Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

Mason decided to resort to subterfuge.

“A package with twenty-three cents postage due on it,” he said. “Want to come down and pick it up?”

“Oh, just a moment. I’ll come down or... would it be too much to ask you to come up to apartment 206? I’m just dressing and I... if you could, please.”

“Okay, I’ll bring it up,” Mason promised.

The electric buzzer signaled that the door was being unlocked, and Mason pushed the door open and entered a long, dimly lit lobby.

Apartment 206 was on the second floor. Mason ignored the elevator, climbed the stairs and went down the corridor counting doors.

When he was still a few feet away from 206, the door opened and revealed the young woman whom he had seen on the fire escape and who had said her name was Virginia Colfax. She was wearing a robe thrown over her shoulders and held in the middle with her left hand. Extended, in her right hand, was twenty-three cents.

“Where’s the package?” she asked, then, suddenly recognizing Perry Mason, she drew back with a sharp, involuntary exclamation of dismay.

Mason said, “The package is one you threw away and then picked up later.”

He took advantage of her utter confusion to push his way into the apartment.

“You!.. How did you find me?”

Mason closed the door behind him, said, “We may not have long to talk, so let’s get to the point. When you were on the fire escape you threw away a gun when you saw that you were discovered.”

“Why I...”

“I went down into the alley, looking for that gun, afterwards,” Mason said, “and couldn’t find it. You must have either had an accomplice waiting there or tossed it somewhere where I couldn’t find it and then you came back and found it later.”

She was rapidly regaining her composure now. She said, “I’m dressing, Mr. Mason. I...”

“I want to know about that gun.”

“If you’ll sit down,” she said, “until I finish dressing. After all, the apartment is rather cramped. I’ll take my clothes, go in the bathroom and...”

“Tell me about that gun,” Mason said.

“I’ve told you there wasn’t any gun.”

“The gun,” Mason went on, “was given to you by your brother, Frank L. Bynum, who lives in Riverside. Sometime this morning that gun was used to kill Mrs. Ethel Garvin. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to get on a witness stand and tell a jury all you know about that gun and what you were doing out on the fire escape, spying into the office of the Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company. Now might be a good time for a dress rehearsal — sort of a warm-up, so that you can get your story in shape.”

“Mr. Mason, I... that gun... Ethel Garvin — Good God!”

Mason said, “Yes. Go on, let’s hear the story.”

She seated herself as though her knees lacked the strength to hold her up.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Mason said, “If you killed her, you hadn’t better talk to me or anyone else until you’ve seen your lawyer. But if there’s any other explanation, I want to know it. I’m trying to protect Edward Garvin.”

“He’s... he’s your client?”

“Yes.”

“How does he enter into it?”

Mason shook his head impatiently and said, “Quit stalling. How do you enter into it?”

“I... I don’t.”

“What about that gun?”

“The gun was stolen several weeks ago,” she said. “I used to keep it right here in this bureau drawer. Look, I’ll show you right where I had it.”

She crossed over to a drawer and said, “See, it was right here in this corner.”

Mason didn’t even move from his chair. He took out a cigarette case, snapped it open and offered her a cigarette.

She shook her head in refusal and kept pointing at the drawer. “See, you can see the place right here in this corner where I kept it. The card-board box still has traces of oil on it. I didn’t want it to get against my clothes. It was oily, and — my brother, you know, read so much about the recent crime wave and about girls being molested. He thought that it would be a fine thing for me to have something with which to protect myself. He told me I should never answer the door at night and...”

“When did you have the gun last?”

“I tell you I don’t know. I used to notice it here in the drawer when I’d open the drawer to get my things. You see, I keep my stockings and some underthings here in this drawer. A short time ago... oh, I don’t know, perhaps three or four weeks...”

Mason said, “The other night when I surprised you on the fire escape, you had a gun in your hand. You knew that I’d discovered you. You tossed the gun down into the alley. You pulled a fast one on me for a getaway. I went back and looked in the alley for the gun. It wasn’t there. If it was, I couldn’t find it. I remember there were some boxes and barrels of trash, and wastepaper. I gave those only a cursory glance. I thought the gun would be lying on the pavement. It wasn’t there. Now, what happened to that gun?”

“I tell you it was stolen and...”

“And I saw you with it in your possession two nights ago,” Mason said.

“Can you swear it was the same gun?”

Mason smiled and said, “No, Miss District Attorney, I can’t swear it was the same gun, but I can swear it was a gun, and then the police are going to want to know a lot more about it.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Mr. Mason, I simply don’t know who has that gun, that’s all there is to it. You’re right about one thing. I did have it, and I threw it away.”

“What were you doing out on the fire escape?”

“I was spying on someone in the office of the Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company.”

“Who was it?”

“Frankly, I was staked out there so I could investigate certain nocturnal activities in the office. Imagine my surprise when the office door opened and the person who came in wasn’t the one I expected, but a woman — a woman who I have since learned is the first wife of Edward C. Garvin.”

“What did she do?”

“I didn’t have any opportunity to find out all she did. Your interference upset that. But she had a handful of papers which I now believe were proxies. She was opening the drawer of the proxy file when your activities took me off the job — and, unfortunately, kept me off the job.”

Mason thought that over.

“Why were you watching the office in the first placer Whom were you after?”

She knuckled her eyes, yawned prodigiously.

“I believe he’s the secretary and treasurer. His name is Denby.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes.”

“How well?”

“Not well. I just know him when I see him.”

“Why were you spying on him?”

“Because my mother has every cent of her money invested in that company and I was afraid something was going wrong.”

“Now we’re beginning to get somewhere,” Mason said. “What made you think something was going wrong?”

“I thought there was something — well, something shady going on.”

“What made you think that?”

She said, “Mother received a proxy in the mail. She always gave proxies to Mr. Garvin. I guess everyone did. The stockholders were satisfied with the company. It made money and — well, I guess that’s all they wanted, to have it make money.”

Mason said, “Come on, quit beating around the bush. You knew something was in the wind. You were out on the fire escape with a gun in your hand. You weren’t carrying that gun just as an ornament; you were carrying it for some particular specific purpose.”

She said, “I was simply carrying it for my own protection, Mr. Mason. As a matter of fact, I’ve been carrying that gun in my purse whenever I’ve been out late at night. I’m employed as a stenographer and sometimes I work late at night. The car line is three blocks from here. I have to walk from that car line to this apartment house. The way things have been going — well, you read in the papers about the way girls have been attacked and — well, I carried the gun. That’s what my brother gave it to me for. I suppose I shouldn’t have carried it without a permit, but anyway you want to know the facts, and those are the facts. It’s just that simple.”