The Case of the Horrified Heirs by Erle Stanley Gardner Page A

that the person didn't find what he was looking for."
    "I never thought of that," she said.
    "You're going back to Julian Bannock's?"
    "Yes, I'm taking some cardboard cartons and am going back and I'll try to make some semblance of order out of those files."
    "All right," Mason said, "by the time you get back there, we'll find out something about your man who is interested in the files… Now, tell me, Virginia, what about wills?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "When Bannock would prepare a will it would usually be executed there in the office?"
    "Yes."
    "Who would be the subscribing witnesses?"
    "Oh, I see what you mean. He would usually sign as one of the subscribing witnesses and I would sign as the other witness."
    "And you had a classification of various wills? In other words, you had a file number designating wills that you had executed in the office?"
    "Oh, yes, I see what you mean now. Files numbered five thousand to six thousand were wills."
    "All right," Mason said, "when you go back take a look at the five to six thousand 'will' file. See how intact it is. Tie that file up and bring it here just as fast as you can make it."
    "Why that file in particular?" she asked.
    Mason said, "Bannock has been dead for a few years. Most of the agreements and things that he had drawn would no longer be important, but if some relative wanted to find out what was in a certain will-"
    "I get you," she interrupted excitedly. "Why didn't I think of that. Of course, that's what it is."
    "Don't jump to conclusions," Mason warned. "This is just a thought, but I think we'd better take precautions."
    "I'm going right back," she promised, "and I'll keep that file of wills with me. I'll leave the other papers for a later trip."
    Mason said, "If anything else happens that is in any way out of the ordinary, give me a ring. In the meantime, I'm going to find out something about this visitor of yours."
    Virginia promised to report anything new that happened; hung up the telephone; went to a supermarket, secured two cartons and then returned to Julian Bannock's place.
    She found Bannock apprehensive.
    "What's the matter?" she asked. "Did something else happen about those files?"
    "You hadn't been gone five minutes," he said, "when a fellow showed up here who fitted the description you had given me of the man you thought was here. He was in his late forties or early fifties, had a mustache and eyes that were so dark you couldn't see any expression in them. It was like looking at a pair of black, polished stones."
    "That was the man all right," she said. "What did he want?"
    "Said his name was Smith, and he asked about my brother's files."
    "What did you do?"
    "I told him that we weren't letting people look at those files. He said it was important and I told him that he could sit right here and wait; that my brother's secretary was going to be here in an hour or so and that he could wait for her."
    "What happened?"
    "That gave him a jolt-knowing that you were coming here. He said he couldn't wait."
    "Were you able to get his license number?" she asked eagerly.
    "No, I wasn't," Julian said, "because he'd plastered mud all over it. There's a place up here where irrigating water sometimes runs over the road and there was quite a puddle up there that he'd gone through, but it wasn't mud that would cover a license number. I think he'd got out and deliberately plastered mud on the license."
    "Well," Virginia said, "I'm going to get at those files, tie them up again and I think I'd better take some of them with me, if you have no objection."
    "Take them all if you want," he said. "I can't be here all the time and if there's anything important in those papers, people could sneak in while I'm out in the fields someplace and get hold of them."
    She asked, "Have you ever heard of Perry Mason, the attorney?"
    "I'll say I have. I've read a lot about him."
    "Well," Virginia said, "he's my lawyer. He's advising me, and I'm going to get in touch with him and do exactly as