“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 fan-mail 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.