Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

“Here’s your call, chief,” Della Street interrupted.

“Garvin on the line?”

“Yes.”

Mason picked up the receiver, said, “Hello, Garvin. Mason talking. I want to ask you some questions. I want you to be very, very careful about your answers.”

“Good heavens, Mason,” Garvin said, “this is awful! This is terrible! This is the worst thing... Why did you leave this morning? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I thought you didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“My God, Mason, something like that happens and you simply get up and leave — Mason, I want to come back up there. I want to find out what this thing is all about. I want to...”

“You stay right there,” Mason said, “and keep your shirt on. Now, don’t worry about that stockholders’ meeting at two o’clock this afternoon. Della has been working over that list of names you gave her, and we have a bunch of staunch and loyal supporters of yours coming in here in person. That will throw all proxies they’ve signed out the window. We’re going to be able to control the stockholders’ meeting all right.”

“But I want to be there, Mason. I must be there. If I should lose control of that company...”

“You just sit tight,” Mason said, “and quit worrying. Don’t do anything. Don’t talk with anyone. Don’t stir out of the hotel until I can have a chance to see you, and if anyone should find you, then don’t answer any questions. Simply refuse to say a word until you’ve seen me.”

“But, hang it, Mason, that will put me in a false light.”

“I can’t help that, Garvin. There are a lot of angles to this thing that you don’t know anything about yet. Now listen carefully. I want you to answer questions, and I want you to be very careful about your nouns.”

“What do you mean, nouns?”

“I mean nouns,” Mason said. “A noun is an object. Now listen to this. The other morning when you were standing in your office you looked out of your window and noticed something on the fire escape, some object?”

“On the fire escape?”

“Yes, a metallic object, something heavy.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. Why, yes, I pointed out this...”

“Careful,” Mason warned. “Let’s keep the conversation on an ambiguous note, if possible, and remember that the walls of that telephone partition you’re talking from are paper-thin. The front door is all right but the wall between that and the other telephone booth is just like paper. Now, what happened to that object?”

“Livesey crawled out of the window and picked it up. We talked about it and I... I told Livesey to put it in the glove compartment of my car. He said he was going out to get a cup of coffee, and I wanted to look the thing over — to tell you the truth, Mr. Mason, I’d entirely forgotten about that... that object. It must be in the car now.”

“Go out and take a look and see if it is,” Mason said.

“Right now?”

“Right now. Just leave the receiver off the hook and go out and take a look. I’ll hold the line. Your car’s still in front?”

“Yes.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said, “this is important. You didn’t turn your car keys in to the woman who runs the hotel last night?”

“No, I forgot. I intended to. I put them in my pocket and... but it was all right. They didn’t need to move the car.”

“That’s all right. The keys stayed in your pocket all night?”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“The car wasn’t moved?”

“No, certainly not.”

“And the doors were locked?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

“Why, of course. The car’s just where I left it last night when I went to bed.”

Mason said, “Go on out and take a look and tell me if that object is still there.”

“All right,” Garvin said. “Hold the phone.”

Mason waited, holding the phone, drumming impatiently with his finger tips on the edge of the desk for some fifteen seconds until he could hear over the phone the noise made by Garvin’s pounding feet as he hurried back toward the telephone. There was the sound of the receiver being moved, then Garvin’s excited voice, “It’s gone, Mason, it’s gone!”

“All right,” Mason said, “now when did it go?”

“My gosh, it must have been taken before we left Los Angeles. No one could have taken it out here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, of course — hang it, Mason, how do I know? All I know is that it’s gone — I know that Livesey put it in there.”

“Did you look in the glove compartment after...”

“Yes. Right after I came downstairs I looked in the glove compartment to make certain that Livesey had put it there. It was there.”

“And when did you next look in the glove compartment?”

“Just now. That’s the only time I’ve had it open... Wait a minute, no. Hold everything, Mason, Lorraine looked in there shortly after we got started. I told her to open the glove compartment and get out my sunglasses. I wanted to put them on.”

“Where’s Lorraine?”

“Right here. Right out in the lobby. Just a minute.”

“Don’t get excited and say anything where people can hear you,” Mason cautioned. “Get her in the phone booth with you.”

“Okay.”

Mason could hear the sound of a door opening and low-voiced conversation. Then Garvin said, “She’s here.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Ask her if she remembers looking in the glove compartment for your dark glasses and...”

“I already have,” Garvin said. “She says that she got my glasses out of the glove compartment all right, but that an object such as you mention was not in there.”

“But you know it was in there when you came downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“And did you drive the car away immediately then?”

“I... no, wait a minute. I went into the cigar counter to get some cigars and I shook a game of twenty-six with the girl at the counter. Then I got in the car and drove out and picked up my wife. She had the baggage all packed and we got started right away.”

Mason said, “All right. Sit tight. Hold everything until I get down there. I’ll be there by dark.”

Garvin was pacing the floor of the lobby of the Hotel Vista de la Mesa when Mason arrived. Garvin jerked around at the sound of the opening door as though he had been pulled by a string, saw Mason’s face, and then his own features lighted up in a genial smile.

“Thank heavens you’re here, Mason,” he said. “I thought you never would get here. What’s new?”

Mason said, “We’ve just come from the stockholders’ meeting.”

“How did things go?”

“Like clockwork,” Mason told him. “Some man by the name of Smith started a revolt but it died aborning. The stockholders put the same board of directors in office for another year, elected all the same officers, and the directors organized, after the stockholders’ meeting, for the new year, employed you for another year as general manager at the same salary and bonus, and I gather that everything you’ve done has been duly ratified.”

“That’s fine,” Garvin said. “Now tell me about Ethel, Mason. My heavens, this is awful. I’ve been having the damnedest ideas. What happened? Did she commit suicide?”

“Apparently not. Apparently it was murder.”

“But who could have killed her?”

“That’s a question that’s bothering the police. Where’s your wife?”

“In her room.”

Mason said, “Suppose we all go down there. I’ll get Della Street.”

Mason called Della Street from the limousine; then, together with Garvin, they walked down the corridor. Garvin tapped on the door of the room and Lorraine’s voice called, “Come in.”