The Case of the Horrified Heirs (10 page)

"I think it's that serious," Mason said, "but my hands are tied until we get a check on that arsenic factor.

"Go back to your office, Paul, alert your telephone operator and have things in readiness so that you can have a man out at Virginia Baxter's place at a moment's notice."

CHAPTER TEN

The man with the black hair, the close-clipped mustache and the black, intense eyes was waiting in a car that was parked in front of Virginia Baxter's apartment house.

Virginia spotted the car first, recognized the driver sitting there concentrating on the front door of the apartment house and breezed on by without attracting any attention.

From a service station four blocks down the street, she telephoned Mason's office.

"He's out there, waiting," she said, when she had the lawyer on the line.

"The same man who called on you before?" Mason asked.

"Yes."

"All right," Mason said, "go on home; see what he wants; make an excuse to break away if you can and call me."

"Will do," she said. "You'll probably hear from me within the next twenty or thirty minutes."

She hung up the phone, drove back to her apartment house, parked her car and entered the front door, apparently completely oblivious of the man who was seated in the parked automobile across the street.

Within a matter of minutes after she had entered her apartment house, the buzzer sounded.

She saw to it that the safety chain was on the door, then opened it to confront the intense, black eyes.

"Why, hello, Mr. Menard," she said. "Did you find what you wanted?"

The man tried to make his smile affable. "I'd like to talk with you about it. May I come in?"

She hesitated a brief instant, then said cordially, "Why, certainly," and released the chain on the door.

He entered the apartment, seated himself, said, "I'm going to put my cards on the table."

She raised her eyebrows.

"I wasn't looking for an agreement made with Smith and relating to the sale of a machine shop," he said. "I was looking for something else."

"Can you tell me what?" she asked.

"Some years ago," he said, "Mr. Bannock made at least one will for Lauretta Trent. I'm under the impression he made two wills.

"Now then, for reasons that I don't want to take the time to go into at the present time, it is highly important that we find those wills. At least, the latest one."

Virginia let her face show surprise. "But-but I don't understand… Why, we only had the carbon copies. Mrs. Trent would have the original wills in her safety deposit box or somewhere."

"Not necessarily," he said.

"But what good would a copy do?"

"There are other people who are interested."

She raised her eyebrows.

"There is one person in particular who is willing to do anything to get his hands on a copy of the will. Now, I would like to lay a trap for that individual."

"How?"

"I believe you purchased the typewriter that you had used in the office?"

"Yes. That is, Mr. Bannock's brother gave it to me."

He indicated the typewriter on the desk. "It's an older model?"

"Yes. We had it in the office for years. It's an exceedingly durable make and this model is pretty well dated. When the appraiser appraised the office furniture he put a very low value on this typewriter because it was so old, and Mr. Bannock's brother told me to just keep it and forget about it."

"Then you could prepare a carbon copy of a will and date it back three or four years and we could mix that carbon copy in with the old papers that went to Mr. Bannock's brother and if anyone should happen to be snooping around through those papers looking for a copy of Lauretta Trent's will, we could fool him into relying on that copy and perhaps get him to betray himself."

"Would that do any good?" she asked.

"It might do a great deal of good… I take it you'd like to help a person who was a client of Mr. Bannock's?"

Her face lit up. "Then you mean Lauretta Trent would ask me to do this herself?"

"No, there are certain reasons why Lauretta Trent couldn't request you to do it, but I can tell you it would be very much to her advantage."

"You're connected with her then in some way?"

"I am speaking for her."

"Would it be all right for me to ask the nature of the association or of your representation?"

He smiled and shook his head. "Under some circumstances," he said, "money talks."

He took a wallet from his pocket and extracted a hundred-dollar bill. He paused for a moment; then extracted another hundred-dollar bill. Then, significantly, another hundred-dollar bill and kept on until there were five one-hundred-dollar bills lying on the table.

She eyed the money thoughtfully, "We'd have to be rather careful," she said. "You know Mr. Bannock used stationery that had his name printed in the lower left-hand corner."

"I hadn't realized that," the man said.

"Fortunately, I have some of that stationery-Of course, we'd have to destroy the original and leave this as a carbon copy."

"I think you could make a good job of it," he said.

She said, "I'd have to have your assurance that it was all right, that there wasn't going to be anything fradulent connected with it."

"Oh, certainly," he said. "It's simply to trap someone who is trying to make trouble with Mrs. Trent's relatives."

She hesitated for a moment. "Could I have some time to think this over?"

"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Baxter. We're working against time and if you're going to go ahead with this we'd have to do it immediately."

"What do you mean by 'immediately'?"

"Right now," he said, indicating the typewriter.

"What do you want in this will?"

He said, "You make the usual statements about the testatrix being of sound and disposing mind and memory and state that she is a widow; that she has no children; that she has two sisters who are married; that one is Dianne, the wife of Boring Briggs; that the other is Maxine who is the wife of Gordon Kelvin.

"Then go on and state that you have recently become convinced that your relatives are actuated by selfish interests and that, therefore, you leave your sister, Dianne, a hundred thousand dollars; that you leave your sister, Maxine, one hundred thousand dollars; that you leave your brother-in-law, Boring Briggs, ten thousand dollars; that you leave your brother-in-law, Gordon Kelvin, ten thousand dollars; that you leave your faithful and devoted chauffeur, George Eagan, who has been loyal to you throughout the years, all of the rest, residue and remainder of your estate."

Virginia Baxter said, "But I don't see what good that is going to do."

"Then," her visitor went on firmly, "you make another will which purports to have been executed just a few weeks before the date of Mr. Bannock's death. In that will you state that you leave Maxine and Gordon Kelvin one thousand dollars apiece; that you leave Boring Briggs and his wife, Dianne, one thousand dollars apiece, being satisfied that these people are actuated purely by selfish interests and have no real affection for you, and you leave all the rest, residue and remainder of the estate to your faithful and devoted chauffeur, George Eagan."

She started to say something, but he held up his hand and stopped her.

"We will plant those copies of the spurious wills in with Mr. Bannock's papers.

"I can assure you that they will be discovered by persons who are trying to find out in advance the terms of Lauretta Trent's will.

"These two documents will show that some years ago she began to doubt the sincerity of her sisters and particularly her brothers-in-law; that more recently she uncovered proof that they were simply trying to get what they could get their hands on and were actuated by purely selfish motives."

"But, don't you understand," she said, "that neither of these wills would be any good at all if-Well, I always signed and witnessed wills that were executed in the office. Mr. Bannock signed, and I signed.

"If they should call me and ask me if I signed this will as a witness, I would have to tell them that this will was completely spurious; that I prepared it only recently and-"

He interrupted her, smiling. "Why don't you just leave all that to me, Mrs. Baxter?" he asked. "Just pick up the five hundred dollars and start typing."

"I'm afraid I'd be too nervous to do anything while you were here. I'd have to work out the terms of the wills and then you could come back later."

He shook his head firmly. "I want to take these documents with me," he said, "and I haven't very much time."

Virginia Baxter hesitated, then remembering Mason's instructions, went to the drawer of the desk, picked out some of the old legal paper bearing Delano Bannock's imprint, put in new carbon paper, racheted the paper into the typewriter and started typing.

Thirty minutes later when she had finished, her visitor pocketed the carbon copies of the two documents, said, "Now, destroy those originals, Virginia. In fact, I'll destroy them right now."

He picked up all the originals and copies, folded them and put them in his pocket.

He walked to the door, paused to nod to Virginia Baxter. "You're a good girl," he said.

She watched him until he had entered the elevator; then she slammed the door, raced for the telephone, called Mason's office and hurriedly reported what had happened.

"Do you have any copies?" Mason asked.

"Only the carbon paper," she said. "He was smart enough to take the originals as well as the copies, but I followed your suggestion and put in a fresh sheet of carbon paper with each page and he didn't notice what I was doing. You see, I prepared all the pages with the carbon paper inserts in advance, putting out a half a dozen pages on my desk at one time and taking a fresh sheet of carbon paper from the box for each page. So I have a set of carbons, and by holding them up to the light, it's easy to read what was written."

"All right," Mason said, "bring those carbon copies up to my office just as fast as you can get here."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Virginia sat across the desk from Mason, who carefully examined the pages of carbon.

He turned to Della Street. "Della," he said, "take some cardboard the size of these pages of carbon paper so the carbon paper won't get folded or wrinkled, put these in an envelope and seal the envelope."

When Della had done this, Mason said to Virginia, "Now, write your name several times across the seal."

"What's that for?"

"To show that it hasn't been steamed open or tampered with."

Mason watched her while she wrote her name.

"Now then," he said, "don't bother with your car because you won't be able to find a parking place and time is running against you.

"Take a taxicab. Rush this envelope to the post office, address it to yourself and send it by registered mail."

"Then what?" she asked.

"Now, listen very carefully," Mason said. "When this envelope is delivered to you by registered mail, don't open it. Leave it sealed just as it is."

"Oh, I see," she said, "you want to be able to show the date that I-"

"Exactly," Mason said.

She picked up the envelope, started for the door.

"How are you fixed for provisions in your apartment?" Mason asked.

"Why, I… I have butter, bread, canned goods and some meat…"

"Enough to last you for twenty-four hours if necessary?"

"Yes, indeed!"

Mason said, "Mail that letter, go back to your apartment, stay there, keep the safety chain on the door. Don't admit anyone. If anyone calls to see you, tell him that you're entertaining a visitor and can't be disturbed. Then get his name and telephone me."

"Why?" she asked. "Do you think I'm in.. in any danger?"