“No need to feel that way,” Mason said. “It was a clever legal trap.”
“Darn clever,” Banning Clarke said. “But I suppose if they ever get to checking up on the time element there was a period of five or ten minutes during which I actually was a director and therefore—”
Mason frowned, glanced warningly toward Nell Sims.
Banning Clarke laughed. “She’s all right. I would trust her and Dorina with my life.”
Mason said, “Well, just to make this thing legal and get me out of a mess in case there should be an investigation, take your pen and trace over the signature on this stock certificate. I want you to do it in the presence of witnesses. I’d particularly like to have Dorina Crofton here to see you do it because she was with me when—”
“I’m afraid she’s left,” Nell Sims interrupted. “That’s the way with youngsters these days — go streaking out just as soon as they get an opportunity. Time was, when I was a girl, that you wouldn’t think of going out without getting your parents’ permission.”
“She’s a mighty good girl,” Banning Clarke said with feeling.
“She’s all right, the way girls go nowadays,” Mrs. Sims announced; “but she’s too independent.”
“Not too independent,” Nell Sims sniffed. “Children overdo it. As the twig is bent, so the branch is broken.”
Banning Clarke grinned at Mason and took out his fountain pen, and Mason unfolded the stock certificate.
“When Moffgat comes back,” Mason said, “if it looks as though he has any papers to serve on you, I’ll cough twice. When I do, make some excuse to get out, and then keep under cover so he can’t serve you with a subpoena. I distrust that man and—”
The swinging door pushed open, Moffgat was talking almost as he entered the room. “Well, Mr. Mason, I am hoping our adverse interests as counsel won’t interfere with our friendly relations.” He was smiling affably now, and his manner had undergone a complete change, as though Jim Bradisson had given him definite instructions to try a new approach.
Mason whipped the stock certificate out from under Banning Clarke’s hand before the pen had a chance to touch the paper. Under cover of reaching across the table for the teapot, he folded the stock certificate and slipped it in the inside pocket of his coat.
Moffgat noticed the fountain pen in Banning Clarke’s hand, frowned with concentration, but said suavely enough, “I have here stipulation, Mr. Mason, for the taking of the deposition of Peter Sims, one of the defendants in that fraud case. I’d like to take the deposition tomorrow if that isn’t too short notice. I think it’s vitally important to have a clarification of the issues.” Moffgat pulled a cardboard filing jacket from his brief case, opened it, and handed Mason a blue-backed legal document.
Della Street, sitting at Mason’s side, glanced toward the filing jacket and nudged Mason’s elbow.
Mason coughed twice.
Banning Clarke pushed back his chair, said, “Excuse me. I will get a drink of water.”
He moved over toward the sink, glanced toward the table, saw that Mason was reading the stipulation with the greatest care, that Moffgat was watching him with slightly narrowed eyes.
Quietly, Banning Clarke slipped out through the back door.
Mason said, “If we are going to take the deposition of Pete Sims as one party to the controversy, I’d like to take the deposition of James Bradisson at the same time.”
“Why do you want his deposition?”
“He’s the president of the corporation, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And the one with whom Pete Sims had his dealings shortly prior to the execution of the contract which is now claimed to be fraudulent?”
“Yes.”
“I want his deposition,” Mason said. “If you’re going to take the deposition of one party, I want the deposition of the other.”
Moffgat yielded the point reluctantly. “Interline it in pen and ink,” he said. “And while you are doing it, put in the name Banning Clarke.”
“He’s not a party to the controversy. You have no right to take his deposition,” Mason said.
Moffgat’s smile was crafty. “He is in poor health. I have a right to take a deposition to perpetuate his testimony. He’s a material witness.”
“To what?”
“To something connected with this controversy.”
“What?”
“I’ll disclose that at the proper time.”
“Then I won’t include his name in the stipulation,” Mason said.
Moffgat said, “You don’t have to. I have anticipated your refusal and secured a court order and a subpoena. Under those circumstances, since it will save your client the annoyance and embarrassment of having the subpoena served on him, you’d better have his name included in the deposition.”
Mason merely inserted in pen and ink the words, “Also the deposition of James Bradisson, at the same time and place.”
Moffgat seemed definitely annoyed. “I warn you, Mr. Mason, that I shall serve that subpoena at the first available opportunity without regard for the convenience of Banning Clarke.”
“That,” Mason announced, slipping his fountain pen back into his pocket, “is your privilege.”
Moffgat blotted Mason’s signature, signed his own name, handed Mason a copy of the stipulation, returned the filing jacket to his brief case.
“And now,” he said, “if you’ll pardon me, I’ll join the Bradissons. I’ll see you tomorrow, Counselor.”
He had no sooner left the room than Mrs. Sims, walking over to the icebox, said, “I’ve got something in here to take the taste of that lawyer out of your mouth. I wasn’t going to bring it out while he was here because he’d be wanting a piece.”
She took out a lemon pie. The dark gold of the browned top was dotted with little amber-colored globules.
Mason glanced at Della Street, then smiled contentedly. “If I were a cat,” he said to Mrs. Sims, “I’d stretch out in front of the fireplace and start purring.”
Salty looked at his watch. “Gee, I’m sorry I walked into that trap, Mr. Mason.”
“You don’t need to be. It was cleverly baited. Look here, Salty — Moffgat is going to slip out there and try to serve that subpoena on Banning Clarke. Do you suppose Banning can keep out of his way?”
Salty chuckled. “Give him ten seconds’ head start out there in the dark and the Devil himself couldn’t find him!”
Chapter 7
When Mason and Della Street had finished their pie, Mason said, “Well, I guess we’d better go have a talk with Banning Clarke. Hope he didn’t get too excited.”
Salty Bowers fidgeted uneasily, suddenly blurted, “I wish you’d wait for just a minute.”
Mason elevated his eyebrows in a silent question.
“The woman I’m going to marry is coming in — Lucille Brunn. I told her to be here by eight-thirty, and she’ll be right on the dot. I — well, I’d like to have you meet her.”
Mrs. Sims, clearing off the table, said, “Trouble with Banning Clarke is he’s always been active and he can’t slow down. If he would just take life real easy for a while, he could get well but about the time he gets half cured, he goes and tears himself down again. Gets right back to where he started.”
“He’s coming along all right,” Salty said defensively.
“I ain’t so certain. He looked bad tonight. And if Miss Brunn is coming here, Salty Bowers, you get out of my kitchen so I can get my work done. It’s a wonder,” she went on, sputtering as she attacked the stacked dishes with swift competence, “that I get any work done at all, what with people using my kitchen for directors’ meetings and what not. Police find poison in the food and ask me how it got there. How should I know, with everyone traipsing around the kitchen? And that slick promoter — whisks my daughter right out of the kitchen and leaves her Ma with all the dishes. Now that boy friend she had who went in the Army, Jerry Coslet, wouldn’t ever do anything like that. Girls used to do the dishes before they’d go out, back when there was some consideration shown to parents...”