Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Long-Legged Models

A moment later the door literally burst open and young Garvin came striding into the office.

“What the hell are you trying to do, Mason?” he shouted.

Mason said, “Sit down, Junior, take a load off your feet, and off your mind. Suppose you tell me what’s the reason for all this outburst.”

“I want to know what the hell you’re trying to do dragging my wife’s good name through all this muck and mire.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was dragging your wife’s good name through the muck and mire.”

“Well, everybody else is aware of it, even if you’re not.”

“Precisely what did I do?” Mason asked.

“You have made her the number one suspect in the killing of George Casselman.”

“How?”

“By getting me to take that gun up to Stephanie Falkner. Damn it, Mason, I don’t intend to stand for that. I’m going to hold you strictly responsible both as an attorney and as a man. You’re going to account to me legally and unless you can give me some satisfactory explanation, I’m going to bust you in the puss before I get out of here.”

Mason regarded the younger man with steely-eyed scorn. “So you think it would do some good to bust me in the puss, as you express it?”

“It would give me the greatest personal satisfaction,” Garvin told him.

“It might also get you a broken jaw,” Mason said. “The point is, however, would it do your wife any good? Would it do your case any good? You let the newspapers get the idea that you’re having trouble with me over this thing and you’ll really make a story of it.”

“They’ve made a story out of it anyway.”

“No, they haven’t,” Mason said. “They won’t dare to publish the full implications with the full sensational embroidery unless you give them a peg on which they can hang a lot of innuendos. Now either sit down and tell me calmly what this is all about, or else get the hell out of the office and let me try to figure the thing out.”

Garvin took a couple of steps toward Mason’s desk, paused uncertainly before the look in the lawyer’s eyes, detoured a little to the side, and propped one hip against a corner of the big desk.

“Dawn worked in Las Vegas,” he said angrily. “Casselman knew her and...”

“Now I take it Dawn is your wife?” Mason asked.

“Yes, Dawn Joyce. Casselman knew her and Casselman was always on the prowl. A girl in that kind of work gets hungry for real friendships. The tourists come and go. The transients make passes at her, and that’s all they’re thinking about.

“Casselman was a local man. He was friendly, and... well, Dawn liked him.”

“They had dates?” Mason asked.

“Apparently so.”

“Did she know he was here in town?” Mason asked.

“She knew he was here. After the write up in the paper — well, Casselman called her, just a social call, just a matter of wishing her every happiness in the world.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Mason said.

“The hell of it is,” Garvin said, “in the apartment where Casselman lived police found a notebook by the telephone with some numbers in it. He’d written down Dawn’s telephone number, and she’d written down his unlisted number. It was on a pad by her phone.”

“Anything else?” Mason asked tonelessly.

“Tuesday night, when Casselman was killed,” Garvin said, “I had to go out to interview a car dealer about taking twenty used cars off his hands. He was stuck with them and he knew it. He wanted to get his money out of the old cars so he could put it into new merchandise. It looked like a good opportunity for me to make a appointment with him.”

“You had an appointment with him?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“Don’t bother about that,” Garvin said angrily. “I can prove where I was every minute of the time.”

“Carry a gun with you?” Mason asked.

“I did not. I left it in the desk drawer.”

“I see. And where was your wife?”

“Where any wife would be at that time. She was home waiting for me, and she was just a little bit angry because I broke in on a honeymoon to go out and close a business deal.”

“She was there when you got back?”

“Of course she was.”

“And what time did you get back?”

“About nine-thirty or ten. I can’t remember just what time. It was along in the latter part of the evening.”

“And all this time your gun was in the drawer of the desk at your office?”

“During my conference it was. I got it after the conference and took it home.”

“And your wife doesn’t even have a key to the office?” Mason asked.

Garvin hesitated.

“Well,” Mason asked, “does she or doesn’t she?”

“The unfortunate part of it was she did have a key. But she didn’t use it. I... hang it, Mason! I tell you she was home.”

“All right, she was home,” Mason said.

“But the point is, she can’t prove it. She was home alone because I was out on this damned used car deal. She’s got no way of proving that she was home.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Mason said. “If anybody wants to prove anything on her, let them prove that she wasn’t home.”

“Well, there’s one unfortunate thing,” Garvin said.

“What?”

“I tried to call her on the telephone and apparently I dialed the wrong number. She didn’t answer, and...”

“You don’t need to tell anybody about that,” Mason said.

“It was in connection with this business deal. I talked with this fellow and I wanted to get some data about some of my accounts receivable. It was in a little notebook that I thought I had with me, but I’d left it on the dresser.”

“And you telephoned your wife?”

“That’s right.”

“And got no answer?”

Garvin nodded, then added, “I apparently dialed the wrong number.”

“You gave up after the one call?” Mason asked.

“No, I called her twice.”

“No answer either time?”

“No answer.”

“How far apart were the calls?”

“Five or ten minutes. But I tell you, Mason, I’d only moved in to this new apartment about two weeks ago, and I had evidently transposed a couple of the figures in my mind. I dialed the wrong number. I must have, because she was there. And I mean she really was there. She isn’t the sort of girl who would lie to you. That’s one thing about Dawn, she’ll hand it to you straight from the shoulder.”

“The man with whom you were transacting the business knew you’d put through the calls?” Mason asked.

“Yes, that’s the devil of it. He has no way of knowing that I dialed the wrong number. Even I wasn’t aware of it at the time.”

“But you did put through the calls and received no answer?”

“Yes.”

“And as far as the man who was on the other side of the desk was concerned, you were dialing the right number and got no answer?”

“Yes.”

“And because you were expecting your wife would be home, you probably made some remark to him about it being strange there was no answer?”

“I guess I did.”

“What time did you put these calls through?”

“Around nine o’clock, I guess.”

“What time did you leave your home?”

“I never got a chance to get around there during the evening, Mason. I was demonstrating a car and then we had a sales meeting, and then this deal came up on the block of used cars, and I dashed down to get to this used car dealer before someone else beat me to it. I stopped for a hamburger on the way, and that’s all I had to eat.

“I really didn’t have any dinner, just that sandwich. I was intending to get back earlier than I did and take Dawn out for a good dinner some place.”