Free The Case of the Horrified Heirs by Erle Stanley Gardner

careful," Mason warned, "not to let this chauffeur know that you have any idea who he is. Be naпve, but let him feel that if he has any proposition to make you could be tempted."
    Virginia Baxter flashed him a smile and left the office.
    Della Street gently closed the door.
    "You think this chauffeur is going to be back?" Drake asked.
    "If he didn't get what he wanted," Mason said, "he'll be back. We have two people looking for a paper, and since the paper that we think they're looking for doesn't seem to be in the files, the probabilities are that one of them has already found it. Therefore, the other will be back."
    "Just how significant is all of this?" Drake asked.
    "I'll tell you," Mason said, "when we get the samples of hair and fingernails from Lauretta Trent. A person can't rely on a copy of the will unless two things have happened."
    "What two things?" Drake asked.
    "First, the original will is missing. Second, the person who executed it is dead."
    "You think it's that serious?" Drake asked.
    "I think it's that serious," Mason said, "but my hands are tied until we get a check on that arsenic factor.
    "Go back to your office, Paul, alert your telephone operator and have things in readiness so that you can have a man out at Virginia Baxter's place at a moment's notice."

CHAPTER TEN
    The man with the black hair, the close-clipped mustache and the black, intense eyes was waiting in a car that was parked in front of Virginia Baxter's apartment house.
    Virginia spotted the car first, recognized the driver sitting there concentrating on the front door of the apartment house and breezed on by without attracting any attention.
    From a service station four blocks down the street, she telephoned Mason's office.
    "He's out there, waiting," she said, when she had the lawyer on the line.
    "The same man who called on you before?" Mason asked.
    "Yes."
    "All right," Mason said, "go on home; see what he wants; make an excuse to break away if you can and call me."
    "Will do," she said. "You'll probably hear from me within the next twenty or thirty minutes."
    She hung up the phone, drove back to her apartment house, parked her car and entered the front door, apparently completely oblivious of the man who was seated in the parked automobile across the street.
    Within a matter of minutes after she had entered her apartment house, the buzzer sounded.
    She saw to it that the safety chain was on the door, then opened it to confront the intense, black eyes.
    "Why, hello, Mr. Menard," she said. "Did you find what you wanted?"
    The man tried to make his smile affable. "I'd like to talk with you about it. May I come in?"
    She hesitated a brief instant, then said cordially, "Why, certainly," and released the chain on the door.
    He entered the apartment, seated himself, said, "I'm going to put my cards on the table."
    She raised her eyebrows.
    "I wasn't looking for an agreement made with Smith and relating to the sale of a machine shop," he said. "I was looking for something else."
    "Can you tell me what?" she asked.
    "Some years ago," he said, "Mr. Bannock made at least one will for Lauretta Trent. I'm under the impression he made two wills.
    "Now then, for reasons that I don't want to take the time to go into at the present time, it is highly important that we find those wills. At least, the latest one."
    Virginia let her face show surprise. "But-but I don't understand… Why, we only had the carbon copies. Mrs. Trent would have the original wills in her safety deposit box or somewhere."
    "Not necessarily," he said.
    "But what good would a copy do?"
    "There are other people who are interested."
    She raised her eyebrows.
    "There is one person in particular who is willing to do anything to get his hands on a copy of the will. Now, I would like to lay a trap for that individual."
    "How?"
    "I believe you purchased the typewriter that you had used in the office?"
    "Yes. That is, Mr. Bannock's brother gave it to me."
    He indicated the typewriter on