“Not a thing,” she said, “except what I’ve told you, and Aunt Sophia refuses to have anything to do with Bernice. She says that Bernice can keep her money, that money doesn’t mean happiness, that Bernice is just a greedy, coldblooded, money-grabbing parasite and that if she wants money bad enough she can keep the whole thing.”

  “But that leaves your aunt wiped out?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Mason. One of the things.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason invited.

  “I discovered, after coming here and talking with my aunt, that she had turned all her ready cash over to Gerald Atwood, and his death had left her pretty well wiped out. Aunt Sophia didn’t say anything about sending me back to college for a law degree—which was what I wanted—and I didn’t say anything.

  “Then things began to happen and … well, frankly, Mr. Mason, I don’t want to live in that house any longer than I have to, and in order to get out, I have to have a job and be independent.”

  “What things happened?” Mason asked.

  “Mysterious things,” she said. “Things that bother me and—things that frighten me.”

  “Go on,” Mason invited.

  “Aunt Sophia is one of the most penurious women I know—in certain respects.”

  “In her dealings with you?” Mason asked.

  “In her dealings with me and in her dealings with others. I have a room, a place to stay I have board, and that’s it. I couldn’t carry on my work in college because I have no transportation, no clothes except the ones I brought with me. In other words, without some outside help, continuing with college was impossible.”

  “Go on,” Mason said.

  “Well, I started out with the feeling that Aunt Sophia was fairly well off. The house certainly is spacious and comfortable. She has a gardener to take care of the outside, and she gets around to do the housekeeping herself. She won’t have a housekeeper in the place —says they don’t do an hour’s real work in half a day.”

  “So you started helping out with the housekeeping?” Mason asked.

  Kit nodded.

  “And then?” Mason asked.

  “Then,” she said, “I almost starved to death.”

  “How come?”

  “Aunt Sophia would take the papers and study the ads for the specials at the big food markets. If she could save three cents on a pound of butter at one store, five cents on a pound of bacon at another, she’d go from one to the other buying just the specials that were advertised for that day.

  “And the food she served at the table was just about enough to keep a bird alive. I was terribly hungry most of the time.”

  “So you decided to go to work?” Mason asked.

  “I decided to go to work and that would give me an excuse to have my lunches out, so I could at least have one good meal a day.”

  “Go on,” Mason said.

  “I encountered the same trouble here that I’d had back East. I had a classical education, but I had absolutely no experience.”

  “Most girls lie about their experience in order to get their first job,” Mason said, watching her closely.

  “I don’t lie, Mr. Mason.”

  “You told prospective employers the literal truth?”

  She nodded.

  “Go ahead,” Mason said.

  “I told them the truth and I didn’t get to first base. I told them I was willing to learn on the job, but I needed enough for bus fare, for lunch money, for routine expenses—and by the time a girl keeps herself well-groomed with her hair, her stockings, her clothes, shoes—well, it takes money.”

  Mason nodded.

  “So,” she said, “I wound up getting a job as a waitress at Madison’s place and mighty glad to get it.

  “I don’t know all the tricks of the trade yet, I don’t know how to get a big tip out of the average customer, but I try to do a good job, and I let people know I’m trying. And, of course, one nice thing is that I get my meals. In fact, I can gorge myself if I want, and believe me I wanted for the first few days. I just never was so hungry in my life.”

  “Madison is satisfied with your work?” Mason asked.

  “Heavens, I don’t know that he knows that I’m alive, but the headwaiter who runs the dining room is all right. I have a horrible feeling that sooner or later he’s going to make a pass and that my job may depend on things I don’t like to think about, but right now everything’s okay.”

  “Those are occupational hazards,” Mason said, his eyes twinkling, “that an attorney can’t do much about. Why did you come to me, Miss Ellis?”

  “Actually,” she said, “it was on the spur of the moment. When you and Miss Street came into the restaurant yesterday and one of the girls pointed you out as the famous attorney, I… Well, I bought you. I gave the waitress who had your table seventy-five cents for the privilege of taking over.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know what I had in mind, but I do know that somebody squealed to Mr. Madison, and he started watching me like a hawk. I guess waitresses are not supposed to bother customers with personal problems, and one can very readily see the reason for that.”

  Mason nodded.

  “But,” she said, “you were intuitive and so perfectly wonderful, I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”

  “That’s all right,” Mason said, “but I’m interested in the reason back of all this.”

  “The reason back of this is that Aunt Sophia is some kind of a high-powered fraud and is living a lie, and it bothers me.”

  “Yes?” Mason prompted.

  “She goes from one food market to another picking up the special that’s been advertised in the paper, saving a few cents on her daily grocery bill, but the point is she goes from one food mart to another by taxicab, has the driver wait while she’s shopping. Her cab bill must be simply enormous.”

  Mason’s eyes glinted with sudden interest. “Aside from that she seems normal?” he asked.

  “No, she doesn’t,” Kit said. “She has a closet in her bedroom and the top shelf has a row of hatboxes. She keeps the door of that closet locked and … I feel terrible about this, Mr. Mason.”

  Mason smiled. “You mean your curiosity was aroused and you wanted to see what was inside of that closet?”

  “After I found out about the taxicabs,” she said, “I became terribly curious about the closet. There’s a spring lock on there and she always keeps it locked.

  “Well, remember I help with the housework. A couple of mornings ago when I went in to clean her bedroom while she was out, I found the closet door unlocked.”

  “So you peeked in?”

  “I didn’t peek. I went right inside with the portable vacuum cleaner. That part of it was all right, but there was a whole stack of hatboxes on the shelf and I wondered why Aunt Sophia would have all that collection of hats.

  “That’s where my feminine curiosity got the better of me, and I opened the box on the end to see what the hat looked like.

  “The box was full of money.”

  “How much money?”

  “I don’t know—a lot. The bills were in fifties and hundreds.”

  “What about the other boxes?”

  “I don’t know. I put the lid back on the box I’d opened and got out of there, and when I did I closed the door and the spring lock snapped shut.

  “Now, then, Mr. Mason, that’s what bothers me. There may be a fortune in money in that house, and if burglars should find out about it—well, two women living alone that way … And then I’m worried about Aunt Sophia. You know what happens when a person starts saving money like that. It usually means they’re cheating on the income tax, and if Aunt Sophia is well fixed and has been building up a supply of money on which she has been paying no tax, something will be done about it sooner or later.”

  “With an elderly woman,” Mason said, “I think the authorities would make an allowance. Many elderly people are …”

  “But she’s not like that. She’s not elderly. She’s only fifty-five and she’s a very attractive fifty-five at that. To see her face you’d think she was in her forties, but she dresses old.”

  “How did you find out about the taxicabs?” Mason asked.

  “I was at one of the food stores, because when she’d been reading the ad in the paper about a special sale on bacon, I had seen something in the appliance department that I had wanted, so I got off my bus and was just ready to enter the store when a taxicab drove up and out stepped Aunt Sophia, apparently telling the driver to wait.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I faded into the background and waited. Aunt Sophia was gone a good ten minutes and then she came out with a single package, presumably a pound of bacon. She put that in the taxicab and drove off. The cab went sufficiently close to me so that I could see that there were other packages in there on the seat.”

  “She doesn’t use the taxicab to go and come?” Mason asked.

  “Heavens, no, she leaves on the bus and she comes back on the bus with a shopping bag filled with her bargains.”

  “Is this all that caused you to want to talk with me?” Mason asked.

  She said, “Mr. Mason, I want your advice. I don’t want Aunt Sophia to think I’m running out on her, but I don’t think I should stay there in that house under all the circumstances.”

  “Why would your aunt feel that you were running out on her, Katherine?” Mason asked.

  “Well, she’s facing things all alone. My father was her brother. He was the only living relative, aside from me. I’m all that she has left. She’s had severe tragedies in her life. I feel sorry for her.”

  “What happened to the Palm Springs house?” Mason asked abruptly.

  “Bernice is living in it. She applied for letters of administration as the surviving widow.”

  “There was no will?”

  “Of course, there was a will,” Katherine Ellis said. “It was in the office in the Palm Springs house, and Bernice got her hands on it and burned it.”

  “Gerald Atwood left no other relatives?”

  “No. Bernice has a son by a prior marriage, Hubert Deering. There are no other children, no relatives, and Bernice is just determined to take the whole thing. She swears the property, which actually was acquired by Gerald Atwood with money that Sophia gave him to invest, is community property.”

  “Has Sophia contested Bernice’s claim?”

  “Sophia is keeping quiet like a little mouse,” Katherine said, “and I don’t like it. She acts as though she had an ace up her sleeve somewhere, but she’s just going along living a drab life, saying nothing and living in that horrible two-and-a-half-story haunted house.”

  “Haunted?” Mason asked.

  Katherine Ellis lowered her eyes. “I wasn’t going to say anything about that.”

  “Haunted houses are a hobby of mine,” Mason said, his eyes showing his interest. “If the house is haunted, I’d like to know about it. What do you hear—moans, groans, squeaking steps at night, or … ”

  “Steps at night.”

  “What kind of steps?”

  “Walking steps where a person simply couldn’t be walking.”

  “Why not?”

  “Climbing up and down stairs,” Katherine Ellis said, “with sure steps walking through pitch-dark corridors, all without the faintest ray of light. Then sibilant whisperings then more steps and … ”

  “Perhaps your Aunt Sophia has some clandestine visitor,” Mason said.

  “Not in the dead of night and in pitch-darkness. I’ve surreptitiously opened my door enough so I can see the place is in complete darkness.”

  Mason thought for a moment, then said, “Very frankly, Katherine, I don’t like it. I don’t like any part of the situation in which you find yourself. I think you had better get out.”

  “When?”

  “Now,” Mason said. “Get out while the getting’s good.”

  “What will I tell Aunt Sophia? Will I tell her that I found out she was keeping a huge sum of money and …”

  “Tell her nothing of the sort,” Mason said. “Simply tell her that you’ve decided to get an apartment with a girl of your own age.”

  “But that will take time and it may require more money than I’m making. After all, we make the biggest part of our income from tips, and, believe me, getting a good tip from a customer is something of an art.”

  Mason said, “All that can come later, but I want you out of there now!”

  “What do you mean ‘now’?”

  “What time do you go to work?”

  “Today I go to work at eleven-thirty, work until three-thirty then I’m off until five o’clock when I go on and work until nine.”

  “You don’t go home just for the short time off in the afternoon?”

  “No, there’s a sort of a rest room and lounge for the waitresses who are off duty, where we can have slant boards and put our feet up, take a shower, lie around and relax and take a nap on a sofa.”

  Mason said, “When you get off at nine o’clock, go home. Pack up your things. Get out.”

  “Where will I go? I can’t…”

  “Go to a motel. Get out of that house,” Mason said. “It’s dangerous. Not only is it dangerous because the money that is in there may be tempting to outsiders, but if anything should happen to it, you would be the first prime suspect.

  “Quite evidently your Aunt Sophia has been less than frank with you. She’s been nice to you, you owe her a certain amount of loyalty, but I think you’ve discharged your obligation. Anyway, you have yourself to think of.”

  She said, “I was thinking about getting a detective to shadow Aunt Sophia and see where she goes and perhaps find out…”

  Mason shook his head. “A detective would cost you fifty dollars a day and expenses. You can’t afford it and you can’t afford to have your aunt Sophia ever find you were . , . No, get out! Telephone your aunt that you’ve decided to make other arrangements and that you’re moving out tonight. I take it you don’t have a great many personal belongings?”

  “Very few. I left my home with virtually nothing except the clothes I had on and some simple traveling outfits. I have two suitcases and a handbag. I deliberately cut everything down so that I could travel light. I have a couple of cartons of intimate family things coming by freight, and by the time they get here I can afford to pay for storage. I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to have to get accustomed to living without a lot of money and a lot of worldly possessions.”

  Mason said, “Get out of that house just as soon as you decently can. Leave a note with Miss Street here, giving her your aunt’s name and address and when you get located, presumably at a motel for the night, telephone and let me know where you are.”

  “I can reach you after office hours?”

  Mason thought for a moment, then said, “You can reach me through the Drake Detective Agency. That’s run by Paul Drake. That outfit does all my investigative work. They’re in the building here with us, on the same floor and …”

  “Yes, I noticed the name on the door as I left the elevator. It was that that gave me the idea of trying to find out something about what really is back of Aunt Sophia’s peculiar conduct.”

  “Forget it,” Mason said. “You’ve given me your problem you’re going to follow my advice. Ring up your aunt, tell her you’re going to move this evening, and then when you go back from work, have your things packed up, get a taxicab and go to a motel. What’s the address where Aunt Sophia is living?”

  Katherine Ellis took a card from her pocket and handed it to Mason. “I had these printed,” she said, “when I was applying for jobs.”

  Mason studied the address. “There are some very good motels about half a mile or a mile farther down the boulevard, and I think your same bus line runs right on past them. But don’t bother with a bus—you’ll have baggage and it’ll be night. Don’t go standing around on the streets waiting for a bus. Get a taxicab. You have money enough for that?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “What does your aunt look like?” Mason asked casually.

  “She’s five foot three in her mid-fifties, but could pass for forty-five medium size good figure steely gray eyes chestnut hair weight about a hundred and eighteen—a smart-looking woman if she wants to dress up, but she likes to dress old and talk old.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “telephone and let me know when you get settled so I’ll know where you are.”

  Chapter 3

  When Katherine Ellis had left the office, Mason regarded Della Street quizzically. “Now then,” he said, “why the devil should a woman study the newspapers to find where she can save three cents on a pound of butter or five cents on a pound of bacon, and then go shopping from one market to another using a taxicab and having the taxicab wait, at a cost of three or four dollars an hour, while she’s making her bargain purchases? Then why should she have the taxicab deposit her at a bus line, wait for a bus and finish up the last lap of her journey on a bus?”

  Della Street shook her head. “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “It’s quite obvious to me,” Mason said, “that this Sophia Atwood is playing a rather deep game. Give Paul Drake a ring and ask him to come in.”

  “Chief,” Della Street protested, “you aren’t going to try to…”

  “Yes, I am,” Mason interposed. “Our client is mixed up in something deep and potentially dangerous. For all we know the whole scheme of having her come to live with Aunt Sophia may have been to get what the confidence men call a patsy, or a fall guy.

  “One of the bad things about the administration of justice is that it takes money to make the wheels go around. Katherine Ellis doesn’t have the money to do the things she needs for her own protection. We’re going to do some of them for her.

  “A lawyer has a duty to his clients. I can afford to hire a detective. Kit Ellis can’t.”

  “Chief,” Della Street charged, “you had all this in mind when you asked Katherine Ellis to describe her aunt in detail.”

  Mason grinned. “No use trying to keep secrets from a secretary,” he said. “All right, you read my mind. Tell Paul to come in.”