“Good heavens, no. If you want the truth, I think Carl gave Sis some bad financial advice. Of course Carl meant all right, but you know how those things are. Sis had about a thousand dollars she’d saved up and Carl told her he thought he could make her a hundred percent profit. She gave him the money and received interest on it for a while, and then lost everything.”

  “What was the nature of the investment?” Mason asked.

  “I’m sure I couldn’t tell you. It was something Carl was promoting. He lost all his own savings along with Evelyn’s, but that didn’t help Evelyn any. You know, when a man tells a girl he has a wonderful investment for her he can’t be expected to guarantee she’s going to make money on it, but when her savings are wiped out she naturally doesn’t feel so cordial toward him. She’s lost her respect for his judgment.”

  “Where is she now, by the way?” Mason asked.

  “Why, in Honolulu.”

  Drake flashed a significant look at the lawyer, but Mason, taking a cigarette case from his pocket, said, “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Not in the least,” she said. “I’ll have one with you.”

  She took a cigarette. Drake also took one. “Three on one match?” Mason asked.

  She laughed heartily. “Good Lord, yes! Six on one match if you want to.”

  She leaned forward and accepted his light. Drake held back, looked sheepish for a moment and said, “Go ahead, Perry. I’ll light my own.”

  Mason said to Marian Whiting, “He’s a confirmed pessimist. No use trying to reform him. How long’s your sister been in Honolulu, Miss Whiting?”

  “Just two weeks.”

  “You’re working?” Mason inquired. “Pardon me, I’m not trying to pry into your affairs, but …”

  “It’s quite all right, Mr. Mason,” she told him. “No, I’m not working now. I’m looking for a secretarial position. I have two or three offers but they’re not just what I want and I’m able to hold out for a while …”

  “That isn’t what I’m interested in,” Mason said. “I was wondering if your time was your own.”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Did you,” Mason inquired with an elaborately casual manner, “go down to the dock to see your sister off?”

  She laughed. “I’ll say I did. Four or five of her friends fixed up a stunt sailing basket for her. It had fruit and nuts on top and was all covered with cellophane and looked like a regular sailing basket, but down underneath we had all sorts of stuff for practical jokes.”

  “Did she get a kick out of it?” Mason asked.

  “I’ll say! You should have seen the letter she sent back on the Clipper.”

  Mason got to his feet and said, “Well, thanks a lot for the information. … Oh, by the way, do you know where your sister’s staying at the present time in Honolulu?”

  “Yes. Would you like her address?”

  “If you don’t mind,” Mason said.

  “It’s somewhere on Alewa Drive,” Marian Whiting told him. “I’m no good at remembering numbers. Just a minute and I’ll get her last letter.”

  She left the room, and Drake said to Mason, “What is this, a run-around, Perry?”

  Mason shook his head. “That girl’s on the square, Paul. I’m not so certain about the sister. The sister’s different from her—thicker lips, smoldering eyes, and hair of …” He broke off as Marian Whiting entered the room with some letters in her hand. “It’s 1091 Alewa Drive,” she said.

  “Honolulu?” Mason asked.

  “That’s right.”

  Mason looked at the envelopes, laughed, and said, “I see you’re not a stamp collector.”

  “Oh, but I am.”

  “You haven’t removed the Clipper stamps.”

  “No,” she said, “I’m saving the envelopes. That gives me the complete postmark.”

  Mason casually extended his hand, and she unhesitatingly passed over the envelopes. Mason looked at the stamps, studied the postmarks and said, “This one left Honolulu day before yesterday.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I got it yesterday. It’s the last letter I’ve received from Sis.”

  “Interesting handwriting,” Mason said. “It shows a lot of character.”

  “Oh, do you read character from handwriting, Mr. Mason? I’m very much interested in it.”

  “Yes,” Mason said, “it’s a hobby of mine. Of course, you can’t read character from just a few words, such as the address on the envelope, but if I had a page of handwriting, I’d be willing to bet I could tell you quite a good deal about your sister, what she looks like, where she’s been rcecently, what she’s been doing, and … oh, quite a lot of things about her.”

  “Can you really? I think that’s wonderful.”

  Mason took a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and said, “I’d even be willing to bet you ten dollars against ten cents.”

  Laughing, Marian Whiting took ten cents from her purse, placed it on the lawyer’s ten-dollar bill, and took the letter from the envelope. “There you are,” she told him.

  Mason opened the letter.

  “Now, wait a minute,” Marian Whiting said. “You can’t read it, because she says lots of things in there about what she’s been doing, things you were going to tell me from her writing.”

  “Oh, certainly,” Mason conceded, “I merely want to glance at the handwriting. Here, I’ll let Mr. Drake hold the letter while I tell you. In the first place, your sister is younger than you are. She’s taller and has blonde hair. Her eyes are blue, with just a shade of green. Her lips are rather thin. She’s …”

  Marian Whiting interrupted him to say, “You’d better take another look at that handwriting, Mr. Mason. You’re going to lose ten dollars.”

  Mason frowned. “Why, I’d swear I was right.” He peered over Drake’s shoulder at the letter for a moment, then raised his eyes to Marian Whiting and said positively, “That letter was written by a tall, thin woman with a nervous temperament. Your sister may have the external appearance of a jolly good fellow, who lives a happy-go-lucky existence, but secretly she worries a lot. She’s quite a bit underweight. I hope the trip to the Islands does her good.”

  “You’re wrong on that,” Marian Whiting said. “You haven’t described her at all. Now, what’s she been doing?”

  “Well,” Mason said, “she’s been nursing someone.”

  Marian Whiting perched herself on a corner of the table and said, “No cheating. You knew she was a nurse. That’s simple. Go on now, and tell me something else from the handwriting, something intimate. What’s she been doing over in Honolulu?”

  “She’s been on a special case, a case involving a man who was injured, perhaps in an automobile accident, a man who has some sort of a harness around his shoulders and on his neck. … Of course, Miss Whiting,” Mason added, laughing, “you understand I’m more or less of an amateur at this psychic business. I don’t see things too clearly.”

  “Well, you’re not seeing this clearly,” she said. “In fact, you’re not seeing it at all, Mr. Mason.”

  “Hasn’t there been someone like that whom she’s been nursing?” Mason asked.

  “No. She didn’t do any work on the Islands at all. This wasn’t a working trip.”

  Mason’s expression indicated puzzled bewilderment. “Look here,” he charged, “you’re not trying to kid me out of ten bucks, are you?”

  “Certainly not,” she said indignantly.

  “Well,” Mason said, “either this isn’t your sister’s handwriting, or else …”

  “Of course it’s my sister’s handwriting.”

  “It couldn’t be a forgery?”

  “Why, Mr. Mason, who would want to forge my sister’s handwriting? Good heavens, no! That letter’s filled with little intimate details. I know absolutely it’s from Sis.”

  “You share this apartment?” Mason asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And when do you expect her back?”

  “She said she’d be back in about two weeks. If she could get the reservations she wanted, she might be back a boat sooner. She’s going to send me a cablegram as soon as she knows.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “I guess you’re entitled to the ten dollars, although I still think … oh, well, never mind.”

  Her face flushed. “You think I’m taking advantage of you? Here, take your ten dollars, I don’t want it.”

  “No, no. It isn’t that,” Mason said hastily. “I just can’t understand how my deductions could be so completely wrong. Just what does your sister look like, Miss Whiting?”

  “I’ll get you her picture,” Marian Whiting offered. “You can see for yourself.”

  Mason glanced at Paul Drake. “Not a posed photograph, please. Something that will show her character and …”

  “Certainly. Just a minute.”

  She left them and went into the bedroom. “What does the letter say, Paul?” Mason asked in an undertone.

  “All about the Islands, people she met, dances she’s attended, a luau, native feast, and how they ate with their fingers, and …”

  “Never mind all that,” Mason said. “How about the intimate personal details?”

  “She tells Marian she forgot to send her fall suit to the cleaners, to please have it cleaned and pressed, and there’s a spot on one sleeve which she’s to call to the attention of the cleaner. That she’d like to have her fur coat out of storage when she gets back, and … Wait a minute, Perry, she mentions her husband. …”

  Marian Whiting returned with a photograph album. She placed it on the table. Mason and the detective stood at her side as she turned the leaves. “Here’s Evelyn. … There’s an old picture of Evelyn and Carl Moar. There’s another one of Evelyn. Here we are in bathing suits. … Here we are …” Abruptly she laughed and turned the page. “I guess you hadn’t better see that one. Here we were on our vacation in shorts. Here’s Evelyn and a boy friend. Here’s … Oh, wait a minute. I know … I have a dandy picture taken when Evelyn sailed.”

  She turned over a dozen pages and showed them a mounted, eight-by-ten enlargement. “Here it is. I had the picture enlarged because it was such a good negative. You can see her up there at the rail. See, she’s holding on to the strips of colored paper …”

  Mason said, “Pardon me,” picked up the photograph album and took the picture to the light so that he could study it carefully. “I’m something of a nut on photography myself,” he said, by way of explanation. “This is a fine piece of work. You must have a very good camera there, Miss Whiting.”

  “I have,” she said. “It was given to me by an uncle who runs a camera store in the East. It takes a sharp negative, has an anastigmatic lens and a focal plane shutter …”

  “I see you’re something of an expert yourself,” Mason laughed.

  She nodded. “I’m just crazy about it,” she said, “and this color photography gives me the biggest thrill of all.”

  Mason said, “Yes, I bought a miniature camera over in China and snapped hundreds of colored pictures. Perhaps when your sister gets back you’ll be interested in seeing those I took in Honolulu and while I was on the ship coming over. By the way, who’s this young chap standing just back of your sister? He seems to be acquainted with her and …”

  Marian Whiting grabbed up the album, started to say something, and then checked herself and said, “Someone on the boat, I guess.”

  “He seems to be taking quite an interest in your sister,” Mason said.

  “Oh, Sis just slays ’em when she gets on a boat,” Marian Whiting said. “Why, I remember one time—”

  “I notice his hand is on her shoulder,” Mason insisted.

  Marian Whiting looked up and said, “I’m not supposed to tell you about this, Mr. Mason. I’d forgotten about him being in that photograph.”

  “Of course,” Mason said, “I don’t want to pry into your sister’s private affairs. I take it this is some young man she’s friendly with?”

  “He’s her husband.”

  Mason remained silent.

  “Sis was secretly married and went to Honolulu. She’s over there on her honeymoon. That’s Morgan Eves, her husband. She’s not ready to announce the marriage yet.”

  “I see,” Mason said. “Then she’s still over in the Islands on her honeymoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Her husband still with her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Looks like a nice chap,” Mason said. “I would size him up as a bond salesman.”

  “Well, he isn’t,” Marian Whiting blazed. “And if you ask me, he isn’t any good.”

  She checked herself abruptly.

  Mason said, “Oh, surely, it can’t be that bad. He has rather a nice face.”

  “Ever since he’s known Sis,” Marian went on passionately, “he’s been a bad influence in her life. I was certainly hoping she wouldn’t marry him.”

  “What’s he do?” Mason asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s the mysterious part of it. He has plenty of money and a prejudiced, warped, cynical outlook on life. I think he’s in some sort of a racket. I don’t trust him.”

  “I take it your sister won’t be living with you when she gets back.”

  “Yes, she’s going to for at least a couple of months. They can’t publicly announce the marriage yet. It’s something about an interlocutory decree that isn’t final, or something. Sis has been rather mysterious about it all. He’s made such a change in her. My heavens! I’d have sworn she’d never get married again. She liked men and she liked to have a good time, but we, both of us, decided it was a lot better these days for a girl to have her independence and keep house by herself than to have some man ordering her around, making her work, and spending her money. Sis had one experience with marriage, and it was enough. … Now you promise me you won’t say anything to the newspapers.”

  “About your sister’s marriage?”

  “Yes. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

  Mason said, “Well, I’ll make a bargain with you. If you’ll let me have a picture of your sister, we’ll call it square.”

  “Is there any particular one you’d like?” she asked.

  “How about the one where she’s getting into the automobile?” Mason asked. “The one where she has her hand on the door. That’s a particularly good picture.”

  “Yes, I think I have an extra print of that.”

  She once more entered the bedroom. “That the girl all right?” Drake asked.

  “That’s the girl,” Mason said.

  Drake said, “The chap she married is a crook. He’s been in two or three scrapes. They had a murder charge against him in Los Angeles two or three months ago; had a dead open-and-shut case, but he squirmed loose. I’d recognize that face anywhere. I saw him—”

  Marian Whiting came back with the photograph. “I found it. It’s an extra print,” she said. “It really belongs to Sis, but I can have another one made for her.”

  Mason said, “I’ll be glad to pay—”

  “No, no,” Marian Whiting said hastily. “That wasn’t what I was getting at.”

  Mason gestured toward the ten-dollar bill. “Well, it’s your money,” he said. “You won the bet.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t take the money, Mr. Mason.”

  “Why not?”

  “The odds were too great. My heavens! It was interesting seeing you try to describe Sis, and I’m all wrapped up in mental telepathy and character reading. I’ll bet you’re a Leo, Mr. Mason. You have—”

  “If I’d won the bet,” Mason said sternly, “I’d have taken your dime. Now then, young lady, under those circumstances, you take that ten dollars.”

  She picked up the ten-dollar bill, slowly folded it.

  “I don’t feel right about this,” she protested.

  Mason laughed, shook hands and said, “Thanks a lot for your cooperation.”

  “And you’ll keep it under cover about Sis?”

  “Yes,” Mason promised. “I won’t say anything about what you’ve told me. If, of course, I should get the information from some other source, I couldn’t guarantee …”

  “Oh, that’s all right. As far as that’s concerned I don’t think it makes any great difference, except that I don’t want Sis to think I gave her away. Gee, Mr. Mason, I still don’t feel right about this ten dollars!”

  Mason laughed, took Drake’s arm and moved toward the elevator. Marian Whiting slowly closed the door of the apartment.

  Mason said in a low voice, “This photograph shows the license number on the automobile, Paul. It’s a recent photograph, and the car’s a late model. Let’s run around to your San Francisco branch office and chase it down.”

  “Good idea,” Drake said, “they may have something on Evelyn Whiting by this time.”

  In the taxicab Drake said, “How about the chap she married, Perry? Was he on the boat coming over?”

  “No,” Mason said, “he wasn’t. And I can’t get this stall over the Honolulu end. She must have written letters ahead and left them to be mailed to her sister.”

  “What’s the idea?” Drake asked.

  “Damned if I know,” Mason said, “unless she’s trying to build up an alibi of some kind.”

  “That might be an idea, Perry. Two or three months from now the sister would swear up one side and down the other that Evelyn was over in Honolulu, and could produce her letters to prove it.”

  “The only trouble with that is that she sailed back under her own name,” Mason said. “She’s on the passenger list as Evelyn Whiting. How do you account for that?”

  “She may have had a round trip ticket,” Drake said, “or … oh, shucks, Perry. I don’t know. We haven’t enough to go on yet. What do you suppose happened to the husband?”

  Mason shrugged his shoulders.

  “And,” Drake went on, “who was this chap with the broken neck?”

  “Wait a minute,” Mason said, “that chap with the broken neck was probably her husband.”

  “What name was he going under?”

  “Roger P. Cartman. Give me a description of this chap, as nearly as you can remember him, Paul.”