“Can’t you see?” she interrupted. “The Clipper leaves Honolulu at daylight tomorrow morning. Someone could have stolen my daughter’s picture, sent it to the Mainland by air mail, and had detectives trace her, and find out everything about her.”

  “But surely,” Mason said, “you don’t think Miss Dail would resort to any such tactics?”

  “I don’t know what tactics she’d restort to,” Mrs. Newberry said. “She’s selfish, spoiled, rich, and ruthless.”

  “Why, she’s just a kid,” Mason exclaimed.

  “She’s twenty-five,” Mrs. Newberry pointed out, “and she’s done lots of living. She’s a good polo player, holds an aviator’s license, has a yacht of her own, shoots par golf and … Well, a young woman of twenty-five these days is quite apt to have done a lot of living. I’d consider her capable of almost anything.”

  “Tell me some more about the theft of the picture,” Mason said.

  “We packed early,” she said. “I packed my husband’s suitcase. Belle had given him a picture inscribed, ‘To Daddy, With Love from Belle.’ I don’t know, Mr. Mason, whether you’ve noticed that my daughter resembles Winnie Joyce, the actress, but—”

  “I’d already noticed and commented on the resemblance,” Mason said. “I believe she tries to accentuate that resemblance, doesn’t she?”

  “Of course she does,” Mrs Newberry agreed promptly. “People comment about it and it tickles her pink. She sent to the studio for a fanmail photograph of Winne Joyce. Then she had a photographer take her picture in the same pose and with the same lighting effects. It was one of those pictures she inscribed and gave to my husband. It was in an oval desk frame. I personally packed that picture in his bag a little before three o’clock this afternoon. After the bag was packed, he locked it. It wasn’t unlocked again until ten o’clock tonight, half an hour before the ship sailed. I was unpacking the baggage in the stateroom and he took the keys from his pocket and unlocked it.”

  “And the frame was gone?” Mason asked.

  “No,” she said. “Belle’s picture had been taken from the frame and a picture of Miss Joyce substituted.”

  She opened her purse, took out an oval desk frame and handed it to Mason. Mason held it so that the light from one of the deck lamps showed the photograph. “Notice the inscription,” Mrs. Newberry said.

  Mason deciphered, “Sincerely yours. Winnie Joyce.”

  “Perhaps the photograph had been substituted before you packed,” Mason suggested.

  “No. I noticed particularly. You see, my daughter’s happiness has been on my mind ever since I heard this about the Products Refining Company. I looked at her picture when I packed it and hoped that she’d always be happy and smiling as she was in that picture.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “there’s no use beating around the bush. Go to your husband. Call for a showdown. After all, Mrs. Newberry, you may be alarming yourself needlessly. He may have won the money in a lottery.”

  “But I have talked with him. It doesn’t get me anywhere. He simply says he won some money in a lottery. That’s all I can get out of him.”

  “Did you ever accuse him of embezzling money from the Products Refining Company?” Mason asked.

  “Not in so many words, but I intimated that I thought he might have.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Told me I was crazy, that he’d won a lottery.”

  “You don’t know what lottery?”

  “He said something about a sweepstakes once, and the other times he said lottery.”

  “Well, call for a showdown,” Mason said impatiently. “Ask him just what lottery it was. After all, you’re his wife. You’re entitled to know.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “It would never do any good to talk with Carl that way. He’d lie out of it and it would simply make matters worse. When I have another talk with him, I want to have all the cards in my hand so I can play them. I want to know.”

  “What do you want to know?” Mason asked.

  “I want to be absolutely certain,” she said, “that he did embezzle that money. That’s where I want your help.”

  “What did you want me to do?” Mason asked.

  “Get in communication with your office,” she said. “Have your associates make a quiet investigation and find out whether Carl really embezzled the money.”

  “And if he did, then what?”

  “Then,” she said, “I’m going to take steps to protect Belle and safeguard her happiness as much as I can.”

  “How?” Mason asked.

  She started to say something, then checked herself. After a moment, she said, “I don’t know—yet. I’d want your advice.”

  Mason leaned over the rail and looked down at the deck below. The figures of Belle Newberry and Roy Hungerford had moved close together until they appeared as one dark silhouette.

  “Very well,” Mason promised. “I’ll see what I can find out,” and cut short her thanks to go to the wireless room.

  Using his confidential code, Mason sent a wireless to Paul Drake, of the Drake Detective Agency in Los Angeles, asking him to investigate a C.W. Moar who had worked for the Products Refining Company; to investigate the winners of all sweepstakes within the past four months, and find out if any might have been C.W. Moar, using either his own or a fictitious name, and added as an afterthought a request to ascertain if Winnie Joyce, the picture actress, had a sister.

  Chapter 2

  Sun sparkled from the crested tops of restless waves as Perry Mason paced the deck, enjoying the fresh air and the morning sun. His hands were thrust deep in the pockets of a double-breasted coat, his rubber-soled shoes trod lightly along the teakwood deck. The warm breeze ruffled his wavy hair. He had circled the deck for the third time when the heavy door from the forward social hall was pushed open an inch or two. Della Street shouldered it open, to stand with wind-whipped skirts while Belle Newberry stepped across the high threshold.

  As they released the door and the wind pushed it against the automatic door check, Mason, walking up behind them, called “Ship Ahoy!” and, as they turned, said to Della Street, “The other side is less windy.”

  Della nodded, the warm wind blowing tendrils of hair across her face. “Belle,” she said, “this is the boss. Chief, I’d like to have you meet Belle Newberry, my roommate. We’re working up an appetite for breakfast.”

  “Let’s go,” Mason suggested.

  With a girl on each arm, he started forward along the deck. Rounding the bow, the wind pushed them on down the sloping incline, into the lee of the deck. Belle Newberry put her hair back into place, laughed, and said, “That’s what’s known as a wind-blown bob. I’ve been hearing a lot about you, Mr. Mason.”

  “If it’s bad,” Mason told her, “you can believe it; if it’s good, it’s slander.”

  She faced him with laughing, dark eyes, full red lips, parted to reveal teeth which glinted like whitecaps in the sun. The silk blouse, open at the neck, disclosed the sweep of her throat, the rounded curve of her firm breasts. “I saw you and Moms talking last night,” she said. “I’ll bet Moms told you all about the family mystery.”

  “Mystery?” Mason asked.

  “Uh huh,” she said. “Don’t stand there and act innocent.”

  Della Street flashed Mason a quick glance. “What’s the family mystery, Belle?” she asked.

  “The disappearing portrait,” she said. “Mother packed my autographed picture in Dad’s bag and locked the bag. When they unpacked, my picture was gone from the frame, and someone had inserted one of Winnie Joyce, my double. Now, what do you know about that?”

  “I,” Della Street said, glancing reproachfully at Perry Mason, “know nothing about it. What does your mother think about it?”

  “She’s making it darkly mysterious,” Belle said. “Don’t deprive her of her thrill. If she tells you about it, look frightened.”

  “You don’t take it seriously, then?” Mason inquired.

  “Me?” she told him, raising her chin and laughing up into his face. “I don’t take anything seriously—life, liberty, or the pursuit of love. I’m the flippant younger generation, Mr. Mason—born without reverence—yet reared without guile, thank Heaven.”

  “And how about your father?” Mason inquired. “How does he take it?”

  “Oh, Dad takes it right in his stride,” she said. “Pops is a Thinker, carries the world on his shoulders. Only occasionally can I get him to set it down long enough to play with me.”

  “That,” Mason said, “doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Ooh, the Big Bad Lawyer!” she laughed. “I forgot I was being cross-examined. What shall we call this, Mr. Mason—‘The Case of the Purloined Picture’?”

  “It wasn’t purloined,” he said, “so much as substituted.”

  “All right, then. ‘The Case of the Substitute Face.’ How will that do?”

  “All right,” he said, “at least temporarily. What does your father say about it—and, incidentally, what are your theories?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have theories. I’m too young. … You don’t mind being kidded a bit, do you, Mr. Mason? Because if you do, you only have to say so and I get worse. … No, seriously speaking, Dad and I both think it’s just a joke someone in the hotel played. You know Moms. She swears that it was my picture in the frame when she was doing the packing, but Moms gets excited when we travel. You see, Miss Joyce and I look alike, even if Miss Joyce wouldn’t admit it. Ever since I started traveling, people in restaurants and night clubs have been staring at me, nudging each other and whispering.”

  “You might capitalize on it,” Mason said. “A standin or something.”

  “That’s what I claim,” Belle Newberry said, the banter instantly leaving her eyes, and her voice slightly wistful. “I think it would be a swell chance for me to go to Hollywood and look around, but Dad says nothing doing, that I stay with him until after I’m twenty-three, and that’ll be six months. My Lord! It seems as though I’ve been twenty-two forever … there I go, telling my age!”

  Mason laughed. “You liked Honolulu?”

  “Crazy about it,” she said. “Lord, how I hated to leave! I’d never even dreamt of such a glamorous, thrilling experience. I suppose I shouldn’t indulge in all those enthusiasms, but should be more like the society bud at the hotel who raised her eyebrows and made her face look like a stifled yawn whenever anyone asked her how she enjoyed the Islands. Then, after just the right interval, she’d say, ‘Oh, they’re quite nice, thank you.’ You know, that world-weary sophistication which comes to us blasé twenty-year-olds.”

  “Yes,” Mason laughed, “I’ve encountered it.”

  “I’ve wallowed in it,” she said. “It surrounded me all through college.”

  “Your first ocean voyage?” Mason inquired.

  “Going to the Islands was not only my first ocean voyage,” she told him, “but positively and absolutely the first time I’ve ever been … well now, wait a minute, I hadn’t better make any confessions. After all, there’s nothing so disillusioning as a woman with a drab past, and you know, I …”

  She broke off as the door on the lee side opened, and Roy Hungerford, attired in white flannels, stepped out to the deck and looked eagerly to the right and left. He caught sight of them, smiled, and came swiftly toward them. Belle Newberry hooked her arm through his and performed introductions.

  Della Street said, “You two go walk up that appetite. I see that I have to go into a huddle with the boss. He has a businesslike look on his face. You shouldn’t have mentioned mysteries, Belle. Now you’ve reminded him that he’s returning to the office.”

  Belle Newberry flashed her a grateful glance, and nodded to Roy Hungerford. They pushed forward into the wind, and Della Street looked up at the tall lawyer and said, “Okay, Chief, spill it.”

  “Spill what?” Mason asked.

  She laughed and said, “Go on, don’t pull that stuff on me. Tell me all about the family mystery—The Case of the Substitute Face.”

  “You know about all there is to know about it,” Mason told her. “The photographs were switched.”

  “Who did the switching, and why?” Dellas asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mason admitted. “There are complicating factors. Come on up on the boat deck and I’ll tell you about them.”

  They climbed the stairway, walked past the gymnasium, across the deck tennis court, and found a sheltered spot in the lee of the rooms used as ship’s hospital. Mason told Della Street of his conversation with Mrs. Newberry. “So,” she said when he had finished, “you sent a radiogram to Paul Drake.”

  He nodded.

  She laughed. “Well, that’ll be a good preliminary training for Paul. He’s had a rest while you were batting around the Orient. I’ll bet he missed the wild scramble of your work. How about breakfast?”

  He nodded. “In a minute. What do you think of her?”

  “Of whom?”

  “Of your cabin-mate.”

  “Oh, she’s a kick. She’s an observing kid, and chuck full of life. She’s modern, impatient of all sham and pretense, and isn’t too affected to show enthusiasm. She’s as full of bounce as a rubber ball.”

  “Did she say anything about young Hungerford?”

  “No. It’s really deep and serious with her. She treats the world in that light, flippant manner, but this is something she won’t treat that way. Come on, Chief, let’s eat. I’m starved.”

  They were half through breakfast when Drake’s first radiogram was received. It read simply:

  PRODUCTS REFINING COMPANY ASSETS SHORT TWENTY-FIVE GRAND. PRIVATE DETECTIVES MAKING QUIET SEARCH FOR MOAR VANISHED EMPLOYEE. NO COMPLAINT FILED AS YET. APPARENTLY NIGGER SOMEWHERE IN WOODPILE AND AUDITORS LACK SUFFICIENT PROOF TO MAKE DEFINITE ACCUSATIONS.

  Della, taking the cablegram from Mason, said, “That’s fast work, Chief.”

  “Uh huh. But remember, it’s later there than it is here. He’s been on the job for two or three hours.”

  They were strolling the promenade deck, snapping colored photographs with Mason’s miniature camera, when Drake’s second message came. It read:

  NO SWEEPSTAKE OR LOTTERY WINNERS NAMED MOAR. WINNERS LAST FOUR MONTHS ALL ACCOUNTED FOR.

  And his third radiogram was received about noon:

  WINNIE JOYCE HAS NO SISTERS. BETTER FORGET ROMANCE PERRY AND STICK TO BUSINESS. COME HOME. ALL IS FORGIVEN.

  Mason, folding the message, said, “Damn him, I’ll get even with him for that.”

  “Here comes Mrs. Newberry,” Della Street said.

  Mason returned Mrs. Newberry’s good-morning, and said, “I have some information for you.”

  “Can you tell me now?” she asked, glancing dubiously at Della Street.

  Mason said, “I have no secrets from Della. Do you want me to beat around the bush, or do you want it straight from the shoulder.”

  “Straight from the shoulder.”

  “All right. The Products Refining Company is about twenty-five thousand dollars short. Private detectives are looking for your husband. He didn’t win any sweepstakes.”

  She kept her profile turned toward them, her eyes staring far out over the ocean. Weariness was stamped on her features. “It’s what I expected,” she said.

  Mason said, “I think you’d better have a talk with your husband, Mrs. Newberry.”

  “It won’t do any good,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” he suggested, “if I sat in on the conference it would help.”

  “Help what?” she asked.

  “Help to make him tell the truth.”

  “Well,” she said dejectedly, “suppose he tells the truth. What then?”

  Mason was silent for several seconds. Then he said, “Look here, Mrs. Newberry, I won’t represent your husband in this business.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then,” Mason went on, “we may be able to reach an understanding. I would try to protect Belle if it were definitely understood I wasn’t representing your husband.”

  She faced him then, her eyes showing a glint of hope.

  “Your husband,” Mason pointed out, “has sailed under the name of Newberry. No one on board this ship knows him except as Newberry. On the other hand, he embezzled money from the Products Refining Company under the name of Moar. No one in the Products Refining Company knows him except as Moar. I might be able to capitalize on that. Now then, if I were representing your husband, and tried to patch matters up with the Products Refining Company, someone might claim I was trying to compound a felony. But if I had nothing to do with your husband and was representing you on behalf of Belle, I might be able to work out a deal by which he could make restitution of whatever money he has left and receive in return some concessions. In other words, the company might be willing to cooperate with us, perhaps to the extent of joining in an application for probation, and they would probably agree to keep you and your daughter free from any publicity. If we could do that, do you think your husband would be willing to surrender, confess and make what restitution he could?”

  “He’d do anything to help Belle,” she said. “That’s the only reason he took the money in the first place.”

  Mason said, “If I’m going to handle it that way, I want it distinctly understood I’m not representing your husband. I’m representing you, and you alone. Do you understand that?”

  She nodded.

  “And until I’ve brought matters to a head, I don’t want your husband to even know that I’m working on the case. I don’t want to talk with him. I don’t want him to try to talk with me.”

  “That would be all right,” she said.

  “Have you any idea how much money he has left?”

  “No. He carries it all in a money belt.”

  “Assuming that the original embezzlement was twenty-five thousand dollars, how much do you suppose you’ve spent?”

  “In the last two months we’ve spent more than five thousand dollars,” she said. “I know that for a fact.”