The Case of the Queenly Contestant

“Where there is reason to believe a person is the only one who knows certain facts and the facts are vital to property interests, there is a procedure by which the testimony can be perpetuated.”

“That’s what I want done in this case.”

“Your son is going under the name of Baird?”

“Yes. Wight Baird. One day when Melinda and August were both away and Wight was there in the house alone this woman came to call on him. She was very nice. She told him that she was one of the nurses in the hospital in San Francisco when he was born and that she attended his mother and that she wanted to see his mother. Evidently she was planning to blackmail the Bairds.”

“This was the same nurse?”

“Oh, yes; she gave her name — Agnes Burlington.”

“And then what happened?”

“She asked Wight about his mother — if his mother was a tall woman with what she called a commanding presence. And Wight laughed and said, ‘No, she’s medium height and inclined to be a little plump.’ And one thing led to another and then this nurse went away.”

Mason said, “You’re not telling me the whole story. Let’s have it all.”

“All right,” she said; “the nurse started blackmailing the Bairds. She hunted up Mr. Baird and told him who she was and told him that she had been one of the nurses when his son was born, and she made such thinly veiled statements about the mother’s being a tall woman and how she’d talked with the mother and would remember her anywhere that when she wanted to borrow two hundred and fifty dollars Baird loaned it to her.”

“Then what?”

“Then after a while she came back and borrowed two hundred and fifty more.”

“How much altogether?”

“She put the bite on the Bairds for twelve hundred and fifty dollars in all.”

“And where did that money come from? Did they pass it out willingly?”

“They paid it,” Ellen said. “They were reluctant to pay it, but they had no choice.”

“And during all of that time you were paying this nurse?”

“Yes, I was loaning her money.”

“So now you want her to talk,” Mason said musingly.

“Yes, I paid money to keep her from talking. Now it’s just the other way. I want her to talk now. I’m going to want her to testify.”

Mason said, “This could be one most ingenious and gigantic fraud.”

“What do you mean?”

“You could have hatched this whole thing up after finding out there was a potential two-million-dollar estate to be had if a claimant... Look, Ellen, I’ll talk with this nurse, but I’m going to be very, very skeptical — and I’ll want to see proof — lots of proof.”

“She can give you proof,” Ellen Adair said.

Mason said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. We’ll go call on this Agnes Burlington. If I think she’s telling the truth, I’ll get an affidavit from her.”

“And there’s some way you can start proceedings so that you can perpetuate her testimony in case something should happen to her?” Ellen Adair asked.

“She’s been around for twenty years,” Mason said. “She’ll probably be here a few years longer. But there is a procedure by which the testimony of a witness can be perpetuated.”

“And we’ll do that?”

Mason said, “The last time I talked with you, you dismissed me; you didn’t want me as an attorney.”

“The situation has changed since then. I have changed my mind about a lot of things.”

“I’ll say you have,” Mason said. Then he asked abruptly. “What about Maxine Edfield?”

“What do you mean what about her?”

“How well did you know her?”

“Very well indeed.”

“You asked her advice about things?”

“Yes; she was a few years older and I looked up to her.”

“You double-dated with her?”

“Yes.”

“You talked over your affair with Harmon Haslett?”

“Yes.”

“You told her you were pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“She knew about your getting the thousand dollars?”

“She was the only one who did know.”

“Did you tell her that actually you weren’t pregnant?”

“Of course not. I was pregnant; I was having morning sickness. That’s how Maxine happened to find out about it in the first place. She became terribly suspicious and started cross-examining me, and finally I had to tell her.”

Mason said, “Now she swears that you told her you weren’t pregnant, that it was all a racket to try and get Harmon Haslett to marry you.”

“I know. Life hasn’t been very kind to Maxine and someone has come along and dangled a lot of money in front of her. When there is two two million dollars involved, Mr. Mason, you can expect almost anything to happen.”

“You can say that again!” Mason said.

“Maxine is going to swear that it was all a part of a scheme for a shakedown?” Ellen asked.

“Not a shakedown; just that it was a part of a scheme to force Harmon Haslett into matrimony. She’s already given her testimony. The only thing is that she identified the wrong person as being you. Now that put her in an embarrassing position when she made the statement. But, actually, it only means she made a wrong identification, which, after twenty years, is something anyone could do.”

“You got her to identify the wrong person?”

“Well, I laid a trap for her and she walked into it,” Mason said.

“And you’ll go see Agnes Burlington with me?”