The Case of the Blonde Bonanza by Erle Stanley Gardner

will probably be in the elevator with him as he goes down."
    Mason grinned.
    "Quite a promoter," Della Street said.
    Mason nodded. "That damned contract," he said.
    "What about it?"
    "I wish I knew what Boring was after. I wish I knew the reason he drew up that contract in the first place."
    "You don't believe his story about a new type of model and-"
    Mason interrupted to say, "Della, I don't believe one single damn thing about that guy. As far as I'm concerned, even his mustache could be false- Get me that contract, will you, Della? I want to study it once more."
    Della Street brought him the file jacket. Mason took out the contract and read it carefully.
    "Any clues?" Della Street asked.
    Mason shook his head. "I can't figure it out. It's…"
    Suddenly he stopped talking.
    "Yes?" Della Street prompted.
    "Well, I'll be damned!" Mason said.
    "What?" Della Street asked.
    "The red herring is what fooled me," Mason said.
    "And what's the red herring?"
    "The avoirdupois, the diet, the twelve pounds in ten weeks, the curves."
    "That wasn't the real object of the contract?" Della Street asked.
    "Hell, no," Mason said. "That was the window dressing. That was the red herring."
    "All right, go ahead," she said. "I'm still in the dark."
    "Take that out of the contract," Mason said, "and what do you have left? We've seen these contracts before, Della."
    "I don't get it."
    "The missing-heir racket," Mason said.
    Della Street's eyes widened.
    Mason said, "Somebody dies and leaves a substantial estate, but no relatives. No one takes any great interest in the estate at the moment except the public administrator.
    "Then these sharpshooters swoop down on the situation. They start feverishly running down all the information they can get on the decendent. They find that some relatives are living in distant parts, relatives who have entirely lost track of the family connection.
    "So these sharpshooters contact the individual potential heirs and say, "Look here. If we can uncover some property for you which you didn't know anything at all about, will you give us half of it? We'll pay all the expenses, furnish all the attorneys" fees out of our share. All you have to do is to accept your half free and clear of all expenses of collection."
    "But who's the relative in this case?" Della Street asked. "Dianne's family is pretty well accounted for. Her father died, and all of the estate, such as it was, was distributed to her mother, and then her mother died, leaving everything to Dianne."
    "There could be property inherited from the more remote relatives," Mason pointed out. "That's where these sharpies make their money."
    "Then why would he quit making the payments to her and forfeit all right to her share of the money?"
    "Either because he found out she wasn't entitled to it," Mason said, "or because he's found another angle he can play to greater advantage."
    "And if he has?" Della Street asked.
    "Then," Mason said, "it's up to us to find out what he's doing, block his play and get the inheritance for Dianne, all without paying him one thin dime."
    "Won't that be quite a job?" Della Street asked.
    "It'll be a terrific job," Mason said. "We're going to have to get hold of Dianne and start asking her about her family on her father's side and her mother's side, her cousins, aunts, second cousins, uncles and all the rest of it. Then we've got to start running down each person to find out where they're located, when they died, how they died, where they died, what estate was probated and all the rest of it.
    "There is, however, one method of short-cutting the job."
    "What's that?"
    "By shadowing Boring, checking back on where he's been, what he's been doing, and, if possible, with whom he's corresponding-and that's a job for Paul so we'll let Paul wrestle with it until he gets a lead.
    "Come on, Della, let's close up the office and forget about business for a change. We may as well call it a day."
    Della Street nodded.
    Mason opened the exit door,