“Why did you advertise in that magazine?”
“I wanted a man of a certain type.”
“Why?”
“Rose Keeling is romantic. She falls fast and hard. I wanted a man I could control, one of the type I could know all about — who wouldn’t double-cross me. I wanted to have him get friendly with Rose, but report to me.”
“Did you think you could pick up a man who would be so fascinating to Miss Keeling that she’d confide in him and tell him that...”
“I feel certain I can. I know her pretty well. I know just the type she falls for. She’ll be suspicious of anyone who has a city background. But a tall man with a country background, a man who is shy but has plenty of latent oomph can knock her for a loop. I’d make the build-up myself, of course. I’d see that he met her under just the right circumstances.”
“You are personally friendly?”
“Oh, yes. She’s friendly enough, all right, but she’s got her hand out. She’s been hinting lately that Mother told her that after the estate had been distributed she could count on something in the nature of a reward.”
“Do you think your mother told her that?”
“I know she didn’t,” Marilyn Marlow flamed. “Mother was a square-shooter and a hard worker. All she called these other two nurses in for was to act as witnesses. She could have picked out any one of a half-dozen nurses on the floor. That attitude of Rose Keeling’s makes it look as though there was something crooked about the whole business. And there wasn’t. It was all square shooting.”
“How do you know?”
“I... well, I just know!”
“It’s necessary to have proof.”
“But we’ve had the proof. Rose Keeling went on the stand and swore to exactly what happened.”
“And now she wants to change her testimony?”
“She would if she thought she could get away with it and get some money out of it. I understand she’s being asked to say she had stepped out of the room just before the will was signed.”
“But after she returned, Endicott acknowledged to her that he had signed the will?”
Marilyn Marlow said impatiently, “You’re a lawyer. Do I have to draw a diagram for you? She’d change her testimony just enough to make the will invalid. That’s what she’d be paid for. Naturally the Endicotts wouldn’t pay her a cent unless the will was knocked out.”
“And do you think the Endicotts would suborn perjury?”
Marilyn Marlow hesitated a minute and then said, “The Endicotts feel that my mother was an adventuress who took advantage of their brother. They’d do almost anything to upset that will because they think it would only be justice, after all, to have the will knocked out.”
Mason said, “Suppose you tell me a little more about what you have in mind, Miss Marlow, what you are trying to do, why you put this ad in that magazine.”
“All right, I’ll tell you. I’ll put my cards on the table. I knew that Rose Keeling had her hand out. For a while I thought that I might offer her something, but then I realized that I’d simply be bidding against the Endicotts, and there are two witnesses to that will. If I started paying one, I’d have to pay the other. I need two witnesses to make it stand up. The Endicotts only need one to tear it down. And I was opposed to doing anything crooked like that. I knew that Mother had been a square-shooter. She wouldn’t have paid anyone a nickel. I didn’t want to cheapen her memory.”
“Go ahead.”
“So I tried to get close to Rose Keeling. I thought perhaps she’d confide in me and tell me exactly what the score was; that the Endicotts had offered her money. She was too smart for that. She intimated and that’s all.”
“So you wanted to get hold of a man?”
“That’s right. I wanted a man of a certain type. Rose Keeling is very peculiar. She’s suspicious of every woman friend she ever had. But when she falls for a man, she falls hard and tells him everything.
“I knew exactly the type of man she would fall for. I happen to know she’s going through a period of heart-break right now, and she’d be a pushover for the right man. But, of course, I had to be certain of my man first. I wanted to get one who would fall for me, but who would make a play for Rose Keeling and get her to confide in him as a service to me. I couldn’t afford to get one who would perhaps fall for Rose Keeling and tune me out. Before I introduced him to Rose, I had to make him... well, make him fall for me. See?”
Mason nodded.
She said, “In order to do that, I wanted a man of just a certain type. I didn’t want one who knew too much. I didn’t want one who thought he was too smart. I wanted one who would be honest. I wanted a man who really had something to him. And, of course, I had to work pretty fast. I had to know a good deal about this man — how far he’d go and — well, a lot about him.”
Mason encouraged her to go on, with another sympathetic nod of his head.
She said, “I put that ad in the magazine. I said right out in it that I was an heiress... I knew that that would help me get replies. I knew that anyone who said he wasn’t interested in my money, after reading that ad, would be a hypocrite and a liar. I wanted a man who was frank — and truthful.”
“You’ve had lots of replies?”
“Hundreds of them. I’ve been meeting men every night for the last week. The one I met last night was the one I wanted, and then he turned out to be a detective!”
“How did you know he was a detective?”
“The publisher of the magazine rang me up and told me about it. He said he was sorry that the ad had attracted the attention of undesirable parties, but that he felt it was his duty as publisher of the magazine to warn me that such was the case.”
“How did he know where you were, your name and address?”
“I don’t know. He said the magazine had a way of finding out those things. I don’t understand that, because the woman I had calling for replies at the magazine office was plenty smart. She carried the replies around with her for a spell and then dropped them in a branch post office, addressed to me, wrapping the whole day’s mail in a package that was sent to me first-class mail, special delivery. I’d get it in about two hours from the time she deposited it in the post office. In that way, it was impossible for anyone to follow her or to locate me through her.”
Mason nodded.
“However,” she said, “this publisher did ring me up and warn me about this man. I liked him. He’d signed the letter ‘Irvin B. Green,’ but the publisher said he was a detective and that you had employed him.”
Mason glanced significantly at Della Street. “And then what did the publisher do?”
“He offered to do anything he could to help me. He wanted me to confide in him. I wasn’t ready to do that quite yet. I wanted to see something of him first. He offered to put his car at my disposal, in case I didn’t want to use my car, because of having the license number traced. He said he would drive his car as a chauffeur, and actually rented himself a chauffeur’s livery so he could make it convincing.”
“Then how about the boy you met tonight?” Mason asked.
She made a little grimace of disgust and said, “He was terrible! I didn’t like him in the first place. He wrote a nice letter, but when I sized him up he didn’t look like the sort I wanted. I almost didn’t speak to him, but finally I went up to him and we went out to dinner. I gave him the gate almost immediately. He was two-faced. He would have sold me out to Rose Keeling and — well, there was something repulsive about him. He was just promoting whatever he could get for himself.”