Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

“And Paul Drake,” Mason said.

“How do you do, Mr. Drake,” Hackley said shortly.

“Drake,” Mason added, “is a detective.”

“Oh,” Hackley announced, “it’s got that far, has it?”

“That’s right,” Mason told him, “where do we talk?”

“Come in and sit down.”

Hackley held the door open for the three, said, “Go right ahead through the first door to the left.”

Della Street led the way into the room which had been fitted up as a library, evidently a somewhat hasty job of superimposing books and shelves over what had at one time been merely the conventional living room in a country house.

“Sit down,” Hackley invited, making a sweeping inclusive gesture.

The party seated themselves.

“All right,” Hackley said, “Now let’s hear what you have to say.”

“You’re getting the cart and the horse all mixed up,” Mason said. “We want to hear what you have to say.”

“I have nothing to say.”

“You knew Ethel Garvin.”

“Who says so?”

“I say so,” Mason said. “You knew her when she was in Nevada. You were quite friendly with her. You talked her out of getting a divorce from her husband. You told her that if she’d sit tight and let her husband think she’d secured a divorce, then when Edward Garvin had found some other interest he could be made to pay a lot of money for a settlement.”

Hackley said, “I don’t think I’m going to like you, Mr. Mason.”

Mason met his eyes, said affably, “I’m quite sure you’re not.”

There was a silence for several seconds.

“Now, then,” Mason went on, “Ethel Garvin came down to Oceanside at an early hour this morning. She stopped in here and had her gasoline tank filled. I don’t know what she told you, or what you told her, but I do know that she started out from here, drove down the road about two miles, stopped her car in a parking place off by the side of the road and was murdered.”

“I suppose,” Hackley said, “all this is just a conversational background, a barrage of words by which you’re trying to get me to commit myself. I’m quite certain that this Ethel Garvin, whoever she is, wasn’t murdered. I think you’re probably simply trying to get some admission out of me that I knew her in Nevada. Now, then, if you’ll put your cards on the table and tell me what you want to know and why you want to know it, we may get along a lot better.”

Mason said, “You have a telephone over there in the corner. Just ring the Oceanside police and ask them if Ethel Garvin was murdered at an early hour this morning.”

Hackley promptly got up, crossed over to the telephone, smiled and said, “That’s a very nice bluff you’re running, Mason, but it isn’t going to work because I’m going to call you cold. Whenever a man makes a pass at me, I call him.”

He picked up the receiver, said, “I want the police station, please,” and then after a moment said, “Can you kindly tell me whether an Ethel Garvin was murdered this morning somewhere near Oceanside?... Never mind who this is, I’m simply asking a question... Well, let’s put it this way. I might be a witness in case there’s anything to it...”

Hackley held the telephone in silence for several seconds, then said abruptly, “Thank you,” and slammed the receiver back into place.

He turned and faced his audience, then started pacing the floor, eyes half slitted in thought, his hands pushed down deep in the side pockets of his double-breasted coat. Abruptly he turned, standing with his back to the wall. “All right,” he said, “you win.”

“What do we win?” Mason asked.

Hackley’s smile was without mirth. “You’ve won your ante back, Mr. Mason, which is more than people usually win who start playing with me. Now you said this gentleman,” nodding his head toward Drake, “was a detective.”

“That’s right.”

“From Los Angeles, San Diego, or Oceanside?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Connected with the homicide squad there, Mr. Drake?”

Drake glanced at Mason and hesitated.

Mason smiled and shook his head. “He’s a private detective. I hire him.”

“Oh,” Hackley said, “and the charming young lady is your secretary?”

“Yes.”

“And you?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Indeed. And you’re retained by someone I take it. You’re hardly investigating this case as a matter of philanthropy.”

“I’m retained by someone.”

“His name?”

“Edward Charles Garvin.”

“The husband of the woman who was murdered?”

“The ex-husband.”

“I see,” Hackley said. “Makes an interesting combination, doesn’t it?”

“Very.”

“All right,” Hackley said, “you’ve sneaked up on my blind side. You’ve caught me somewhat unawares and at a disadvantage. However, I’ll make my statement. No, don’t bother to take it down, Miss Street. I don’t think I care to have a reported interview at the present time. I’ll simply make a statement of fact that you people can have as the basis for whatever investigation you are making. I’ll make that much of a contribution to finding out who murdered that woman.”

He paused dramatically, said, “What I’m going to tell you is the whole truth.”

There was another momentary pause, and then he said, standing with his back to the wall, his eyes moving from face to face watching to see how they were taking it, “I own a ranch in Nevada. It’s rather a large holding. I like it. I like to live there. I have never married because I don’t care for marriage. I am not a hermit, I like women, but the idea of settled domesticity simply doesn’t appeal to me, and never has.

“There’s a guest ranch, a so-called dude ranch, adjoining my property in Nevada. I find some of the guests who stay there are rather interesting. As you can well judge, many of these guests are not there simply because they like the idea of recreation on a guest ranch in Nevada. They’re there because they want to establish a six weeks’ residence in order to get a divorce.

“I’m frank to admit that some of those women have taken something of an interest in me and I in them. The woman who severs her domestic ties goes to a state where she has no friends, and finds herself, perhaps for the first time in years, entirely on her own, is apt to be lonesome and is apt to be seeking companionship. I happen to have a ranch that is accessible. I happen to be available, and perhaps by some of them I am considered eligible.

“I had always lived on my ranch and enjoyed it until Ethel Garvin came to Nevada, to establish a residence on this adjoining dude ranch. I liked Mrs. Garvin. I enjoyed being with her, but gradually I began to realize that she was a very determined, and a very resourceful woman. I also began to realize that she had a very definite plan of operation, and that the plan in some way concerned my future.

“I waited until it became apparent that something had to be done. The situation was drifting to a point where I, for one, found it intolerable. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. We’d been too good friends for that. I didn’t want to tell her simply and plainly that I was not going to be at home when she called. I chose the easy way. I had long been looking for the right sort of investment in California. My real estate broker found this place. It was offered at what I considered a bargain as prices go these days. I told my dealer to close the deal very quietly and as far as possible to keep news of it out of the papers.

“When he had the property all in escrow, I simply slipped away from my ranch in Nevada. I left word for Ethel that I had been called away very suddenly on business that would keep me out of the state for some time, that I would get in touch with her as soon as an opportunity presented itself, but that in the meantime I was working on a deal that was so confidential I couldn’t take any chance of having any slip.