“You saw it.”
“I want to see what’s inside of it.”
She said, “Now, look, you’ve been a good scout, you were really a friend in need and I’m terribly grateful. Sometime tomorrow I’ll dress to the teeth, get in touch with you and tell you how grateful I really am. In the meantime…”
“In the meantime,” Mason said, “I’m an attorney. I have a position to uphold. So far as I’m concerned you’re a housebreaker. Unless you can satisfy me that you weren’t stealing I’m going to have to turn you over to the police.”
“The police!”
“That’s right.”
She hesitated a moment, then said, “And you’re an attorney?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps you can help… Listen!”
The speedboat came roaring close to the yacht. Waves rocked the light craft in a series of quick rolls.
An exasperated voice from the deck of one of the other yachts yelled, “Get that speedboat out of this yacht anchorage, you drunken fools.”
A voice from the speedboat shouted, “We re chasing a thief. Have you seen a boat with two people in it?”
“Haven’t seen a thing,” the voice on the yacht said wearily. “Why don’t you go home and go to bed?”
The speedboat swept around in another turn, then the motor slowed, apparently while the occupants held a conference. After a few moments the motor speeded up once more. The boat turned back and the sound of the motor diminished in the distance.
The girl sighed. “Thank heavens they’re going back.”
“Going back to notify the police,” Mason said.
“Well,” she announced hopefully, “while they’re doing that you could … We could get the canoe out and … “
“Yes,” Mason said dryly, “you could go on about your business. I’d be out in the bay paddling a canoe. Before I could get back to where I’m going I might be picked up and questioned—and just what would you suggest I tell them?”
She said, “This is purely a personal and a private matter.”
“And once the police enter into it, it becomes a purely impersonal and public matter. I have no desire to be charged as being an accessory after the fact.”
She said, “Let’s take blankets off the berths and put them up over the portholes so we can use a small flashlight. We’ll take a look at it together.”
“Fair enough,” Mason said. “Only our friends won’t be idle while we’re doing all that”
“No, I suppose not, but they haven’t any lead to this yacht.”
“Not so long as we’re aboard,” Mason explained patiently. “I’ve already pointed out that if I should be picked up before I reached shore, I’d have to explain where I’d been and what I’d been doing and …”
“Well,” she said in dismay, “you can’t stay here all night.”
She thought that over for a minute then, before Mason could say anything, added hastily, “Yes, you can too. YouH have to. It’s the only thing to do. We’re going to have to keep that darn canoe in the cabin so it will be out of sight, and then along in the morning well very casually start out on a fishing trip with you attired in sports clothes, sitting up in the trolling chair with a fishing rod and…”
“In the meantime,” Mason said, “let’s start putting blankets over the portholes, because I’m going to take a good look at that bottler—"
She hesitated, then said, “All right, it’s a deal.”
Mason had vague glimpses of her moving around in the cabin, heard the sound of heavy blankets being shaken. Then, on the port side, moonlight was suddenly blotted out. A few seconds later moonlight on the starboard side vanished into darkness.
“Now, then,” the girl said, and the beam of the flashlight penetrated the darkness.
Her voice was quivering with excitement. She said, “We can keep the light from the flashlight down close to the floor and it’ll be … Where’s that bottle?”
“In the canoe, I believe,” Mason said.
She cupped her hands over the lens of the flashlight, funneling the light through a small opening.
The light shining through her skin showed her fingers outlined in blood red, also showed well-browned legs through the opening in the skirt of the housecoat.
Then she said, “Here it is,” and leaning forward, removed one hand from the flashlight.
Mason’s hands closed about the bottle before the girl could reach it. ‘Til hold the bottle, you hold the flashlight”
“You’re so good to me,” she murmured sarcastically.
Mason inspected the bottle, said, “It’s going to take a pair of tweezers to get this paper out. It’s been rolled, thrust in the neck of the bottle, and then has expanded.”
“How about some long-nosed pliers?” she said. “I have those handy in a tool kit and … “
“Let’s try them. They should work.”
For a moment Mason was in darkness as the beam of the flashlight was turned toward the bow of the cabin. Then he heard a drawer open, heard the sound of metal against metal, and a moment later she was back with the flashlight and a pair of long-nosed pliers.
Mason inserted the long, slender jaws in the neck of the bottle, started twisting the paper around and around, and at the same time gently drawing it toward the narrow mouth of the bottle, until finally he had it twisted in a spiral so that he was able to work it out without tearing it.
It then became apparent that there were several sheets of paper, all bearing an identical embossed heading “ON BOARD YACHT THAYERBELLE. GEORGE S. ALDER, OWNER.”
Mason held the document pressed against his knee and the two of them read the firm, clear handwriting together
Somewhere off Catalina Island.
I, Minerva Danby, make this statement because if anything should happen to me I want justice done.
I am writing this on the yacht of George S. Alder, the Thayerbelle. Because I have information which will in all probability deprive George Alder of much of his fortune, he may do anything to seal my hps.
I’m afraid I have been careless, not to say stupid.
When George Alder’s father died, he left all the stock of the huge corporation known as Alder Associates, Inc. in a trust, one part to his stepdaughter, Corrine Lansing, one part to his son, George S. Alder. The survivor was to take all the stock. A brother of the father, Dorley H. Alder, was to have the voting power of one-third of the stock and a guaranteed income for life, but he was to have no interest in the trust unless both of the younger people died before he did. Dividends were to be paid on a basis of one-third to each. There were, however, ten shares of stock which were not in the trust, stock held by Carmen Monterrey. I set these things down in writing to show that I appreciate the danger I am in and the reason for it.
Corrine Lansing went to South America. She had been suffering from a nervous condition, which became steadily worse.
I met her on an airplane while I was flying over the Andes between Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires in the Argentine. She was terribly nervous and distraught and I tried to steady her down a bit. As a result she took a sudden liking to me and insisted that I should start traveling with her, sharing accommodations but entirely at her expense.
Because I was traveling on a very limited budget, and because I thought I could perhaps do her some good, and without knowing anything at all about her or her background, I accepted.
Corrine had her maid with her, Carmen Monterrey, who had been in the family for years and who, I gathered, had been a favorite of Conine’s stepfather.
Gradually I learned from her the family background, about her brother and the terms of her father’s will. Carmen Monterrey, of course, knew all about it also. She was treated as “one of the family” and Corrine Lansing never hesitated to discuss matters in her presence.