“Disappeared?” Mason asked, his voice showing his interest.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To have my baby,” she said.
There were several seconds of silence, then Mason said sympathetically, “Go on.”
“Now,” she said, “a paper in my hometown is publishing one of those features which the rural newspapers dig up from time to time: a column dealing with twenty-five years ago, twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, ten years ago.”
“I see,” Mason said noncommittally.
“Well, they want to publish a story about me winning the beauty prize twenty years ago, it was quite an honor for the town. I won the state beauty contest, and the hometown was proud of me.
“Then I went to Hollywood and had a screen test and nothing came of it. I was given an automobile, a motion-picture camera, a projector, a lot of beauty creams and toilet articles, an airplane trip to Las Vegas — all that type of thing which is showered on a girl who wins a contest and from which the manufacturers get enough publicity so it offsets the cost of the merchandise. It is, of course, all part of a commercialized advertising program, and I was too dumb to know it. I thought that I was getting all of those things because of my popularity and charm.”
“And then you disappeared?” Mason said.
“Abruptly,” she said. “I wrote friends that I had a flattering offer to go to Europe. Of course I didn’t go to Europe.”
“Quite obviously,” Mason said, “this is a painful interview for you. It is raking over the ashes of a dead past, but it is also apparent that you are faced with a very real emergency. Does the newspaper know where you are now?”
“It can find me.”
“How?”
“It’s rather a long story. I disappeared. I didn’t even let my family know where I was. Remember that this was twenty years ago. The whole mores of the people have changed materially in twenty years. An unmarried woman can have a baby now and get by with it if she’s clever and self-respecting. In those days it was a matter of deep shame — shame to the unwed mother, shame to the parents, shame to the community.
“The whole town where I lived was proud of me. That would have changed overnight. They would have crucified me on a cross of public scorn.”
“No need to explain all that,” Mason said. “As a lawyer I know the facts of life. But you disappeared. You didn’t let your folks know where you were?”
“No.”
“And what happened?”
“My father died. My mother married again. Then her second husband died, and a few months ago my mother died. She left an estate of some fifty thousand dollars and no heirs. She left a will stating that the money was all to go to me if I was still alive and if I could be found.”
“Your mother was still living in this little town,” Mason asked, “where she...?”
“No, she had moved to Indianapolis. I had several... well, I had kept myself advised of what she was doing and where she was living. I would send her Christmas cards and birthday cards with no signature on them, but I think she knew whom they were from all right.
“Anyhow, I employed an attorney in Indianapolis, went there, established my identity, and collected the money. No one connected me with the winner of the bathing-beauty contest twenty years ago.”
“And what makes you think you could be connected with the past now?” Mason asked.
She said, “In twenty years the little town where I lived has become a fairly big city. The evening paper. The Cloverville Gazette, is a bustling, enterprising, aggressive newspaper.
“It has been publishing a series of articles on what happened twenty-five years ago, twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, and it has asked its readers for suggestions, follow-ups on old news stories that they think would be of interest to the readers.
“A few days ago a reader sent in this letter,” she said. “It speaks for itself.”
She opened her purse and took out a newspaper clipping and handed it to the lawyer.
Mason read the clipping aloud:
“Twenty years ago this city was signally honored by having one of its residents chosen as the most beautiful young woman in the entire state.
“Ellen Calvert brought great honors to this city. Her dazzling beauty made an impression not only locally but in Hollywood. Then, at the height of her popularity, she went to Europe on what was supposed to be the start of a stage career.
“Nothing ever came of the stage career. It would be interesting to know where Ellen Calvert is today, what she is doing, how the world has been using her.
“Ellen Calvert’s father died. Her mother, Estelle, moved away, and rumor is that she remarried.
“What is the real story of Ellen Calvert? Is it the story of a beautiful woman whose beauty was such that she outgrew the small community in which she lived, outgrew her local friends, moved on into wider circles and achieved success? Or is it the story of a young woman who was dazzled by success, was led to believe the world was her oyster, and then was plunged into the depths of disappointment?
“Readers everywhere would be interested in getting the sequel to this interesting story of twenty years ago.”
Mason handed the newspaper clipping back to his client. “When,” he asked, “did you take the name of Ellen Adair?”
“When I disappeared.”
“Some of my questions,” Mason said, “have to be somewhat embarrassing. Was the father of your child named Adair?”
Her lips tightened. She shook her head. “There are certain things, Mr. Mason, we are not going into.”
“You feel that the newspaper can locate you?”
“Unfortunately, yes. If the newspaper starts digging, it will find that my mother married Henry Leland Berry, that after her death I showed up and identified myself as her daughter and claimed the money.
“You can imagine how I felt, Mr. Mason. I had been ashamed to keep in touch with my mother during the period when the knowledge of what had happened would have been a terrific blow to her and to the family pride.
“After her death it seemed selfish to appear and claim the money, but if I hadn’t it would have gone to the state because there were no other heirs.”
“And what you want is to kill this story. Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
Mason said, “If I appear in the matter, the newspaper will naturally suppose that you are located somewhere in this vicinity.”
“There are several million people located somewhere in this vicinity,” she said.
“You don’t think they can trace you?”
“There is only one way they can trace me,” she said, “and that is through the Indianapolis trail — and the newspaper simply has to be stopped before they start following that trail.”
Mason nodded to Della Street. “Get me the managing editor of The Cloverville Gazette on the line, Della.”
“Shall I tell them who’s, calling?” Della Street asked.
Mason nodded. “Better put the call through from the switchboard in the outer office, Della.”
Della Street nodded, went out to give the call to Gertie at the switchboard.
When she had gone, Mason said to his client, “You have reason to believe there is something more behind all this than just the desire on the part of some reader to dig into the past and find out what happened to you as a beauty-contest winner?”
She nodded.
“Care to tell me what it is?” Mason asked.
“I don’t think that is necessary,” she said. “Are you going to tell the editor of the paper that I am a client of yours?”
“Not in so many words,” Mason said.
Della Street returned to the office. “The call is going through,” she said.
“Della,” Mason said, “give Ellen Adair a dollar bill.”