The Case of the Blonde Bonanza (8 page)

"I happen to know-and never mind how I happen to know it-that you left word for Harrison Boring to get in touch with you. I happen to know that Mr. Boring picked up that message and in place of calling you on the telephone as apparently you wished him to do, came here in person. I happen to know that he left here only a short time ago. And, if you'll forgive me, that was the reason I was so persistently trying to attract attention by knocking at the door of your reception room. I felt certain you were still here."

"I see," Mason said.

"Now then," Foster went on, "if you'll let me have the name of your client, Mr. Mason, I think I can perhaps be of help to you."

"And why do you wish the name of my client?"

"I'm simply checking, Mr. Mason, to make certain that I'm on the right track."

Mason's eyes narrowed slightly. "I fail to see what good it would do to divulge the name of my client. If, of course, you wish to tell me anything about Boring, I'm ready to listen."

"Boring," Foster said, "is an opportunist, a very shrewd character, very shrewd."

"Unscrupulous?" Mason asked.

"I didn't say that," Foster said.

"May I ask how you know so much about him?"

"The man worked for me for a period of two years."

"In what capacity?" Mason asked.

"He was a-well, you might say an investigator."

"And what is your line of work?" Mason asked.

Foster became elaborately casual. "I have several activities, Mr. Mason. I am a man of somewhat diverse interests."

"The principal one of which," Mason said, making a shot in the dark, "is locating missing heirs. Is that right?"

Foster was visibly shaken. "Oh," he said, somewhat crestfallen, "you know about that, do you?"

"Let's put it this way, I surmised it."

"And why did you surmise that, may I ask?"

"The fact that you were so interested in the name of my client, Mr. Foster."

Foster said somewhat sheepishly, "I may have been a little abrupt but, after all, I was trying to help you, Mr. Mason. That was what I primarily had in mind."

"And at the same time, helping yourself to a piece of cake," Mason said. "Let's see if I can reconstruct the situation. You're running an agency for the location of lost heirs. Boring was working for you. All of a sudden he resigned his position and started quietly investigating something on his own.

"You felt certain that this was some information he had uncovered in the course of his employment and something on which he was going to capitalize to his own advantage. You have been making every effort to find out what the estate is, and who the missing heir is, and hope you can get the information before Boring signs anyone up on a contract."

Montrose Foster seemed to grow smaller by the second as Mason was talking.

"Well," he said at length, "I guess you've either found out all there is to know or else you got Boring in such a position you were able to turn him inside out."

"What was the matter on which Boring was working when he quit you?" Mason said. "Perhaps that would be a clue."

"That's a clue and a very nice one," Foster said, "and it's a very nice question, Mr. Mason, but I'm afraid we've reached a point where we're going to have to trade. You give me the name of the client and I'll give you the name of the estate on which Boring was working.

Mason thought things over for a moment, then slowly shook his head.

"It might save you a lot of time," Foster said pleadingly.

"That's all right," Mason told him. "I'll spend the time."

"It will cost a lot of money."

"I have the money."

"You give me the name of your client," Foster said, "and if that client hasn't already signed up with Boring, I'll run down the matter for twenty-five per cent. Surely, Mr. Mason, you can't expect anything better than that. Our usual fee is fifty per cent and that's in cases which don't involve a great deal of work."

"Well," Mason said, "I'll take your offer under advisement."

"There isn't time, Mr. Mason. This is a matter of considerable urgency."

Mason said, "I don't do any horse-trading until I've seen the horse I'm trading for."

"I've put my cards on the table."

"No, you haven't. You haven't told me anything about yourself except to confess that the information you've been able to uncover has not been anything on which you could capitalize."

"All right, all right," Foster said. "You're too smart for me, Mr. Mason. You keep reading my mind, so to speak. I will put the cards on the table. If I could find the name of the heir, I'd start running it down from the other end and then I'd find it. As it is, you're quite correct in assuming that I haven't been able to get any satisfaction from checking over the estates which Boring was investigating."

"And you've talked with Boring?" Mason asked. "Offered to pool your information? Offered him a larger commission than you customarily granted?"

"Yes. He laughed at me."

"And then what happened?"

"Then I'm afraid I lost my temper. I told him what I thought of him in no uncertain terms."

"And what were the no uncertain terms?"

"The man is a liar, a cheat, a sneak, a double-crosser, a back-stabber and entirely unscrupulous. He puts up a good front but he's nothing more than a con man. He worked for me, let me carry him during all the lean times, then just as soon as he stumbled onto something juicy he manipulated things so he could put the whole deal in his pocket and walk off with it."

Mason flashed Della Street a quick glance. "I take it you didn't have him tied up under contract. Therefore, there wasn't any reason why he couldn't quit his employment and go to work on his own, so I can't see why you're so bitter."

"This wasn't something he did on his own, Mason. Don't you understand? This was something he uncovered while he was working for me. I was paying him a salary and a commission and he stumbled onto this thing and then, instead of being loyal to his employer and his employment, he sent me a letter of resignation and started developing it himself."

"If you don't know what it was," Mason asked, "how do you know it was something he uncovered as a part of his employment?"

"Now look," Foster said, "you're pumping me for a lot of information. I know what you're doing, but I have no choice except to ride along in the hope that you will see the advantages of co-operating with me."

"I'm afraid," Mason said, "I don't see those advantages clearly, at least at the present."

"Well, think them over," Foster said. "You let me know the name of your client and I'll start chasing down the thing from that angle. I have facilities for that sort of investigative work. That's my specialty."

"And then you'll want half of what my client gets?" Mason asked.

"I told you i'll make a deal with you, Mason. I'll take twenty-five per cent and I'll do all the work. You can take twenty-five per cent as your fee and then your client will get the other half. Is that fair?"

"No."

"What's unfair about it?"

"If I don't do any of the work," Mason said, "I shouldn't charge my client twenty-five per cent of the inheritance."

"Well, you've got to live," Foster said.

"With myself," Mason pointed out, smiling.

"Oh, all right, all right. Think it over," Foster said. "You're going to be doing business with me sooner or later anyway."

"How so?"

"Because I'm going to find out what Boring is working on if it takes my last cent. I'm going to see to it that he doesn't profit by his double-crossing."

"That's a very natural attitude for you to take," Mason said, "if you want to spend the effort and money."

"I've got the time, I've got the money, I'll make the effort," Foster said. "Think my proposition over, Mr. Mason. Here's one of my cards. I'm located in Riverside. You can reach me on the phone at any time, day or night. Call the office during the daytime, and the night number is my residence."

"Thanks a lot," Mason said. "I'll think it over."

As Della Street held the corridor door open for Montrose Foster, he twisted his head with a quick, terrierlike motion, wreathed his face into a smile and hurried out into the corridor.

The door slowly closed behind him and Della Street turned to Mason.

"The plot thickens," she said.

"The plot," Mason said, frowning thoughtfully, "develops lumps similar to what my friend, on a camping trip, called Thousand Island gravy."

"Well?" she asked.

"Let's start taking stock of the situation," he said. "Foster was the brains behind a lost heirs organization. He dug out the cases and carried the financial burden. Boring, with his impressive manner and his dignified approach, was the contact man.

"Now then, if any unusual case had been uncovered, if any information had been turned up, one would think Foster would have been the man to do it, not Boring."

"I see your point," Della Street said.

"Yet Boring is the one who turns up the case and despite the fact that Foster had been directing his activities, Foster doesn't have a single lead as to what the case is. So now Foster is desperately trying to find out who the heir is and start backtracking from that angle."

"Well," Della Street said, "it's a tribute to your thinking that you figured it out this far, largely from studying the contract."

"I'm not handing myself any bouquets," Mason said. "I should have figured it out sooner… Now then, Foster is evidently having Boring shadowed."

"Otherwise he wouldn't have known he came here?"

Mason nodded.

"And we're having Boring shadowed," Della Street said.

"Shadows on shadows," Mason told her. "Come on, Della, we're going to have dinner on the office expense account and think things over. Then I'll drive you home."

"Cocktails?" Della Street asked, with a smile.

"The works," Mason said. "Somehow I feel like celebrating. I love to get into a situation where everyone is trying to double-cross everyone else."

"What about Dianne? Do we talk with her and tell her what we have discovered?"

"Not yet," Mason said. "We do a little thinking first; in tact, we do a lot of thinking."

CHAPTER SIX

A routine court hearing on Tuesday morning developed into a legal battle which ran over into the afternoon and it was three-thirty that afternoon before Mason checked in at his office.

"Hello, Della," the lawyer said. "What's new?"

"Mostly routine," she said. "How did the court hearing go?"

Mason grinned. "Things were looking pretty black and then the attorney on the other side started arguing with the judge over a minor point and the argument progressed to a point where there was considerable heat on both sides. By the time the hearing was finished the judge decided it our way."

"And what did you do?" she asked, with exaggerated innocence. "I suppose you just stood there with your hands in your pockets while the attorney and the judge were arguing."

"I tried to act the part of a peacemaker," Mason said. "I poured oil on the troubled flames."

Della Street laughed. "I'll bet you did just that."

"What's new with our case involving the curvaceous blonde, Della?"

"There seems to be a lot of activity centering in Riverside," she said. "Paul Drake reports that Harrison Boring has gone to Riverside. He is now registered in the Restawhile Motel and is in Unit 10.

"Drake's man also reports that Boring is being shadowed by another agency."

"You mean he's wearing two tails and doesn't know about either one?" Mason asked.

"Apparently not," Della Street said. "Of course, under the circumstances Drake's man is being most discreet and is relying as much as possible on electronic shadowing devices which send out audible signals to the car following. He thinks the other agency is using contact observation with no electronic shadowing. So far, Boring apparently isn't suspicious. Paul says the man is hurrying around, covering a lot of territory."