Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

“Okay,” Mason said. “I’m on my way. Get one jump ahead of them and stay one jump ahead of them.”

“Garvin and his wife are there with you?”

“Here,” Mason said, “but they’re not with me.”

“What do you want to do about them?”

“Hell,” Mason said irritably, “I don’t want to do anything about them. I want them to stay right here. Garvin can’t get across to the United States without being arrested on a bigamy charge. I don’t want to have that happen.”

Drake said, “I’ve had a little trouble getting this call through. I guess on account of getting a call across the border... Now, I took it on myself to do something, Perry, that I hope is all right.”

“What?”

“I called Della Street as soon as I got the flash and told her to jump into some clothes, grab her car and beat it down to Oceanside just as fast as she could... Now my man’s playing pretty dumb down there. The way he put the call in and everything there’s a pretty good chance there’ll be a delay. When he called the sheriff’s office in San Diego, he was going to make it sound like a suicide, sort of a routine affair. The sheriff’s office probably has some deputy in Oceanside. They’ll telephone that deputy to go out and cover the thing. Then the deputy will find it looks like a murder and call back to the sheriff’s office and all in all it will be some time before the sheriff and the coroner get there. The body won’t be moved until the coroner’s office arrives. Now, that’s going to give you a chance if you hurry.”

“Hell’s bells,” Mason said, “ ‘hurry’ is my middle name. I’m glad you got Della started. I may want some notes taken.”

“I told her to look around and cover everything she could,” Drake said. “You should be able to get there from Tijuana just as soon as she can get on the job from Los Angeles, maybe sooner, depending on traffic conditions, and in view of the delay in my getting this call through.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “I’ll get going.”

He hung up the receiver, ran down the corridor to his room, threw things in his bag, then sprinted out for the lobby.

Pancho was seated on the front steps.

Mason said, “Pancho, I have two friends here, a Mr. and Mrs. Garvin. They’re in Rooms 5 and 6. When they get up, tell them that I had to go away on business, tell them that someone we both know is dead, and that they’re to wait right here until they hear from me. They aren’t to go anywhere. Tell them to wait right here. You understand?”

“Si, señor.”

Mason said, “I haven’t paid my hotel bill. Here’s twenty dollars. See that the woman who runs the place gets the money for my room, will you?”

“Si, señor.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “I’m on my way.”

He flung his suitcase into the car, opened the door, jumped in and was fumbling with the ignition switch when Pancho emerged from the office, grinning, and said in excellent English, “Your keys, Mr. Mason. You leave them in the cash drawer in the desk so that as yard boy I can move the cars in the morning if necessary — only my aunt, Señora Inocente Miguerinio, is very careful to take all of the cash out of the cash drawer when she goes to bed.”

Mason grinned, took the keys and said, “You do speak good English, don’t you, Pancho?”

“What the hell do you think I go to school for?” Pancho asked.

Perry Mason slowed his car as he saw the little group ahead.

To the north, the outlying buildings of Oceanside showed white in the morning sunlight. To the west of the highway was a flat mesa and then, beyond that, the sparkling blue of the ocean, lying calm and tranquil under a cloudless sky.

Mason parked his car to one side of the road.

A uniformed traffic officer was making a valiant attempt to keep the traffic moving, but it was possible for cars to be driven off to the side of the road and parked.

Mason approached the group, and a deputy sheriff warned him to stay back. “The coroner hasn’t got here yet,” he said. “Get back and keep back.”

Mason fell back, then as the officer moved away, inched forward.

Paul Drake’s man, picking Mason out from the crowd, sidled over toward him and said, “I’m Drake’s operative. I found the body. Anything I can do for you, Mr. Mason?”

Mason led him off to the outskirts of the group. “You looked around a little?”

“Sure I looked around,” the detective said. “I didn’t do anything illegal, and didn’t leave any fingerprints, but I looked around.”

“What about the gun?”

The man opened a notebook and said, “Here are the numbers on the gun.”

Mason checked the numbers from the ones he had written in his notebook, said, “Paul Drake gave them to me over the phone. How many shells were fired?”

“Only one. It’s a .38 Smith and Wesson, double-action revolver. All the chambers were loaded and the hammer is resting on the one cylinder that was discharged. Shot in the left side of the head.”

“Powder burns?” Mason asked.

“I believe so. The hair’s singed. I couldn’t look too closely.”

“Was she wearing gloves?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else of interest?”

“One thing that may be important,” the man said. “The ignition switch was turned off on the car. I turned it on long enough to look at the gasoline gauge. The gas tank shows that it’s completely full.”

“Did you check the gasoline stations in Oceanside?”

“That’s right.”

“Find out which one of them filled her tank?”

“I checked every one that was open all night. None of them remember it.”

“Well, check again after you get away from here,” Mason said. “It’s important. I’m going to take a little look around here and see what I can find.”

The lawyer moved in as close to the car as the deputy would permit him, then started slowly moving around the car, looking it over.

The body was slumped down to the right of the steering wheel. A gloved hand had protruded through the space between the spokes of the steering wheel, and, as the body had slumped, the tension had pulled the arm tight against the spokes.

Drake’s man followed Mason.

“Headlights on when you found the car?” Mason asked.

“No, it was just like you see it now. It could have been suicide.”

“But why the devil,” Mason asked, “should she have driven all the way down here to pull off to the side of the road and commit suicide? Moreover, a woman who is going to commit suicide isn’t concerned about having the gasoline tank filled on her automobile.”

Mason walked around the car once more, looking it over, noticed that there were numerous spots on the windshield, caused by night-flying bugs which had been picked up and smashed by the windshield as the car speeded through the night.

“Any chance she could have been killed some other place and the car driven over here?” Mason asked.

“I haven’t thought of that.”

“You haven’t seen my secretary, Della Street?”

“I don’t believe I know her.”

“A good-looking... here she comes now.”

Della Street, driving rapidly from the north, slowed her car. The traffic officer motioned that she was to keep moving. She nodded, smiled, drove on for a ways, then parked her car and started walking back.

“Any tracks around the car when you got here?” Mason asked, keeping an eye on Della Street.

“None that I could see, not around that particular car. It’s evidently a place where couples come for a little necking. You can see that a lot of cars have been in here from time to time and have made a regular roadway in here from the highway. From the way the tracks look they customarily park and turn around... But there weren’t any tracks, not any that I could see, except car tracks... Of course, it’s all trampled out now. There have been a hundred people in here at various times. They come and gawk and hang around until the cops chase them off and...”