Erie Gardner - The Case of the Lazy Lover

Mason shook hands with Overbrook. “It’s a shame we had to disturb you,” he said, “but you know how amnesia victims are. We didn’t dare to wait until tomorrow morning. He might have got up at any time during the night, had no recollection of where he was, and started out into the night.”

“Oh I remember being here, all right,” Fleetwood said. “You can leave me here. I’ll go back tomorrow.”

Mason smiled indulgently. “How did you get here, William?” he asked.

“I walked.”

“From where?”

“The highway.”

“And how did you get to the highway? Did you ride with someone?”

“I hitched a ride.”

“From where?” Mason asked.

Fleetwood met Mason’s eyes with sudden, cold hostility.

“From where?” Mason repeated crisply. “Come on, William, from where?”

“I don’t know,” Fleetwood said doggedly.

“You see,” Mason said to Overbrook, and then added, “I really shouldn’t have done that, but I thought perhaps I could push his mind back to some point where he could begin to remember. Let’s go, Gertie. Come on, William.”

Mason took Fleetwood’s right arm, Gertie his left. They started him for the door.

For a moment, Fleetwood hung back, then sullenly accompanied them.

“I don’t feel you’re my wife,” he blurted to Gertie, as he hesitated for a moment on the front porch.

Gertie laughed nervously and said, “You didn’t last time, either, and then for a while you thought you were living in sin.” She laughed hysterically. “You, after five years of married life! Come on, darling.”

They trooped out to the automobile. The dog, having accepted them now as visitors who had been given the approval of his master, stood to one side, gently wagging his tail. Overbrook, in the doorway, beamed at them with a broad, good-natured smile.

Mason opened the door of the automobile.

Fleetwood hesitated.

Gertie gave him a swift push that sent him scrambling into the machine.

“Come on,” Gertie said. “Don’t think you’re going to get away from me again. You poor darling.”

Mason said to Della Street, “You’d better drive the car, Della,” and climbed in the back seat with Gertie and Fleetwood.

Della Street turned the car, blatted the horn in three quick blasts by way of salute, waved at Overbrook, and started back along the dirt road.

“Just what do you folks want?” Fleetwood asked.

“We want you,” Mason said.

“Well, what right have you got to take me with you? I don’t want to go with you. Let me out of the car!”

Mason said, “Why, William, do you want to leave your wife?”

“She isn’t my wife!”

“How do you know she isn’t?”

Gertie leaned over and kissed him affectionately. “Just wait, darling.”

“Say, what is this?” Fleetwood asked.

Mason said, “Of course, there could be a mistake.”

“I’ll say there’s a mistake!”

“In case you aren’t William Raymond,” Mason said, “then your name is Robert Gregg Fleetwood, and there are a few things the police want you to explain. Now tell me, William, do you think you’re William Raymond, or do you think you’re Robert Gregg Fleetwood?”

“I tell you I don’t know who I am!”

“Well, we’ll do the best we can to straighten you out,” Mason said.

“Who is this Fleetwood?”

“Oh, just another man who disappeared, the victim of amnesia. The police are looking for him.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I’m not going to stay with you until I know who I am. I don’t like the idea of this woman claiming I’m her husband.”

“Do you think you’re Fleetwood?”

“No.”

“Then you must be William Raymond.”

“You stop the car and let me out of here. I guess I have some rights.”

Mason said, “Let’s look at it this way. Either you’re William Raymond or you’re Fleetwood. Now if you think that you’re being abused, we’ll take you right to police headquarters, and you can tell your story there. They’ll have a psychiatrist who will do the best for you. They’ll either hypnotize you or give you a good dose of scopolamine. That’ll start you talking and make you tell the truth. The drug lulls the conscious mind into oblivion and is the same as a hypnosis. It makes the subconscious take over. You’ll answer questions just as a person talking in his sleep will answer questions.”

“I don’t want to go to any police station,” Fleetwood said in sudden panic.

“Well, you’re either going to a police station or going home with Gertie. Just make up your mind which.”

Fleetwood said to Gertie, “Okay. This is a game two can play at. If you want to play married, it’s okay by me. You’re a nice looking dish at that.”

Mason said, abruptly, “Did you murder Bertrand Allred, Fleetwood?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“When did you last see Allred?”

“I don’t know any Allred.”

Mason said, suavely, “Now, this was after you had lost your memory, Fleetwood. Amnesia victims remember everything that happened after their initial loss of memory. In other words, you remember starting out with the woman who said she was your older sister and then you both took her car and drove off — and then you met her husband. Do you remember that?”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“Since when?”

“I don’t have to answer your questions. Who are you, anyway?”

Mason said, “You’d have to answer police questions.”

“Why do you keep calling me Fleetwood?”

“Because you’re either Fleetwood, in which event you’re going to police headquarters; or you’re William Raymond, in which event you’re going home. Now just who do you think you are?”

“I guess I’m William Raymond if this girl says so,” Fleetwood said.

“I certainly should know my own husband,” Gertie said in mock indignation.

“Now, look,” Fleetwood said, suddenly suspicious. “I’m not going through any marriage ceremonies with any woman and I’m not going to register anywhere with any woman as husband and wife. I’m not going to get trapped into any common law marriage, or anything of that sort!”

“Listen to him,” Gertie said reproachfully. “He wants to get away from me. Why, darling, before we were married, you told me I was the only woman in the world for you, that...”

“For God’s sake, will you shut up!” Fleetwood shouted.

“And then, of course,” Mason went on suavely, “if you are Fleetwood, there’s a man by the name of George Jerome who wants to talk with you, and another man named Keith, who is very anxious to get in touch with you. I could probably get myself a piece of change by delivering you to either one of them. Keith, in particular, is very anxious to get in touch with you. Nice fellow, Keith. Do you know him?”

“I don’t know anyone!”

“Now, William, don’t be difficult,” Gertie said chidingly.

“God, but you get in my hair!” Fleetwood said.

“I’m being rebuffed,” Gertie said archly, “and by my own husband. That wasn’t the way you talked five years ago, that moonlit night on the lake, William.”

Della Street reached the paved highway, turned back down the mountains, sent the car gliding smoothly along the curves.

“I could bust my way out of here, you know,” Fleetwood said. “I don’t see anyone who’s going to stop me.”

“Look again,” Mason told him.

“This is kidnaping. You know what that means.”

“It’s not kidnaping. I’ve simply found a victim of amnesia. I’m taking him to police headquarters.”

“Me? Police headquarters?”