“And she didn’t send a wire asking for an appointment?” Mason asked.
“She isn’t that kind,” Della said. “She’s about twenty-two, naive, demure, quiet-spoken and very much disturbed.”
“She was told to see me immediately on arrival?”
“That’s right. Her uncle, Horace Shelby, wrote her a letter and—”
“What’s in the letter?”
“I don’t know. She said her uncle bad told her not to show it to any living mortal except Perry Mason.”
Mason sighed. “Show her in. I’ll hit the high spots, get rid of her and—”
Like a streak Della Street went through the door to the outer office before he had finished the sentence.
Mason grinned and rose as Della ushered in a beautiful young woman.
“This is Daphne Shelby,” she said, and then, smiling brightly at Daphne, “and this is Mr. Mason.”
Daphne shyly mumbled a greeting, opened her purse, took out a letter, said, “Thank you very much for seeing me, Mr. Mason. I guess I should have sent a wireless but I was too upset... I’ll try and be as brief as possible.”
Della passed the letter and envelope across to Mason.
The lawyer held the envelope in his hands for a moment while he sized up Daphne.
“Won’t you sit down?” he asked.
She seated herself somewhat tentatively in the straight-backed chair across from his desk, rather than in the comfortable overstuffed leather chair usually selected by clients.
Mason regarded her thoughtfully. “How old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty two.”
“You wanted to see me about your uncle?”
“Yes. Horace Shelby.”
“How old is he?”
“Seventy five.”
“He’s your uncle?” Mason asked.
“Yes,” she said, noticing Mason’s uplifted eyebrows.
“I’m the daughter of Robert Shelby who was eighteen years younger than Horace.”
“Is your father living?” Mason asked.
“My father and mother were killed in an automobile accident when I was one year old. Uncle Horace sent for me and raised me.”
“He’s married?” Mason asked.
“No, he’s a widower, but he had a wonderful woman keeping house for him. She was like a mother to me.”
“Is she still with him?”
“She died two years ago... Please, Mr. Mason, I feel that after you read that letter, you’ll see the urgency of all this.”
Mason unfolded the letter addressed to Daphne Shelby care of the steamship at Honolulu and marked Urgent.
The letter was in pen and ink and in the cramped, wavering handwriting of a person whose reflexes are somewhat impaired by age.
The letter began,
Daphne dear,
Don’t come home until you have done what I am asking. Don’t let anyone know you have heard from me. I won’t be able to meet the boat. Take a cab and go as fast as possible to the office of Perry Mason, the attorney. Get Perry Mason to go to the bank with you cash the enclosed check and have Perry Mason take charge of the money for you so that it can’t possibly be found by anyone.
After you have done this, come home and try to keep your temper. Be prepared for a shock.
Tell Perry Mason to prepare a will leaving everything to you. I want a short will and I want it prepared just as fast as he can do it. Have Mr. Mason come to the house when the will is ready for my signature. Tell him to have the necessary witnesses with him. At the very first opportunity he’s to hand me the will. I’ll sign it and give it back to him to keep. No one except Mason and the witnesses must know he has a will ready for my signature, or that it has been executed. The greatest secrecy is necessary.
Please remember, Daphne, that no matter what happens I love you very much indeed.
Mason read the letter, frowning thoughtfully. “Sounds like an emergency. Do you have any idea what it is?”
“The letter is all I know. It was sent to Honolulu. I had been in Hong Kong for a three month vacation. They thought I needed a rest.”
“Who is the ‘they’?” Mason asked.
“The brother, Borden, and his friend.”
“Borden Shelby?” Mason asked.
“No, his name is Finchley. He’s a half brother. He and his wife came to visit Uncle Horace. He brought his friend, Ralph Exeter, and since Aunt Elinor was there it was suggested—”
“Aunt Elinor?” Mason asked.
“That’s Borden’s wife. She said she’d take charge of things. They agreed that I was rundown and needed a good long rest that I was to go on a ocean voyage and forget about everyone except myself.”
“And you’ve been away several weeks?”
“Nearly three months.”
Mason extended his hand casually. “There was a check in the letter?” he asked.
She passed over a slip of paper. “Here it is,” she said.
Mason looked at the check, suddenly straightened in the chair, frowned, looked at the check again and said, “This check is for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars!”
“I know,” she said. “I couldn’t understand it at all.”
Mason pursed his lips. “Quite evidently there’s something bothering your uncle.” The lawyer looked at his watch. “All right,” he said, “let’s go to the bank and cash this check. Are you known there?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve always done my uncle’s banking business.”
“And he has a balance sufficient to honor this check in his commercial checking account?”
“That’s right. There was around a hundred and forty five thousand dollars in it when I left. I keep his books and make out his checks, you know.”
“But he signs them?” Mason asked.
“Oh, yes.”
Mason gave Della Street a troubled glance. “That ten thirty appointment,” he said, “explain that I’ve been unavoidably detained for just a few minutes... Now, what do you want done with this money. Daphne, you can’t go around carrying a sum like that.”
“No, no, the letter says you are to take charge of it and fix it in such a way that I can have it but nobody can find it.”
Mason frowned. “I don’t think I care to undertake something of that sort, but I can certainly arrange to keep the money for you until we can find out what this is all about.
“You have some cash with you?” he asked as they started for the door.
“Actually I don’t. Uncle Horace saw that I had traveler’s checks when I started on the trip. But everything was a lot more expensive than we had expected. I cashed my last traveler’s check in Honolulu. I had just enough money for taxi fare here. I’ll have to take taxi fare home out of the money we get on this check.
“You see,” she added apologetically, “I hadn’t expected anything like this, and the cost of the taxi here was a lot more than— Well, I’m broke.”
“I see,” Mason said. And then as they started down the corridor to the elevator added, “Your Uncle Horace is wealthy?”
“Quite wealthy,” she said. “That is, I consider him so. He has some real estate holdings and stocks and bonds, and he keeps a large amount of liquid cash.”
“I can see that he does,” Mason said. “Why?”
“He likes to have cash on hand that he can use whenever he wants to for quick investments without bothering to sell stocks or bonds.”
They went down in the elevator, walked two blocks to the bank, and Mason said to Daphne, “You know one of these gentlemen at the teller’s window?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “I know several of them. There’s Mr. Jones over there. There’s a short line in front of his window.”
She took her place in the line. Mason stood beside her.