Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Curious Bride

"A yellow finally pulled in to the curb for her. Evidently she never figured on being followed. She didn't even bother to look out of the rear window as the cab pulled away. I started the crate and jogged along behind, nice and easy, not taking any chances on losing her. She came to this place and paid off the cab. She was wide open.

"When she started to go in the hotel, however, she seemed to get a little bit suspicious. It didn't look so much as though she suspected she'd been followed, as though she was doing something she shouldn't. She looked up and down the street, hesitated and then ducked into the hotel.

"I was afraid to crowd her too closely, and by the time I hit the lobby, she'd gone on up. The elevator was at the second floor. I figured she'd left it there. There were just the usual bunch of barflies hanging around the lobby, so I took the stairs to the second floor, went over there in the shadows by the fire escape and sat tight, watching the corridor. I guess it was ten minutes later that she opened the door of this room, stood in the corridor for a minute, pulling the old business of looking up and down, and then started for the stairs. She didn't take the elevator.

"I marked the room, let her get a good start, and then went on down after her. She didn't take a cab this time, and I had a little trouble picking her up. She'd rounded the corner before I found her. She was walking down to the carline. She took a surface car that would take her to within a block of the Balboa Apartments at seven twentyone West Ordway. So I figured it was a safe bet she was just economizing on cab fare and that I could come back and spot the bird she'd been talking with. That was where I pulled the prize bonehead play of the day."

"Why?" asked Mason. "Did he recognize you?"

"New, he didn't recognize me. I was sitting on top of the heap, if I hadn't tried to get too smart."

"Well, go on," Mason prompted impatiently. "Let's have it."

"Well, I came back to the hotel, climbed the stairs and knocked on the door of the room. A big guy came to the door. He was in his shirt sleeves. There was a suitcase on the bed that he'd been packing. It was one of those cheap, bigbellied suitcases that the country merchandise stores feature, and it was pretty well sunbleached, as though it had been in a show window on display or had been left out in the sun somewhere. The guy was about thirty years old, with heavymuscled shoulders as though he'd been pitching hay all of his life. Somehow though, I didn't figure him so much for a ranch hand, as for a garage mechanic. Maybe it was just a hunch, but there was grime worked into his hands, and something about the way he kept his sleeves rolled up that spelled garage to me.

"He looked pretty hostile and just a little bit scared, so I smirked at him and said, 'When your partner comes in, tell him that I've got some stuff that's way ahead of this blended caramel water the drug stores are passing out; and the price is right. He wanted to know what I was talking about, and I pulled the old stall about being a bootlegger who had been selling the place and I'd sold a guy who had the room two or three weeks ago, a fellow who told me he was going to be there permanently, so I figured this guy was a roommate."

"Did he fall for it?" asked Perry Mason.

"I think he was falling for it, all right," Spear said, "but all the time I was sizing him up, and I saw that he had the same peculiar eyes, the same long, catfish mouth that the woman had I'd trailed over there. I'd got a good look at her when she paid off the cab driver. There couldn't be any mistaking that long upper lip and those eyes."

"You figure this guy was her brother?" Mason asked.

"Sure he was her brother, and I figured I was going to pull a fast one. I remembered that her name had been Pender and that she came from Centerville. I could see that this bird wasn't going to do anything except listen to me sing my song and then slam the door in my face. I figured that if I could pull a good line on him, he'd take me into his confidence and loosen up. It was just one of those hunches that go across like a million dollars when they go across, and get you patted on the back as being a smart guy; and when they don't go across, they look like hell and get you fired. I didn't have time to think it over. I just played the hunch. I let my face light up with recognition and said, 'Why, say, don't you come from Centerville?

"He looked at me sort of strange and gulped a couple of times and said, 'Who are you? , and I got a grin all over my face and said, 'Now I place you. Hell's bells, your name's Pender! , and with that I stuck out my hand."

"What did he do?"

"There," said Danny Spear, "is where he fooled me. There's where he slipped one over on me."

"Go ahead," Mason said.

"I played him for a hick," Spear remarked ruefully, "and what a dumb boob I was! I was watching him like a hawk to see how he'd take it. For a moment, he was flabbergasted as though I'd knocked him off of the Christmas tree, and then all of a sudden his face lit up into a smile, and he started pumping my hand up and down, and said, 'Sure, buddy, I remember you now. Come in.

"Well, he kept hold of my right hand with his right hand and pulled me in the door. He was grinning like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. He kicked the door shut with his left foot, pumped my hand up and down two or three times, said, 'How are all the folks back home? and crossed his left over to my eye with a sock that damn near put me out. He let go of my right hand then, and smacked me one in the kisser that smashed me back up against the closet door. I bounced back just in time to connect with one in the solar plexus that took all the joy out of life. I remember something coming up and smacking me in the face, and realized it was the dirty carpet."

"What did he do?" asked Perry Mason.

"Tore a pillowslip into pieces, stuck some rags down my mouth, tied my hands and feet, opened the closet door and stuffed me inside."

"Were you out?"

"Not clean out, but groggy. Don't make any mistake whether I'd been out or not, there was no percentage in fighting that boy. He handled his fists just like the girl in your office handles the keys on the switchboard. Why, say, he juggled me around in the air like a Jap juggler tossing billiard balls."

"Go on," Mason said.

"After I was in the closet, he put on an act," Danny Spear went on ruefully, "and I'm damned whether I know if it was an act or not. Of course, when I saw what I was up against, I played 'possum and went limp as though I was out for keeps. I figured I might be able to twist my wrists a little and get some slack on the tie, so I pulled a dead flop. He tossed me in the closet as though I'd been a sack of grain he was putting in the barn. He closed the door and twisted the bolt—and, brother, let me tell you there's a strong bolt. It freezes that door into a wall as solid as a rock."

"What was the act he put on?" Mason asked curiously.

"Well, he went ahead with the packing up, and, believe me, he was in a hurry. He slammed open drawers and banged things into the suitcase and ran back and forth between the bed and the bureau like a rooster on a hot stove. About every two minutes he'd stop and call Garvanza threeninefouraughtone. He'd hold the phone for a minute or two and there wouldn't be any answer."

"That's the number of the Balboa Apartments," Mason said.

Danny Spear said, "I know it. He kept calling that number and asking for Miss Freeman."

"There was an answer then?"

"Yeah. Somebody answered at the other end all right, and he'd ask for Miss Freeman and wait awhile and then hang up. The closet door was pretty thin. I could hear every move he made and every word he said.

"What I'm getting at is that I don't know whether he knew I was listening and put on an act for my benefit, or whether he thought I was out, and was just talking, or whether he didn't give a damn one way or the other."