield."

"Do you know if he still lives there?"

"No, I don't. I remember now that he came down driving a pickup. The files were loaded into the pickup. I remember that after the files were loaded, I felt that my responsibility was ended. I turned the keys over to the brother."

"Bakersfield?" Menard said.

"That's right. Now, if you can tell me something about your agreement, perhaps I can remember about it. Mr. Bannock had a one-man office and I did all of the typing."

"It was an agreement with a man named Smith," Menard said.

"What was the nature of the agreement?"

"Oh, it involved a lot of complicated things about the sale of a machine shop. You see, I'm interested, or was interested, in machinery and thought for a while I'd go into the machinery business, but-Well, it's a long story."

"What are you doing now?" she asked.

Menard's eyes suddenly shifted. "I'm sort of freelancing," he said, "buying and selling."

"Real estate?" she asked.

"Oh, anything," he said.

"You live here in the city?"

He laughed, obviously ill at ease. "I keep going from place to place-you know how it is when a person is looking for bargains."

Virginia said, "I see. Well, I'm sorry I can't help you any more than I have."

She stood up and moved toward the door.

Menard accepted the dismissal.

"Thank you so much," he said, and walked out.