The Case of the Daring Divorcee (28 page)
"Yes, I can understand that if they hadn't been, if he had been a conspirator, Elvina could have taken the afternoon off to fly to Las Vegas and wouldn't have had to cut things so fine. As it was, she didn't want her employer to know anything about her activities, so she had to carry out her plot during the periods of freedom-the lunch hour and after the office closed."
"It seems," Lt. Tragg said, "that Hastings did execute a will in Adelle's favor after his marriage. He came to the office when Banner was out, told Elvina Mitchell what he wanted.
"Elvina told him that he could make a holographic will entirely in his own handwriting, date it and sign it, and it would be valid. Hastings did so and left the will with her.
"However, Banner is vulnerable to this extent. He knew, or had reason to believe, that such a will had been made. He thought that it had been lost from his files and apparently decided that he would say nothing about it. He didn't know that Elvina had deliberately destroyed that will.
"Now, as I understand it, once you prove the execution of the will, the fact that it was destroyed by third persons doesn't affect the validity of the will if you can prove it was once in existence."
Judge Fallon said, "That's right.
"Now then, I am going to go into court and call the case of the People of the State of California versus Adelle Hastings, and I take it you, Mr. Burger, will move to dismiss the case on the ground that the real culprit has been apprehended and has confessed."
Burger took a deep breath. "That is right," he said.
Adelle Hastings impulsively threw her arms around Mason's neck and kissed him.
Judge Fallon smiled. "I take it, then, we're ready to proceed as soon as Mr. Mason has removed the lipstick from his cheek."
This file was created with BookDesigner program
22/08/2007
LRS to LRF parser v.0.9; Mikhail Sharonov, 2006; msh-tools.com/ebook/
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