Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

Della Street, looking compact and competent in a neatly tailored skirt and jacket came up to join them. “Hi, chief,” she said.

“Hi, Della. Sorry you had to get up so early. Do you have a notebook?”

“Right in my jacket pocket.”

“This is Paul Drake’s man. He was telling me about tracks — go right ahead. This is my secretary.”

“Well, like I was saying, it’s a place for picnics and necking, a nice little strip of mesa. Now over on the left a car had been parked and there were tracks in the dust walking away from it, but most of them were obliterated before the police got wise and kept the crowd back.

“Now I left a few tracks of my own around this car. I did a little snooping, all right. But I told the police I had to see whether she was dead or drunk, or if anyone else had been in the car with her. But there weren’t any tracks around the car when I got here. If anyone else had been in that car, he sure didn’t leave tracks when he got out.”

A siren sounded, coming from the direction of San Diego. A car with two red spotlights became visible in the distance as it speeded along the highway. The deputy sheriff called out, “Where’s the man that discovered the body? Hey, you, come over here!”

Drake’s man left Mason’s side, moved over toward the deputy.

Mason said to Della, “I think I’ve got all I can get here. You look the thing over from a woman’s viewpoint. I’m going to telephone Paul Drake. You meet me at the airport.”

Mason called Drake’s office from Oceanside. “You get anything on that gun yet, Paul?”

“I’m working on it,” Drake said. “I have the name of the original purchaser.”

“Who?”

“A Frank L. Bynum, who lives in Riverside. I’m having my men find out about him. We haven’t been able to contact him as yet.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “I’ve picked up Della. I’m going to charter a private plane and fly back. There’s something cockeyed about the case. It looks as though she’d driven at a fast rate of speed all the way down the coast road. Her windshield is smeared up with places where bugs have hit it, and, believe me, when they hit they hit hard. Just spattered all over the windshield.”

“Well, of course she was going fast,” Drake said. “She wouldn’t have started out at that hour and given my shadow a slip merely in order to take a little pleasure ride.”

“That isn’t the point,” Mason said. “She had a full tank of gas. It must have been filled in Oceanside, although so far none of the service stations have identified her. They may not remember the car but when they look at the body it could be different. However, I don’t think it will be.

“Now, if you can tell me why a woman should go tearing madly down the highway to fill up her tank with gasoline at Oceanside, then drive off the road and commit suicide, I’ll give you a furlined fountain pen.

“And if, on the other hand, you can tell me why a woman should tear down the coast road in order to drive suddenly off the road to a parking place usually used by couples who are out for a little necking, and wait there to get shot, I will again give you the second prize consisting of a twenty-one jewel watch which runs backwards.”

Drake laughed and said, “It’s too much for me, Perry.”

“Use your head,” Mason said. “See what it means? She filled the tank where she didn’t get any windshield washing thrown in. Get me?”

“Oh, oh! You mean at a ranch?”

“At a ranch gasoline pump, Paul. You know what I mean.”

“I get you, Perry. Want to go call on him?”

“Not yet. We’ll run down that gun first. You’ll probably have a lead by the time I get back. Della’s covering the corpse from a woman’s angle and I’ll get a plane and have the motor all warmed up. We’ll be in soon. Try to have that gun angle all worked out by the time we arrive. I’d like to keep one jump ahead of the police on that.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “We should reach Bynum any minute now.”

Mason chartered a plane, waited for Della Street at the airport. “Find out anything?” he asked as she joined him.

“Yes. She wasn’t wearing a hat. There was no sign of a hat in her car. Drake’s man thinks she was wearing a hat when she started out. That may be very significant.”

“Perhaps she took it off and then just forgot it,” Mason said.

“Perhaps, but women aren’t likely to do things like that. Here’s something else. Someone in the crowd said a person living in the nearest house had noticed a car parked there, with the lights on. Now, when Drake’s man found the car the lights were off. The lights remained on for what this witness thinks was five or ten minutes. They shone right in his bedroom and bothered him. He didn’t hear any shot.”

“It could have been another car the neighbor saw.”

“That’s the point,” Della Street said. “It could have been a necking party.”

“Necking with the lights on?” Mason asked.

Della Street laughed, said, “Well, I’m giving it to you for what it’s worth.”

The pilot approaching them said, “Okay, the plane’s all ready if you folks want to get in.”

Mason and Della Street climbed into the small cabin job. The pilot taxied down the field and took off.

Mason said, “Drake’s located the original purchaser of the gun, a Frank Bynum at Riverside. He’ll have something definite on that by the time we arrive. We’ll call him just as soon as we get to the airport in Los Angeles. I’d like to beat the police to the evidence on the gun if we can.”

They were silent while the plane tossed in rough air over hills near San Juan Capistrano, then they watched the country slowly flow past them, the built-up districts becoming more and more numerous, until finally they were over the city and the plane was slanting down to a landing at the airport.

“Get Paul Drake on the line while I settle up with the pilot,” Mason said, and Della Street, nodding, hurried away toward a telephone.

Mason paid off the pilot, hurried toward a bank of telephone booths at the airport. He knew as soon as he saw Della Street’s face through the glass door of the telephone booth that she had received definite news on the gun.

Della Street pulled the door back and said, “Frank Bynum has been contacted. He said he gave the gun to his sister for her protection. She lives in the Dixieland Apartment Hotel, apartment 206. Drake wants to know if you want him to call on her.”

“Tell Paul Drake to keep that Bynum chap sewed up so he can’t telephone and that I’ll call on her myself,” Mason said. “You take a cab to the office, Della. Call Edward Garvin at the Vista de la Mesa Hotel in Tijuana. When you get him on the line, first get a list of stockholders whom you can call to be at that meeting this afternoon. After you’ve done that, tell him what’s happened. Tell him to be sure to stay in Mexico. Don’t let the police bring him back to identify the body or anything else. That bigamy charge is still pending, and he can be arrested on it if he sets foot in the United States. And tell him not to open his mouth to any newspaper reporter. Don’t give him too many details about his wife’s death. Just tell him the bare facts. I’m on my way.”

And Mason sprinted for a taxicab.

The Dixieland Apartment Hotel was one which had no central switchboard, no clerk on duty, but a list of tenants on the outside was flanked by a row of buttons.

Mason found the name, Miss V. C. Bynum, and held his thumb over the button on the right.

A few moments later the little telephone receiver hanging from a hook by the door made a noise, and Mason picked it up and said, “Hello, yes, I’m looking for Miss Bynum.”

“Who are you and what do you want?” the voice asked.