The Case of the Mischievous Doll

“Well, naturally,” Minerva Minden said, “being in a cubicle behind a closed door I wasn’t entirely conversant with what had happened. However, when I went out and was immediately identified by bystanders as the woman who had caused the commotion, I did some mighty quick thinking and realized what must have happened.”

“And so?” Mason asked.

“So,” she said, “I took it in my stride. Instead of insisting that there was a mistake and getting the officers to have a policewoman search the rest room, and have Dorrie Ambler claim, when she was brought out, that I was the one who had fired shots, thus giving the newspapers a field day; and instead of giving Dorrie the chance to insist in public that our rather striking resemblance was due to common ancestors, I simply accepted the responsibility and permitted myself to be taken to the station. There I was booked on charges of disturbing the peace and discharging a firearm within the city limits and in a public place.”

“You’re lucky that’s all of the charges that were made against you,” Mason said.

“Yes,” she said. “Dorrie was considerate there. I misunderstood the witnesses for a moment, or rather I think they all misunderstood Dorrie. She evidently said ‘This is not a stick-up,’ but when the witnesses identified me, two of them said that I had brandished a gun and said ‘This is a stick-up’ and I didn’t deny it until afterwards, when I had my hearing in court this morning. By that time my attorney had unearthed witnesses who had heard what was said and remembered it accurately. I think that was one of the big facts in my favour.”

Mason said, “I’m going to put it right up to you fairly and frankly: Did you put an ad in the paper asking for a young woman who—”

“Oh, bosh and nonsense, Mr. Mason,” she said. “Don’t be a sap. Dorrie Ambler put that ad in the paper herself. Then she went out and got a detective agency to front in the case. She would give them instructions over the telephone at an unlisted number and had everything all managed so that quite naturally she would be the one who was selected for the job. It was an elaborate job of window-dressing.”

“And the detective agency will then defeat it all by showing that she was the person who was back of it all?”

“The detective agency is not in a position to do any such thing,” she said. “I’ve tried to uncover it without any success. The detective agency simply knows that they were hired on a cash basis to screen applicants; that they were given photographs and told that whenever any woman bore a really striking resemblance to those photographs she was to be tentatively hired.”

“And the photographs were of you?” Mason asked.

“The photographs were not of me,” she said, “although they might well have been. Actually, and that is where Dorrie Ambler made a fatal mistake, she couldn’t get photographs of me so she had to use some of herself. While I have had many news photographs taken, she wanted portrait photos of front and side views and she had to have them in a hurry.

“It would have attracted attention if a woman who looked so much like me had either solicited photographs of me or tried to get someone else to procure them. It was much more simple to go to a photographer and have the shots taken that she wanted.”

“All of this must have taken a certain amount of money,” Mason said.

“Of course it took a certain amount of money,” she said. “I don’t know who’s financing her, but I have an idea it’s some very crooked, very clever Las Vegas businessman.

“And furthermore, I don’t think Dorrie Ambler entered the picture under her own power, so to speak. I think that this confidence man or promoter got to nosing around and found her in Nevada and got her to come here and take this apartment, to settle down here just as if she were an average young woman planning on living here. Then instead of coming out and trying to make a claim against the money I had inherited and putting herself in a position where she’d be carrying the burden of proof, they were smart enough to think up a whole series of situations in which I would be the one that was on the defensive and it would suit the convenience of the newspapers to play up the startling resemblance. That would get her case against me off to a flying start.”

“The hit-and-run?” Mason asked.

“I’m not prepared to say about the hit-and-run,” Minerva said. “That may have been accidental. But she was teamed up with crooks. You know that because the car was stolen.”

“It was her idea,” Mason said dryly, “that perhaps you’d been the one to hit this man in the hit-and-run accident and had used her as a cover-up.”

Minerva Minden laughed. “Now, isn’t that a likely story,” she said. “Don’t tell me that you fell for that one, Mr. Mason.