Mason nodded noncommittally.
“That’s quite all right, Mr. Mason,” she rushed on. “I can take it. But I’m not going to be pushed around.”
“I think,” Mason said, “Miss Leeds has covered the preliminaries. What is the specific point on which you wanted my advice?”
“Mr. Leeds is being blackmailed,” she said.
“How do you know?” Mason asked.
“I was with him day before yesterday,” she said, “when his bank telephoned. Alden — Mr. Leeds — seemed very much disturbed. I heard him say, ‘I don’t care if the check is for a million dollars, go ahead and cash it — and I don’t care if it’s presented by a newsboy or a streetwalker. That endorsement makes the check payable to bearer.’ He was getting ready to slam up the receiver when the man at the other end of the line said something else, and I could hear what it was.”
“What was it?” Mason asked.
She leaned forward impressively. “The cashier at the bank, I suppose it was, said, ‘Mr. Leeds, this young woman is flashily dressed. She’s asking for the twenty thousand dollars in cash.’ ‘That’s the face of the check, isn’t it?’ Leeds asked. The voice said, ‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Leeds. I just wanted to be certain.’ ‘You’re certain now,’ Alden said, and slammed the telephone receiver back into place.
“When he turned away from the telephone, I think he realized for the first time that I had heard his end of the conversation. He seemed to hold his breath for a moment as though thinking rapidly back over what had been said at his end of the line. Then he said to me, ‘Banks are a confounded nuisance. I gave a newsboy a check for twenty dollars last night and put an endorsement on the check that would enable him to cash it without any difficulty. And a bank underling has to start acting officious. You’d think I didn’t know how to run my own business.’”
Phyllis Leeds entered the conversation. “When Emily told me about it,” she said, “I realized right away what a dreadful thing it would be if Uncle Alden had been victimized by swindlers or blackmailers. Uncle Freeman would pounce on it at once as an excuse to show that Uncle Alden couldn’t be trusted to handle his own money.”