“She’s probably been someone’s old-maid aunt who has perhaps lived with her married sister, helped take care of the children until the children grew up, and then found either that her welcome was wearing thin or that she was being used more and more as a servant. So she starts out for herself and she’s completely lost. While she lived with her married sister she had a vicarious sort of life, a man around the house, children to care for, a feeling she was doing something. When she struck out for herself, she became an isolated piece of flotsam on a sea of cold faces.”
“You certainly talk the way Arthur Ansell Ashland writes,” Mason interpolated, “but go on with your story.”
“Someone tells our hypothetical Miss X about my magazine,” Caddo continued. “She puts an ad in, a very diffident ad, using the same old clichés about an unmarried woman of refinement, in the thirties, wishing to correspond with some gentleman whom she will find congenial.
"Now, the gentleman she has in mind is an ideal that exists only in her own mind. He certainly isn’t going to be one who is answering the ads in my magazine.”
“What about the men who answer the ads?”
“There aren’t as many of the men as there are women. There really aren’t enough to go around. Of course, we get lots of answers, but some of them are from practical jokers. It’s quite the thing for pranksters to buy copies of the magazine, write that they’re lonely widowers with large fortunes and good automobiles and things of that sort, and build up a correspondence with some of these women, simply for the purpose of a practical joke. It is, of course, cruel.”
“But each letter nets you twenty-five cents.”
Caddo nodded and said, without enthusiasm, “However, I would like to have the practice discontinued. It’s cruel and it’s bad for my business, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Tell me something about the men who aren’t practical jokers,” Mason said.
“The men are mostly crusty old bachelors who are in love with the dream of a childhood sweetheart who is dead or married to someone else. There are, of course, a sprinkling of glib-tongued adventurers who are interested only in the small savings the women may have put by for a rainy day. In short, Mr. Mason, the men who advertise are all too frequently somewhat spurious. There is, however, one class, and that’s the green-as-grass young swains from the country who are awkward, diffident, and shy. They want to get acquainted and don’t know just how to go about it.”
“And they all build circulation.”
“It all helps.”
“So eventually your hypothetical Miss X will come back to put other ads in your pamphlet?”
“That’s right. I hold her as a steady reader by the stories I run, stories that deal with women who have been misunderstood, who finally meet and marry a man who would be able to sweep a movie queen off her feet.”
“And you charge for those ads?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How much?”
“Ten cents a word, and that includes box rental.”
“You seem to have quite a few of these ads.”
“The business is profitable; in fact, lucrative, quite lucrative!”
“Publication is at irregular intervals, you say?”
“Yes, depending on the number of ads that come in, the return on the ads, and our stock.”
“Why can’t you find out who this heiress is, if she’s genuine?”
“Everyone who puts an ad in the magazine is given a number, and that number represents the box in which messages are placed. These are something like the boxes in a post office. Each one is opened with a key. An advertiser is charged for the ad. Then the box is given to that advertiser for a period of thirty days, with a renewal for sixty or ninety days on the payment of an additional fee. Any person who has the key has access to the box during the period for which the rental is paid. After the rental has expired, the box is closed and the person can either make new arrangements with the office or surrender the box. Letters to out-of-town advertisers, of course, go by mail.
“Now, in the case of this mysterious woman who placed the ad in the paper, the situation is somewhat complicated. As soon as I realized that it was necessary for me to communicate with her, I wrote a letter to her stating the facts of the case and asking her to give me some evidence of her identity and the sincerity of her ad.”
Caddo fished in his pocket and said, “I received rather a sharp letter in reply.”
He handed this letter over to Mason.
It read:
Dear Sir:
I placed an ad with you in good faith. I paid for it and I rented a box for thirty days. I am receiving replies. I chose to make my contacts in this way because I preferred to remain anonymous. I see no reason why I should sacrifice my privacy for your convenience. I can assure you that every statement contained in the ad is true and on that score you have nothing to worry about.
The letter was signed simply: “Miss Box 96.”
“But she comes to the box for replies?” Mason asked.
"She does not. She sends a tight-lipped, hatchet-faced woman who certainly knows her way around.”
“You’re certain this isn’t the one who is posing as the heiress?”
“I think not. I tried to follow her on two occasions. I suppose I was rather amateurish. She certainly told me that I was. She stopped both times, until I had no alternative but to saunter up to her immediate vicinity. Then she gave me a veritable tongue-lashing, told me that I was falling all over my feet. She said she had, in times past, been shadowed by experts and that I was hopelessly inept. It was a blistering bawl-out!”
“How about writing mash letters in answer to her ad?” Mason asked.
“I’ve tried that. The woman seems absolutely uncanny in her ability to spot a phony letter. I have written a dozen different letters, telling her how much I wanted to meet a young woman of her type, that the fact she was an heiress meant nothing to me. I was interested only in her charming personality.”
“And what happened?”
“I got no answers.”
“I take it this young woman is getting quite a lot of letters?”
“Letters!” Caddo exclaimed, moving his hand in a sweeping gesture. “The box is simply jammed with letters! Replies are pouring in.
“And as far as you know, she treats them all the same?”
“Yes. If my own experience is any criterion, she isn’t answering any letters.”
“Then why did she put the ad in the magazine?”
“That is something I simply can’t explain. But she definitely isn’t answering letters. I’ve sent her over a dozen.”
“What do you want me to do?” Mason asked.
“Get me off the spot with these authorities who are demanding that I either produce the woman or recall the magazine.”
Mason thought for a minute and said, “It would probably be cheaper for you to recall the magazine.”
“I don’t want to do it unless I have to. It’s expensive and...”
“It would be less expensive than coming to me.”
“It would also be an admission of guilt,” Caddo said, “and there’s another angle. Suppose this woman is a real heiress? I’ve made an agreement to publish her ad. I recall the magazine. She sues me. Then what?”
Mason said, “Bring me up a dozen copies of your magazine and a check for five hundred dollars. I’ll see what I can do. It will take a little detective work.”
“I’d want some sort of a guarantee,” Caddo said, his eyes narrowing.