had held onto more for sentimental reasons than for sound business reasons.' Dutton said. 'I divided the money I received into three approximately equal amounts. One third I invested in blue-chip securities; the other I invested in securities which I felt had a strong opportunity for gain; and the remaining third, I used in real estate speculation in communities where I felt there would be development. I turned these properties over at a profit, put them in my own name, pyramided profits, and have netted a quarter of a million dollars.'
'What about taxes?' Mason asked.
'I had the profit-making properties in my own name. I paid the capital gains taxes from the profits.'
'What about annual accountings?'
'I have never made one, and the beneficiary has never asked for one.'
'Hasn't she wanted to know what was happening to her money?'
'She thinks she knows. She thinks she has just about exhausted all the trust funds. I have given her more than two thousand dollars a month for all the period the trust has been in effect.'
'Has she saved any of that?' Mason asked.
'Saved any? Heavens, no! She's spent that and probably has a few IOUs out. She is a pushover for all sorts of worthy and unworthy causes.'
Mason caught Della Street 's eye. 'I see,' he said.
Dutton watched him anxiously. 'I hope you do,' he said.
Mason studied his visitor for a moment, then said, 'You have been guilty of all sorts of legal violations. You have mingled trust funds with your own; you have embezzled property; you have defrauded your client and betrayed your trust.'
'Exactly,' Dutton said. 'I felt, however, that it was the thing to do.'
'And what do you want me to do about all this?' Mason asked.
Dutton said, 'Within three months, the trust will terminate. I have to make an accounting at that time and turn over all of the trust monies to Desere.'
'And I take it,' Mason said, 'you're not going to be able to make restitution.'
'Restitution?' Dutton said in surprise. 'Why, I have the entire fund intact. I have simply kept the properties in my name.'
Mason regarded him thoughtfully. 'Sit down,' he suddenly invited.
'Thank you,' Dutton said, and took a seat.
'Suppose you tell me,' Mason said, 'exactly what was the idea.'
Dutton said, 'I tried to do my best to protect Desere's interests. One hundred thousand dollars is not a great deal of money if you look at it in one way; in another way, it is a very gTeat deal of money.
'At the time of her father's death, the people with whom Desere was running around had long hair, wore beards, had dirty fingernails, were left-wing idealists, and looked down on her as an heiress. They dipped into her money right and left, patronized her and considered her a square. She went overboard trying to live up to their ideals so they'd respect her. They took her money but always looked on her as an outsider. She's a sensitive young woman who was hurt, lonely, and eager to be accepted as one of the crowd.
'Her father thought four years would give her a more mature perspective.'
'And it was to protect her from that type of associate that her father made this spendthrift trust?'
'Yes. He wanted to protect her from herself. Undoubtedly her father's idea was that I would clamp down on the money she was to receive; that I would bring financial pressure to bear to force her to drop her friends and form her friendships from another environment. In fact, he intimated as much to me before his death.'
'Why didn't you do it?' Mason asked.
'Because that would have been the wrong way to play my cards,' Dutton said. 'I realized that if she represented a large sum of money to these individuals, an attempt would be made to exploit her simply to secure a financial advantage. I wanted her friends to believe the trust fund would be exhausted.
'If, on the other hand, I could build up enough speculative profits which she knew nothing about so that I could afford to dish out her money to her with a liberal hand, she would spend it and any prospective fortune hunter would then regard her as a woman who had gone through her inheritance and, as -such, she would be ostracized from the beatnik crowd.'
'And you risked going to jail for this?' Mason asked.
'I want you to keep me from going to jail,' Dutton said. 'While I had taken chances on mingling the trust funds with my own assets, I had always held them in my name as trustee without disclosing the beneficiary of the trust.'
'Suppose you had died?' Mason asked.
'I am in good health. I have no intention of dying in the near future.'
Mason said, 'Every week several hundred persons are slaughtered on the highways in a red harvest. None of these people had any intention of dying when they started out.'
Dutton grinned. 'I am one of those who didn't get killed on a weekend.'
Mason looked at Dutton and said, 'You're a young man.'
'It depends on what you consider young. I consider myself quite mature. I'm thirty-two.'
'And Desere?'
'She'll be twenty-seven in a few months.'
'When you started handling this trust you were still in your late twenties?'
Dutton flushed and said, 'That's right.'
'Do you,' Mason asked suddenly, 'love her that much?'
'What!' Dutton exclaimed, snapping back in the chair and sitting very straight.
Mason said, 'You have your career ahead of you. Apparently, you have a remarkable aptitude in your chosen profession. In order to protect Desere Ellis and keep her from being the victim of fortune hunters, you have jeopardized your entire professional career and apparently haven't gained a thing by it.
'Now you are talking to a lawyer. Lawyers are not noted for being particularly naive, so perhaps you had better tell me the real story.'
Dutton sighed, looked for an embarrassed moment at Della Street, then blurted out, 'All right, I love her. I have always loved her, and I don't want her to know it the way things are now.'
'Why?'
'Because she would never think of me in that way. Her attitude toward me is one she would show to a much older man… Well, I'm sort of a big brother; a species of uncle. I don't talk her language. I don't mingle with the set that appeals to her. At the present time, she regards me only as the custodian of her money. Her set regards me as 'square.''
'Were you so successful four years ago,' Mason asked, 'that Desere's father thought his daughter's financial affairs would be better in your hands than in those of some more experienced and older banker?'
Dutton hesitated.
'Go on,' Mason said.
'All right,' Dutton told him, 'her father wanted to- Well, he liked me. He thought I might have a steadying influence on Desere- She was running with that crazy crowd. She went overboard for a lot of fads and fancies.'
'And her father hoped that if she had to see a lot of you in connection with money matters she'd fall in love with you?'
'I guess that was partly his idea. He wanted to protect her from herself, and he may have had some idea of having her fall in love with me. He knew how I felt toward her.
'Actually, like so many schemes which fail to take human nature into consideration, the thing worked out just the opposite. She thinks of me as a moneygrubber. Our difference in ages has been accentuated.'
'And you've been in love with her for four years?'
'Five.'
'And never told her how you felt?'
'Of course I did. That was more than four years ago.'
'What did she say?'
'She felt sorry for me. She said it was simply that I'd built up a synthetic feeling for her. She said she'd be a younger sister to me if I'd take her on that basis; that if I was going to persist in this crazy idea of being in love
