Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

“You handled it?”

“I handled it, Denby handled it, and Livesey handled it. And whoever put it out on the fire escape must have handled it. In other words there must be quite a few fingerprints on it.”

“I suppose so,” Mason said. “The police aren’t taking me into their confidence.”

“The body was found near Oceanside,” Lorraine Garvin said significantly.

“That’s right,” Mason said. “We haven’t interviewed Hackley yet. The police don’t know anything at all about him. I’m going to have a car drive me back to Oceanside. Paul Drake is going to meet me there.”

“Paul Drake?” Lorraine asked.

“The detective who’s been working with me. The one who located Ethel Garvin for me. He’s a good man.”

“Well,” Mrs. Garvin said. “I can’t help but say that I consider it highly significant that she drove to Oceanside — if that is where her lover is living.”

“We don’t know he’s her lover. We don’t know very much about him,” Mason said. “He may be a tough nut to crack. The only satisfaction we have to date is that we know about him and the police don’t. It is, of course, significant that she went to Oceanside. There are a couple of other angles in the case that indicate she may have gone to keep an appointment with this man, and...”

From the patio outside came the sound of the voice of Señora Inocente Miguerinio.

“Thees place ees very old,” Señora Miguerinio said, “muy viejo — old, you understand, like the ruinas. My father, and before him my grand-father, have owned thees place. Now I have feex heem up so the turista have a place to sleep, no?”

“I see,” a man’s voice answered.

“An old estate, a hacienda,” Señora Miguerinio went on.

The masculine voice said, “I am glad to know it. Two years ago when I was here, I did not notice it.”

“Of course you deed not notice. Ees so much ruin that my father make a board fence so he ees hid, no?”

“No,” the man said.

Señora Miguerinio’s laughter was like bubbling water. “Ah, well, the turista love to stay in my old Spanish house, inside ees very old, ees what you call quaint, no?”

“Yes.”

“Si, señor, ees quaint. You speak my language, no?”

“No, only a few words.”

“You weel come in and sit down, no?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Mason glanced at the grinning Garvin, frowned and placed his finger to his lips in a gesture for silence.

The man’s voice came through the open window.

“You have a Señor Edward Garvin and his wife staying here? He owns that big convertible in the driveway.”

“Oh, but certainly. The Señor Garvin, and the Señora. She ees beautiful, with the hair like red gold. And they have their fren’ the Señor Perry Mason weeth them.”

“The devil!” the voice exclaimed in irritation.

Mason walked over close to Garvin. “That voice,” he said, “is the voice of Lieutenant Tragg, of the Metropolitan police force. And if you don’t think he’s a smart cookie, just stick around.”

Señora Miguerinio said, “They are een these rooms now. Five and seex. If you are a fren’ of theirs they weel be glad to see you, no?”

“No,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

They heard a door close, then steps in the hallway, knuckles on the door. Mason opened the door.

“Well, well, Tragg! How are you?”

“Mason!” Tragg exclaimed. “And the estimable Miss Street. Well, Mason, I’m certainly glad to see you. I don’t get to see you very often these days.”

“It’s been a while,” Mason admitted. “Lieutenant, shake hands with Mr. Edward Garvin.”

“Glad to know you,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

Mason turned toward Lorraine Garvin at the far side of the room. “Mrs. Garvin, may I present Lieutenant Tragg of the Metropolitan police — Homicide Squad.”

Her smile was a wan motion of tight lips. Of a sudden, she seemed to be cowering by the closet door. “How do you do, Lieutenant? I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Tragg said to Edward Garvin, “You’ve heard about your wife?”

“Yes, I was shocked, surprised. I... I hardly know what to do.”

“There’s a good chance she was killed in Los Angeles and transported to Oceanside. That’s why I’m interested in the case. Now if you want to help,” Tragg said, “you can come on back and make arrangements for the funeral and while you’re back we’ll...”

“Arrest him on a bigamy complaint that was issued yesterday by the district attorney’s office,” Mason interpolated.

Tragg turned to Mason, said, “Now, that wasn’t necessary.”

“I merely wanted him to know what the score was,” Mason said.

“Now look,” Tragg said, in the voice one uses to an obstreperous child, “I want to talk with Mr. Garvin. I’m not going to hurt him, and he certainly has nothing to conceal, but there are some things about his wife’s death that I want to uncover. He can help me.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “We’ll both help.”

“I can get along without your help.”

“Come, come, Lieutenant. Two heads are better than one.”

“We’re getting into the field of a different proverb now,” Tragg said, smiling. “At this point you can refer to the good old proverb that too many cooks spoil the broth.”

“Didn’t Ethel Garvin commit suicide?” Mason asked.

“She did not commit suicide,” Tragg said. “The bullet in her head produced almost instant death.”

“Well?” Mason asked.

“She was shot while she was in the right-hand seat of the car. Someone drove her for some little distance, then parked the car and pulled and hauled the body over until it was behind the driver’s seat. He then pushed the left arm through the spokes of the wheel, shut off the lights and ignition and drove away in another car.”

“That had been following?” Mason asked.

Tragg shook his head and said, “Frankly, Mason, I don’t think so. It looks as though the murderer had gone to a certain spot and had parked the getaway car. Then he’d gone out and joined his victim, shot her right in the head at close range, then driven the car for some little distance, perhaps quite a few miles, to the point where his own car had been parked and was waiting for a getaway. The murder may well have been committed while she was in Los Angeles. The murderer drove Ethel Garvin’s car up as close to his own car as he dared, then got out, stood on the running board of his own car, pulled the body over behind the steering wheel, fixed everything the way he wanted, then stepped into his own car and drove away.”

“Unless, of course, he had an accomplice waiting,” Mason said, “which would make it a two-man job.”

“Which would make it a two-man job,” Tragg told him, “but for certain reasons, we don’t think that it was. We think that it was a one-man job.”

“How come?”

“Well, to begin with, if there had been an accomplice waiting in the getaway car, the tendency would have been for the murderer to have driven the car with the body in it to a stop and then the getaway car would have driven alongside. Actually it was the other way around. The murderer even had to back once in order to get the car with the body in it in exactly the position that he wanted. Then he got over into the other car.”

“That’s good deductive reasoning,” Mason said.

Tragg turned to Garvin. “Now, I know this is a painful subject,” he said, “but if your wife was murdered, I know you’ll do everything in your power to clear it up. Despite the fact that you’d been separated, despite the fact there was some friction between you, you would want to clean it up, wouldn’t you?”