“I knew,” Mason said. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were intending to do?”

  “I didn’t dare. I was afraid you would stop me.”

  “Why?”

  “Your ideas of professional ethics.”

  Mason regarded her thoughtfully.

  She said after a moment, “I presume you know all that I’ve done.”

  Mason said, “You went out to the sanitarium. You saw from the sign that they were very anxious to get someone to do domestic work. You applied for the job.”

  She nodded.

  “You bought a new car.”

  Again she nodded.

  “All right,” Mason said, “you went out and went to work. What happened?”

  She said, “I’ll never forget what I saw when I got out there. I started work. It took me a couple of hours before I dared to slip into Unit 17 where they were keeping Uncle Horace.

  “There was that poor man strapped to a bed—absolutely strapped—and the straps were stretched so tight that they were holding him motionless.”

  “What was his mental condition?”

  “What would your mental condition be in a situation like that? Here the poor man had been taken away from his home, had been stripped of his property. And they intended to leave him there until he died, and to do everything they could to hasten his death.

  “Uncle Horace has always had claustrophobia—a fear of being rendered helpless where he couldn’t move. And he was tied down there, he was moving his head and trying to get at his straps so he could bite them. He was wild and disheveled and—”

  “Did he recognize you?” Mason asked.

  She hesitated a moment and then said, “I don’t think I’d better talk any more about that phase of it until you and I can be alone, Mr. Mason.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “What else can we talk about now?”

  “Well,” she said, “I went back in the morning after the night’s work had all been done and just before the morning shift came on—right after the cook came in. I had picked up a very sharp butcher knife in the kitchen and I cut through those straps. I found Uncle Horace’s clothes in the closet and I got some clothes on him and got him out into the automobile and drove away.”

  “Did you think they would follow you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you keep Uncle Horace here with you?”

  “I thought it would be safer to park him off by himself.”

  “Did he recognize you in the morning when you took him out?”

  “Oh heavens, yes,” she said. “What’s his mental condition now?”

  “Pretty near normal, except when you mention something about the sanitarium he just goes all to pieces. He’s on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown because of the things he’s had to put up with.”

  “You knew they’d find out about what you did?” Mason asked.

  “I felt they probably would, yes.”

  “You knew that they’d come looking for you?”

  “That’s why I got Uncle Horace where no one could ever find him.”

  Mason raised his eyebrows.

  “No one will find him where he is,” she said. “He’s going to stay there until he’s got his nerves back in shape and until we can get Finchley shown up for the type of man he is.

  “Uncle Horace tells me that no sooner had I left for the Orient than they started doing all sorts of little things that they knew would irritate and annoy him. They treated him like a child. They wouldn’t let him do what he wanted to. They started making him nervous. He thinks Aunt Elinor was giving him some drug that overstimulated him. He couldn’t sleep, and when he told her he couldn’t sleep, she said she’d give him some sleeping pills.

  “Within a week or ten days, he was so dependent on those sleeping pills that he had to have them in order to get a night’s sleep. Otherwise he’d lie there and toss and get nervous, sleep for an hour or two, then lie awake for the rest of the night.”

  “Didn’t it occur to him that Mrs. Finchley was deliberately drugging him?”

  “Not at the time. She handed him a great line of talk about how he was upset because he was accustomed to having me around, but that the trip was the best thing on earth for me and that I was going to crack up if I didn’t have some recreation and some help. And she pointed out to him that he was pretty much of a nuisance and needed altogether too much attention for one person to give it to him. And then she kept giving him more and more medication.

  “Finally, he realized what they were trying to do. That was when he wrote that letter to me.”

  “Just what was his idea in writing that letter?”

  “He wanted me to get enough money out of the bank account so that if they did start proceedings for a guardianship, he wouldn’t be absolutely helpless.”

  “He realized what they had in mind?”

  “By that time, yes it was very obvious. … That’s a horrible thing, Mr. Mason. They suddenly drag a man into court and claim that he’s incompetent to manage his affairs and strip him of every cent he has in the world.

  “How would you feel if you’d saved up enough money to be independent, and then relatives suddenly moved in and took all that money away from you and put you in some kind of an institution where—”

  “I’d feel pretty bad,” Mason said, “but that’s not the point. Just what are your plans now?”

  “I was intending to get in touch with you.”

  “You took long enough doing it.”

  “Well, I had to make arrangements to see that Uncle Horace would be safe and comfortable.”

  “Where is he?”

  She clamped her lips together and shook her head.

  Mason smiled. “You’re not telling me?”

  “No. I’m not going to tell a soul. That’s why I have him where people can’t get at him until he’s ready to step into court and go in there fighting. And this time, he’s not going to be drugged.”

  “He was drugged when he went to court?” Mason asked.

  “Of course,” she said scornfully. “You don’t think that they could ever have pulled a fast one like that unless they had him drugged in such a way that he didn’t have his normal responses.”

  “The judge didn’t detect that he was drugged and the doctor that examined him didn’t.”

  “They were rather clever but they had been brainwashing him for three months. Don’t ever forget that! And with a man of that age, a very clever person can do a lot of brainwashing in three months.”

  “How is he now?” Mason asked.

  She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Better.”

  “And you gave him money?” Mason asked.

  “I gave him forty thousand dollars of his money.”

  “Forty thousand dollars?” Mason asked.

  She nodded. “I bought the car, and I’m keeping enough money so I can do the things that have to be done. I gave him the rest.”

  “Did you,” Mason asked, “tell him about the evidence that had been brought out in court, that you weren’t actually related to him?”

  She said, “I don’t think I want to talk about that for a while, but I can tell you this, he’s made his will now.”

  Mason’s eyes narrowed. “I was afraid of that,” he said. “I wish you’d got in touch with me. That was the one thing he should never have done.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you see,” Mason said, “you’re playing right into their hands. They claimed that if you could ever get him where he was under your control, you’d have him make a will and you’d get his property.

  “That letter he wrote with the check for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars was just the sort of thing they needed and, if they can show that you had him make a will in your favor as soon as you got him out of the sanitarium, that also will be ammunition they can use.”

  “But this was his own idea,” she said. “He wanted to do it. He insisted on it. He’d been trying to make a will so there couldn’t be any question.”

  “Then he should have done it through an attorney and in the regular way,” Mason said. “The document should have been formally witnessed. … What kind of a will did he make?”

  “He said that in this state a will is good if it’s entirely written, dated and signed in the handwriting of the testator and you had told me the same thing, so that’s the sort of will he made.”

  “Who has it?” Mason asked.

  “I do.”

  “Give it to me.”

  She hesitated a moment, then opened her purse, took out a folded document and handed it to Mason.

  Mason read the will. “This is all in his handwriting?”

  “Yes.”

  Mason checked the points Dated … Signed … Purporting to be a last will and testament … “You’d better let me keep this, Daphne.”

  “I want you to.”

  “And,” Mason said, “say nothing about it unless you’re asked. I want to get hold of Horace Shelby and in the event he’s competent, I want him to make a will setting forth whatever he wants to put in it, and I want to make certain it will be a valid will.

  “Now then, let’s go and see Horace Shelby.”

  She shook her head. “I am not going to tell you where he is.”

  “Suppose,” Mason said, “that you just take a little ride with me and we’ll go to see him.”

  She smiled. “And you can’t bluff me, Mr. Mason. I know you regard me as a naïve child but I’m not as green as some people think.”

  “I’ll say you’re not,” Mason said. He nodded significantly to Della Street and gestured toward the telephone directory.

  Della moved quietly behind Daphne’s chair to consult the directory and then, when she had the address she wanted, made a surreptitious note and nodded to Mason.

  Daphne Shelby, in the meantime, had been glaring at Mason defiantly.

  “I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “And you’re not going to bluff me by making me think you know so that I’ll say something that will be a giveaway. I know all about that technique of getting information.”

  Mason smiled. “I’m sure you do,” he said. “Well, get your hat and coat and we’ll take a little ride.”

  “I’ll ride with you,” she said, “but I’m not going to give you any information about where Uncle Horace is. He needs rest he needs to have the assurance that he’s his own man once more. You just can’t imagine what a devastating experience this has been for him.”

  “You gave him forty thousand dollars?” Mason asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I endorsed seven cashier’s checks for five thousand dollars over to him and I gave him five thousand dollars in cash.”

  “A man in his condition shouldn’t be carrying that money around with him,” Mason said.. “In fact, nobody should carry that much, but particularly your Uncle Horace shouldn’t have it.”

  “It’s his money!” she blazed. “And that’s the only way he’s ever going to snap out of it—is to feel that he’s his own master, that he can do what he wants to with his own money.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “let’s get in the car. Perhaps you’d better follow us in your car, Paul.”

  “Will do,” Paul Drake said.

  “Perhaps you’d be so good as to tell me where you’re taking me?” Daphne asked.

  Mason grinned. “Just down the road a piece. We’ll bring you back in due course. There’s a man down there I want to see.”

  Her head held high, she stalked out to Mason’s car.

  Mason, Della Street and Daphne got into the front seat. With Paul Drake following, they drove down the thoroughfare, turned to the right, cruised past the Northern Lights Motel. Mason frequently glanced at Daphne’s face.

  The young woman kept looking straight ahead, not even her eyes turned as they cruised slowly past the motel.

  Paul Drake, in the car behind Mason, snapped his lights on and off, gave two quick taps on the horn button.

  Mason swung to the curb, rolled down the window on his side and waited.

  Drake’s car pulled alongside.

  “What is it?” Mason asked.

  “Cops,” Drake said tersely.

  “Where?”

  “Other end of the motel. Two cars.”

  “Oh—oh,” Mason said.

  “What do we do?” Drake asked.

  Mason said, “We pull around the corner and wait. You go ask questions. Not pointed questions but adroit questions.”

  “Will do,” Drake said.

  As the detective pulled away, Mason turned to Daphne and said, “That’s what comes of trying to give your own attorney a double cross and taking things into your own hands.

  “Now you can see what’s happened. Finchley has found out where your Uncle Horace is. He’s charged him with escaping from a sanitarium where he was confined under a Court order and has probably brought in police to take him back.”

  Daphne, who had been bravely silent, suddenly started to cry. “If they take him back to that sanitarium and strap him in bed, it will kill him,” she said.

  “We’ll try not to let it happen,” Mason told her. “We’ll get out of the way and park and see what we can do.”

  The lawyer eased the car into motion, came to the cross street and started to turn. A police car, with siren moaning a low but peremptory message for the right-of-way, came around the corner. Mason pulled to the curb.

  The police car, traveling at slow speed, started past the lawyer’s car, then suddenly stopped. The beam of a red spotlight illuminated the interior of Mason’s car.

  “Well, well, well,” Lieutenant Tragg”s voice said. “Look who’s here!”

  “Why, hello, Lieutenant,” Mason said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I think I’ll ask you first and make the question official,” Tragg said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had been out to see a client on a probate matter,” Mason said, “and—”

  “Your client live at the Northern Lights Motel?” Tragg interrupted.

  Mason grinned and shook his head. “Why?”

  “We’re investigating what seems to be a homicide,” Tragg said.

  “A what?” Mason asked.

  “Some fellow out here in Unit 21,” Tragg said. “Evidently somebody fed him some Chinese food that was drugged with a barbiturate and then, when he went to sleep, turned the gas stove on and didn’t light it. Occupants of an adjoining unit smelled the gas, called the proprietor, the proprietor got in the door, opened the windows, shut the gas off. It was too late.”

  “Dead?” Mason asked.

  “As a mackerel!” Lieutenant Tragg said. “You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

  “About the man’s death?” Mason asked. “Heavens, no! I had no idea there had been a death until you told me just now.”

  “Well, I was just checking—that’s all,” Tragg said. “Sort of a coincidence, you being here.”

  He nodded to the driver of the car. “Let’s go,” he said.

  When the police car pulled away, Mason turned back to look at Daphne Shelby.

  She was sitting white-faced and frozen, her eyes wide with terror.

  “Well?” Mason asked.

  She looked at him, tried to say something, then collapsed to the floor of the car.

  Mason said, “Inskip will be trailing us because we have Daphne in the car with us. Let’s see if we can spot him.”

  The lawyer made a U-turn, circled back to the corner, suddenly spotted a car parked at the curb, braked his own car to a stop and motioned.

  Inskip started the agency car he was driving and pulled alongside.

  “Tell Paul we’re going back to the Serene Slumber Motel,” Mason said. “Tell him to come back there as soon as he finds out what’s cooking.”

  The lawyer drove back to the motel where Daphne had her room. He and Della Street helped Daphne from the car. Daphne handed him the key with cold numb fingers. The lawyer opened the door, escorted Daphne inside.

  “All right,” Mason said. “Pull yourself together, Daphne. Let’s have it straight from the shoulder. Did you have anything to do with your uncle’s death?”

  She shook her head. Her lips quivered. “I loved him” she said. “He was a father to me. I’ve sacrificed most of my life trying to make him comfortable.”

  “That’s right,” Mason said. “But that’s not the way the evidence is going to point.”

  “What evidence?”

  “Let’s look at the evidence,” Mason said. “You aren’t related by blood to Horace Shelby. You can’t inherit without a will.

  “Shelby’s half brother has filed affidavits stating that you are a shrewd and designing person that you have planned to ingratiate yourself with Horace Shelby and get him to turn his wealth over to you. The records show that Shelby gave you a check for a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.

  “The Court ordered Shelby to have a conservator for his estate. You smuggled Shelby out of the rest home where he was placed on the orders of a physician, took him to the Northern Lights Motel. You got him to make a will leaving everything to you. And, within hours after he made that will, the man was dead.”

  “I suppose,” she said, “he was so despondent that he could have committed suicide, although I would never have thought of it.”

  “We’ll wait until Paul Drake comes,” Mason said. “Evidently, the police have reason to believe that barbiturates entered into it. You bought him a Chinese dinner tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Brought it in in cardboard containers?”

  “Yes.”

  “And had spoons and ate it from the containers?”

  “He liked to use chopsticks,” she said. “I bought two pair of chopsticks. We ate it with chopsticks.”

  “And what did you do with the empty containers?”

  “They weren’t quite empty,” she said. “I had to leave, but Uncle Horace promised he’d flush what was left of the food down the toilet, wash the containers out so they wouldn’t smell, and put them in the wastebasket. After all. it isn’t a housekeeping unit—just a bedroom—and I thought they might make trouble if he used the wastebasket as a garbage pail.”

  “There was food left and he promised to flush it down the toilet?”