The Case of the Troubled Trustee Read Free

Mason said. "I want to talk with her."
    "Why?"
    "Someone has to tell her that there is more money coming to her at the termination of the trust than she had anticipated, and someone has to tell her why. If you try to tell her, you have to sketch yourself its a heel. If I tell her, I may be able to put you in the position of a hero."
    "Look here," Dutton said, "you can't tell her how 1 feel toward her. You can't-"
    "Don't be foolish," Mason interrupted. "I'm riot running a matrimonial agency; I'm running a law office. You're going to pay me to keep you out of trouble. I want to keep you out of trouble.
    "Your love life is none of my business except as it affects the job I have to do."
    Dutton took a checkbook from his pocket and started writing a check.

Chapter Two
    Mason entered his private office the next morning to find Della Street opening the morning mail. He stood for a few moments watching her with appreciative eyes.
    "Thanks," he said abruptly.
    She looked up in surprise. "For what?"
    "For just being," Mason said. "For being so much a part of things, so completely efficient and… and all the rest of it."
    "Thank you," she said, her eyes suddenly soft.
    "Any progress?"
    "On what?" she asked.
    "Come, come," Mason said, smiling. "Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes. On the romance, of course."
    "The Dutton case?"
    "Exactly."
    "Nothing so far," she said. "Give the man a little time."
    "He may not have as much time as he thinks," Mason said, seating himself in the client's overstuffed chair and watching Della Street's smoothly graceful figure as she stood at the desk opening letters, putting them in three pilesthe urgent on the left-hand corner of the desk, the personal-answer-required in the middle, and the general run-of-the-mill for secretarial attention on the right.
    "Want some advice?" she asked.
    Mason grinned. "That's why I brought the subject up."
    She said, "You can't play Dan Cupid."
    "Why not?"
    "You don't have the build. You wear too many clothes, and you lack a bow and arrow."
    Mason grinned. "Keep talking."
    "Sometimes," Della Street said, choosing her words carefully as though she had rehearsed them, "a woman will be close to a man for a long time, seeing him in the part in which he has cast himself and, unless he makes some direct approach, not regarding him as a romantic possibility."
    "And under those circumstances?" Mason asked.
    "Under those circumstances," Della Street said, "nature gave the male the prerogative of taking the initiative; and if he isn't man enough to take it, it is quite possible the girl will never see him as a romantic possibility."
    "Go on," Mason told her.
    "But the one thing that would definitely wreck everything would be for someone else to try and take the intiative on behalf of this individual."
    "Longfellow, I believe, commented on that in the poem dealing with John Alden and Priscilla," Mason said.
    Della Street nodded.
    "All right," Mason told her, "I've been forewarned. You want me to keep my bungling masculine touch under cover, is that it?"
    The phone on Della Street's desk rang.
    She flashed him a quick smile, picked up the receiver and said, "Yes, Gertie," to the receptionist.
    She said, "Wait a moment. Hold on, Gertie, I'll see." Della Street turned to Perry Mason. "Desere Ellis is in the office," she said.
    Mason grinned. "Let's take a look, Della."
    "Just a moment," Della Street said. "She is accompanied by a Mr. and Mrs. Heclley, apparently a mother and son."
    "They are all three of them together?" Mason asked.
    Della Street nodded. "As Gertie whispered confidentially, the mother is a determined creature with a rattrap mouth and monkey eyes; and the son is pure beatnik with a beard and a cool-cat manner which makes her flesh crawl. You know how Gertie is and how she loves to make snap appraisals of clients."
    "And generally she's right," Mason said. "Have Gertie send the three of them in."
    Della Street relayed the message, then went to the door communicating