The Case of the Queenly Contestant

She tossed off the last of her cocktail. “That, Mr. Mason, is something that is none of your business. I have told you enough so you can understand my position, so you can realize that I want protection. I am in a position to pay your fee.

“All I can say is that those people must never, never, never find me.”

“You mean never, never, never find your son?”

“It’s the same thing.”

“The boy’s real father,” Mason said, “inherited a rather large company when his father died?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“And, by the same token, is now rather wealthy?”

“I suppose so.”

“He would be in a position to give your boy a first-class education?”

“He could probably be made to support him and educate him in accordance with his style of life, but my son is now nineteen years old and any advantage he could get would be far outweighed by corresponding disadvantages.”

“But,” Mason said, “suppose the boy’s father should die?”

“All right,” she said; “with that lawyer mind of yours you’ve probably put your finger on the sore spot.”

“Which is?” Mason asked.

“That the boy’s real father is now single and childless, that he has two half brothers who have no interest whatever in the manufacturing plant. If the man in question should die without a will, and without children, they would be in a position to inherit. If there was a child, even an illegitimate child, who could show up, the situation would be different. If the man in the case should leave a will stating that he has reason to believe that somewhere he has a son or a daughter, that the bulk of his property is to go to that son or daughter — well, the half brothers would be out of luck.”

“What kind of people are they?” Mason asked.

“Do you have to ask that question? Can’t you see what is happening?” She pushed aside her cocktail glass. “And that’s all the information you’re going to get, Mr. Mason. It is your job to build a fence around me, to keep me concealed. Get a substitute, do anything you have to. Let the boy’s father feel that his son is dead.”

Mason slowly shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Your boy has rights.”

“I’m his mother.”

“And the man in the case is his father,” Mason said.

“Unworthy to be his father.”

“Unworthy or not,” Mason said, “the father has rights. And the boy has rights too. Now I’ll go this far with you: I’ll try to keep them from finding you, at least for the moment. But I’m not going to do anything of which my conscience wouldn’t approve.”

“I don’t think I want you on that basis,” she said.

“You don’t have to have me,” Mason told her. “You have given me twenty dollars. That pays you up in full of account to date. If you want to get some other attorney, you are at liberty to do so.”

“But you’ve been to a lot of expense. You’ve hired detectives and...”

“That,” Mason said, “will be my contribution to the cause.”

She hesitated a moment, then suddenly pushed back her chair. “As an attorney, Mr. Mason, you have to respect my confidence. You can’t divulge any of the information I have given you. I don’t know how much money you have spent on detectives, but here are two one-hundred-dollar bills. You may consider that you have withdrawn from the case or that the case has been withdrawn from you. The more I see of you, the more I think you will be too damned conscientious, and there are factors involved which you know nothing about.

“I am no longer hungry. I’ll leave it to you to exercise the masculine prerogative of picking up the check.

“Good night.” Her chin held high, she swept out of the booth.

Mason looked at the two one-hundred-dollar bills she had left on the table, looked ruefully at Della Street. “Is there a cat in your apartment building?” he asked. “A cat or a dog?”

“The people next door have a cat.”

“When the waitress brings Ellen Adair’s steak,” Mason said, “we’ll ask her to bring a Bowser bag. You can tell the cat that it’s an ill wind that blows no one good.”

Chapter Four

Promptly at nine o’clock the next morning Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door of Mason’s private office.

Della Street let Drake in.

Paul Drake, tall, loose-jointed, casual in appearance, jackknifed himself into the client’s overstuffed chair, interlaced the fingers of his hands over his right knee, grinned at Mason, and said, “Up to your neck again?”

“Up to my neck,” Mason said.

“Hang it,” Drake said, “if someone came in and asked you to draw up a chattel mortgage, you’d manage to make a first-class mystery out of it somewhere along the line and probably have a murder case out of it before you got done.”

“What’s happening now?” Mason asked.

“Well, of course,” Drake said, “I don’t want to inquire into your business, and there are certain things which very definitely are none of my affair, but you certainly have stirred up a mess.”

“How come?”

“This decoy you hired yesterday — the tall girl.”

“What about her?”

“She certainly proved a beautiful red herring and sent the pack baying off on a false scent.”

“How big a pack?” Mason asked.