The Case of the Daring Divorcee (19 page)

"I don't think he did," Banner said. "If he did, I think I'd have known of it. I know what he was intending to do. I'll be fair with you on that.

"Actually he had given me the data and told me to draw up a will and revoke all prior wills. Then this separation with Adelle developed and he told me to hold up drawing that last will until we could negotiate a property settlement. He told me that he would give her a sum of money payable in annual installments over a ten-year period and make provision for her in a lump sum in his will. That was all to be part of the property settlement. For that reason he instructed me to hold off drawing the will."

Mason said, "So it is your contention that the will leaving everything to your client is the only valid outstanding will?"

"I feel certain that was his last will. Now, I want to be fair with you, Mason. I have a machine in my office which makes photographic copies of documents and I'm going to make a copy of that will, signatures and all, and have my secretary take it to your office. You read it, look at the date, the signatures of the witnesses, and then call me."

"Who executed as witnesses?" Mason asked.

"My secretary, Elvina Mitchell, and I signed as witnesses."

"The will was signed in your presence?"

"Not only signed in our presence but Mr. Hastings declared that the document was his last will and testament and asked us to execute the document as witnesses… I'm going to let you question my secretary. She'll tell you the circumstances under which the will was executed.

"After you've familiarized yourself with the circumstances, we can talk. And remember this: A murderer cannot inherit from the victim."

"Adelle is not affected in any way by that provision of law," Mason said.

"You claim she isn't."

"On the other hand," Mason went on, "how about your client? How do you know Minerva didn't kill him? In which event, regardless of her deception, regardless of her status as the surviving widow, regardless of the will, she can't inherit."

"But that's absurd," Banner said. "Minerva can't be dragged into this thing in that manner."

"You think she can't," Mason said. "For your information, there's some evidence pointing directly to her."

"What evidence?"

"I don't care to discuss it at this time."

"I'm sending Elvina-Miss Mitchell-down to your office with a photostatic copy of the will," Banner said.

"When will she be here?"

"Within the next fifteen minutes."

"All right, I'll see her. Now, she's one of the subscribing witnesses?"

"Yes."

"It's all right if I talk with her?"

"Of course it's all right. That's why I'm sending her over to talk with you. I'm putting my cards on the table, Mason."

"All right," Mason said, "I'll take a look at anything you want to show me. I'm not closing the door on a compromise, but I'm not going to be stampeded into waiving any of my client's rights."

"I don't want you to," Banner said. "I'm trying to be fair with you, Mason. I have the greatest respect for your ability and I don't want to lock horns with you."

"Then draw in your own horns," Mason said. "And if you want to show me a copy of that will, get your secretary started."

Mason hung up and turned to Della Street who had been monitoring the conversation.

"Give Elvina a good once-over when she comes in, Della. I'd like to have you size her up from a woman's standpoint."

"Think she's more than a secretary?" Della Street asked.

"That I wouldn't know but want to find out," Mason said, "but she's evidently a great little business getter. Apparently she's very friendly with Maynard and through that friendship she managed to ease Banner into the picture so that with Maynard's acquiescence, and probably little resistance from Hastings, Banner started moving in a little at a time. That probably explains a good deal of the way our client feels toward Banner, and it just may be that Banner has been representing Minerva all along."

"Well," Della Street said, "you don't need to tell me to size up Elvina. I'll certainly give her a double take."

Mason said, "Now this man, Banner, is pretty much of a schemer, himself. Notice the adroit way that he's feathered his nest. He uses his secretary to get the legal business of the Hastings Enterprises, then becomes Hastings' personal lawyer and now shows up representing Minerva."

Della Street said, "Listening to that phone conversation, it seemed to me that Banner was going out of his way to convince you that he has all the trump cards."

"He certainly is," Mason said, "and he's overdoing it so much that you feel he's vulnerable somewhere along the line and because he doesn't want me to discover just where he's vulnerable, he's trying to convince me that his position is impregnable."

"Can she get away with that, Chief?"

"With what?"

"Minerva. With pretending she had a divorce, taking Hastings' money, assuring him that she was using it to get a divorce, then sending him word that the divorce had been granted, getting a lump-sum settlement, sitting silently on the sidelines while he went through what apparently was a bigamous marriage, and now showing up to claim the estate."

Mason said, "There are some interesting legal questions, Della. She is not claiming the estate as the surviving widow alone. She's claiming it under the terms of a will which was never changed."

"Doesn't the law give any protection whatever to Adelle?"

"That," Mason said, "depends on a lot of factors; whether the marriage to Adelle was void from the beginning, or whether it is a ceremony that is effective until it is vacated by court decree. The law provides generally that if a person marries after making a will, any prior will is revoked as far as the surviving spouse is concerned. That rule of law is of course subject to certain exceptions but that's generally the rule."

Mason walked over to the shelf of reference books lining one side of his office, took down Volume 53, California Jurisprudence 2d, thumbed through the pages and said, "Here's a summary of the California law on it, Della. You might take this down:

To have the effect provided for in the statutory provisions, the testator's post-testamentary marriage must be valid. But since there is a presumption that a marriage properly performed is valid, the party claiming the post-testamentary marriage of the testator to have been invalid has the burden of proving this contention.

Of course there may have been some recent decisions on this point in the last two or three years since this particular volume was printed, and we'll have to do a little research work. But I think we can safely act on the assumption that this is the law."

The telephone rang, and Della, picking up the instrument, said, "Yes, Gertie."

Della listened for a moment, then said, "You mean his secretary is here… Wait just a minute, Gertie."

She turned to Mason and said, "Huntley Banner is here himself, not his secretary but the lawyer."

Mason replaced the law book on the shelf, said, "Tell him to come in, Della."

Della hurried to open the connecting door and Banner entered the office, his face smiling, his manner conciliatory.

"I'm certainly sorry about that scene down at the Hastings offices," he said. "My client has always hated Simley Beason and she blew her top. Naturally, as her attorney, I had to back her play. You'll understand that. Of course you have to make allowances for the fact that she's been under very great strain, but even so the matter could have been handled much more diplomatically."

"Sit down, Banner," Mason said. "I thought your secretary was coming over."

"I did too," Banner said. "I told her to come over here but she got stage fright. She was afraid you'd start crossexamining her about the execution of the will and all of that and she chickened out on me. So I told her I'd come myself.

"After all, it's only a hop, skip and a jump. Our offices are just a block and a half apart, and I wanted to show you the photostat of the will. I've already filed the original with a petition for probate."

Mason extended his hand for the papers which Banner held out.

"You'll notice," Banner said, "it's a very short will. He simply revokes all prior wills, states that he is of sound and disposing mind and memory, that he has no living relatives other than his wife, Minerva Shelton Hastings; that he therefore leaves all his property to her.

"Then we have a safety clause in it, for whatever it's worth, providing that if any person should appear and claim relationship of any sort to him, whether as descendant, common-law wife or otherwise, and establish such relationship, that person is left the sum of one hundred dollars.

"Now then, you'll notice the will is executed in the presence of witnesses and the witnesses are Elvina Mitchell and myself.

"If you'd like to ask any questions about that will, go right ahead."

"That will was executed at the date appearing in the will?"

"That's right. It was executed in my office. Garvin Hastings signed it in my presence and in the presence of Elvina Mitchell, the other witness. He asked us to sign as witnesses and declared in our presence that this was his last will and testament. That will is absolutely ironclad."

"How soon after his marriage to Minerva was the will made?" Mason asked.

"I think within forty-eight hours. As I remember it, he rang me up and told me that he was getting married, that he wanted his wife to have protection."

"What about his estate prior to that time?" Mason asked. "He must have had a will."

"I don't know about the terms of that will," Banner said. "I wasn't his attorney at that time."

"Then you started doing his legal work at about the date he married Minerva?" Mason asked.

"I didn't say that," Banner said. "Now, don't put words in my mouth, Mason. Actually I had been doing some legal work for him for a period of several months prior to the execution of this will, but shortly after this will was executed I began doing more and more of his work and he began to rely on me more and more. I think I was doing his legal work exclusively at the time this will was executed."

"Then his marriage with Minerva went on the rocks?" Mason asked.

"Well, it depends on what you mean by that. Actually his marriage started breaking up about… oh, I'd say about the time Adelle Sterling was employed as secretary.

"Now, I'm not saying anything against your client, Mason, but I will say that it was the contention of Minerva that the marriage would have continued if it hadn't been for Adelie. She claims that Adelle insinuated herself into Hastings' confidence and alienated his affections."

"So then Minerva went to Nevada to establish a residence and get a divorce?" Mason asked.

"That's right. There's no secret about that. Hastings told her that he thought the marriage was a failure and that he thought they should dissolve it. I believe it was at that time he told her that he had fallen in love with his secretary, that he wanted to be free to marry her, that he wanted Minerva to go to Nevada and get a divorce."

"And Minerva agreed?" Mason asked.

"No, she didn't," Banner said. "She filed suit for divorce right here. She named Adelle as corespondent. She asked for separate maintenance and a big chunk of alimony. She also asked that a receiver be appointed to take charge of the property. She demanded attorney's fees and all the rest of it."

"What happened to that suit?" Mason asked.

"There's no question about that suit," Banner said. "That suit was dismissed. I checked on that personally."

"What caused her to dismiss it?"

"Hastings went to her and persuaded her that it would be better for her to dismiss the suit and give him his freedom."

"What did he use as a persuader?" Mason asked.

"It's anybody's guess," Banner said. "Hastings didn't tell me the amount. It was a personal conversation between Hastings and Minerva and I didn't want to have anything to do with it because actually Minerva had an attorney of record."

"What happened to him?"

"I suppose Minerva compensated him in some way-that is, Hastings did. Anyway, it was all taken care of very hush-hush and Minerva got a check for, I believe, some two hundred or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and went to Nevada, established a residence, and agreed to get a divorce.