He opened his pocketknife, cut the string, undid the wrappings, and said, “Well, well, well! We seem to have an English grammar, a dictionary, a couple of books on a shorthand system, some diaries, and a photograph album.”
“Five dollars!” Della Street said.
“Well, let’s look at the photograph album,” Mason said. “Oh-oh, here’s a pin-up picture that’s worth five bucks of anyone’s money.”
She came to look over his shoulder.
“If that’s a bathing suit,” she said, “I...”
“Apparently,” Mason said, “the suit consists of three squares of cloth skillfully knotted about the curves of a very nice figure — I wonder if that is Helen.”
“She wasn’t concealing much from the public,” Della Street said.
“You can’t tell whether it was the public or just some girl friend manipulating a camera and they did it for a stunt. — Oh, here’s a whole mess of monkey pictures.”
“Now I get it,” Della Street said. “Remember, Addicks was her boss. He has a collection of monkeys and apes. He’s doing some psychological experiments.”
Mason nodded and continued to go through the photograph album. He said, “Some pretty good pictures here. Whoever did the photography knew what he was about. They’re sharp as a tack.”
“What are they?” Della Street asked, opening the four volumes of diary.
“Mostly bathing and yachting pictures,” Mason said. “Helen seems to have taken quite a few pictures of monkeys and apes.”
“How do you tell the difference between a monkey and an ape?” Della asked.
“One’s bigger than the other, I guess,” Mason said. “How should I know? Anyway, you can get a good education going through these photographs.”
Della Street said, “Listen to this in the diary, Chief.”
Mason said, “Go ahead, I’m listening,” but he turned the photograph album to the light so that he could study another pin-up picture of Helen Cadmus in a pose guaranteed to attract masculine attention.
Della Street jerked the book of photographs from his hand and said, “You can look at that later. Listen to this.”
She read from the diary:
...don’t know whether I can stand this much longer. Poor Pete seems to realize that something is being done to him and he keeps clinging to me for protection. I don’t mind about the others so much, but I do worry about Pete. If they start trying to break down Pete’s mind and undermine his nervous system, I’m going to do something about it. That’s definite. I’ve been saving up a little money and I am going to try and buy Pete if Mr. Addicks will sell him. I know that he won’t sell him if he has any idea I’m trying to spare Pete from what the others have gone through. I don’t know whether the S.P.C.A. will do anything about this or not, but if I can’t buy Pete I’m certainly going to do something about it.
“Well,” Mason said, “that was evidently quite a household. I wonder what’s going on out there now.”
“Let’s find out,” Della Street said.
Mason frowned thoughtfully. “When you come right down to it,” he said, “no one knows whether that girl committed suicide or not. As I remember it, her body was never found. She was out on the yacht and they were in a storm somewhere off Catalina Island. Addicks gave her some dictation, which she promised to have typed and on his desk by eight o’clock the next morning. The storm kept getting worse and Addicks thought she might have been indisposed. He went to her stateroom to see if she was all right, and found that the bed hadn’t been slept in. So they searched the yacht and she was missing. The assumption was that she’d either been swept overboard by a wave or had committed suicide.
“Addicks put the hush-hush on the case. They called it suicide.”
The phone rang.
Della Street picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” then, “Just a minute, Gertie. I’ll talk with them.”
Once more she said, “Hello. This is Della Street, Mr. Mason’s confidential secretary. Can you tell me just what it is you want?... Who?... Oh, I see...”
She listened for nearly a minute, then said, “Just a minute. I’ll try to get in touch with Mr. Mason. He’s in an important conference at the moment, but if you’ll hang on I’ll try and get through to him.”
“What is it?” Mason asked.
Della Street cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “The Inquirer,” she said. “They want to send a photographer and a reporter up and get some human interest pictures.”
“About what?”
“About you buying the Cadmus diaries. It seems that the public administrator, or someone, tipped off one of the courthouse reporters and they think they have an exclusive on it. They want to run it as a human interest story.”
“Tell them to come on up,” Mason said. “Sure, I’ll pose for them. That’ll give you a chance to explain it to the income tax people, Della. You can tell them that it was five dollars invested in publicity.”
She said, “They seem to think that you may have bought the diaries for a purpose. There’s something about a lawsuit by a Mrs. Kempton against Addicks. Do you know anything about it?”
“Never heard of it,” Mason said, “but don’t let them know that. Be mysterious and enigmatic. That will heighten public interest and give them a good story.”
Della Street said into the telephone, “Mr. Mason is in conference at the moment and then has another appointment, but he can give you a few minutes in exactly thirty-five minutes if you can arrange to be here then.”
She hung up the telephone. “I was hoping you’d get some of this mail out of the way this morning.”
Mason grinned. “Who knows? We might at that. Have Jackson go up to the courthouse, Della, look through the file of actions and find out what the devil the case of Kempton versus Addicks is all about. He can telephone in a report. After all, I don’t want to lead with my chin in this interview, but I’d like the newspaper boys to have a good story. They’re entitled to it, and one never knows when he may need a friendly newspaper contact.”
Della nodded, walked over to the statue of Blackstone and said, “Good morning, Mr. Blackstone. If you don’t mind, I’ll take off the hat which you’re wearing at such a rakish angle. We’re expecting newspaper photographers and we want the office to look dignified.”
Chapter number 2
On Tuesday morning Mason unlocked the door of his private office, took off his hat and held it poised for a moment as he stared speculatively at the bust of Blackstone.
“Have you seen the newspapers?” Della Street asked.
“Just took a look at the headlines. Why?” Mason slowly lowered the hand holding his hat.
“You should see your photographs in the picture section of the Inquirer; and you should see the three dollar bill who’s sitting in the office, looking at his watch every fifteen seconds, waiting for you to come in so he can talk to you about the ‘package in the Helen Cadmus estate.’ ”
“So?” Mason asked, crossing over to the coat closet, and making a more conventional disposal of his hat. “What about the three dollar bill?”
Della Street said, “I mean he’s as phony as a three dollar bill.”
“In what way?”
“His name is Nathan Fallon. He is, and I quote, ‘associated’ with Mr. Benjamin Addicks, and he claims to be a distant relative of Helen Cadmus. He was deeply shocked that her memoirs had been sold at auction. He is unctuous, mealymouthed, refined, smirking, and he’s not accustomed to that sort of an act. He’s more accustomed to sticking out his chin at somebody and saying, ‘All right, do this or else.’ ”
“Well, well, well,” Mason said. “And Jackson’s report on the case of Kempton versus Addicks?”