Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

A redheaded woman with a truculent manner jerked open the door. Deep-set blue eyes sized Mason up from a toil-worn face. She said, “We don’t want anything,” and started to slam the door.

“Just a minute,” Mason said, laughing, “I want to see your husband.”

“He’s working.”

“Can you tell me where?”

“At the Standard Service Station.”

“He’s told you about the automobile he saw when he was driving back from La Jolla?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I want to talk with him about it,” Mason told her. “Did he describe it to you?”

“All he could see was that it was a sort of a light-colored convertible. There was no one in it. It wasn’t the car that woman was driving when she was killed.”

“You know what time he got home?”

“I’ll say I know what time he got home,” she said. “Ten minutes to one. Sitting down there with those fellows swapping yarns and gambling money that he hasn’t any right to risk! He’s a lousy poker player, always trying to bluff when he doesn’t have a good hand — coming back with a lot of stories and...”

“We’ll find him at the filling station?”

“That’s right.”

Mason thanked her, walked rapidly back to the automobile, and had Della Street drive him to the filling station where he inquired for Mortimer Irving.

Irving, a tall, slow-moving, genial individual with twinkling eyes who managed somehow to look a lot younger than his wife, grinned at them and said, “Yeah. I saw this car down there — didn’t think anything of it at the time but — well, you know, I saw the lights on and — oh, I don’t know, I just sort of wondered. I thought maybe some girl was having a little difficulty and had switched on the lights hoping it would attract attention and — shucks, I don’t know, I just turned my spotlight on it.”

Mason said, “Could you get away from here for about half an hour?”

“Nope.”

“If I gave you ten dollars?” Mason asked.

The man hesitated.

“And another ten that you could slip to your buddy who’s on duty to take care of all the customers who came in while you were gone?”

Irving tilted back his hat and scratched his head, thinking the matter over. “How much did you lose at the poker game?” Mason asked, his voice friendly.

“A little over fifteen bucks.”

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Mason asked. “I’ll give you twenty dollars, another ten for the man who’s on duty with you, and another five for the boy who’s running the washrack to come over and help out in case cars get jammed up here. Then you can go ahead and tell your wife that you really made a profit on the trip to La Jolla, after all. You lost fifteen or sixteen bucks and got twenty back.”

Irving said, “You sure do know how to sell a bill of goods, mister. If I could talk like that I’d be the top salesman for the whole United States. Just a second and I’ll go talk to the boys.”

“Here’s the thirty-five dollars,” Mason said, counting out a twenty, a ten and a five. “You won’t be gone more than a few minutes.”

Irving went over and talked with his assistant, then with the man at the greaserack. He came back with a grin, opened the rear door of the car, climbed in and said, “Now this is really going to be fun. I’ll enjoy going home tonight and meeting the wife. I was thinking I’d rather take a beating than to go back and hear about that money I lost in the poker game. Now I’m going to enjoy it.”

Mason nodded to Della Street who drove the car rapidly down the highway.

“You think you’d know this convertible if you saw it again?” Mason asked.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I didn’t take a look at it so much to see what make and year and model and all that stuff it was. I just looked it over the way a person would to see if people were in it. I was a little worried about — oh, I don’t know, I was thinking that some girl had maybe got out with a wolf who was getting a little too rough or something, and... shucks, I don’t know, I just saw the lights and I stopped and turned my spotlight on the car, that’s all. At night that way when you turn a spotlight on an automobile, the light brings the car out sharply against a dark background, but there aren’t any shadows or anything. It’s what you’d call a flat picture if you were talking about it in terms of photography.”

“I see you play around with a camera,” Mason said.

“I do when I can get enough money to buy film. I get a great kick out of it.”

“Well,” Mason said, “we’ll see if we can’t get you some film. What size does your camera take?”

“Six-twenty.”

“We’ll see what we can do about that,” Mason told him.

Della Street started slowing the car.

“Now, then,” Mason said, “there’s a convertible parked over there. Is that about the same position that the car was parked when you...”

“That’s just about the same position and that’s just about the same kind of car. Just about that size and...”

“And as nearly as you can tell,” Mason said, “that’s the same car. In other words, it has the same characteristics, generally, as the car you saw. It could be the same car.”

“It could be,” Irving said.

Della Street stopped the car, surreptitiously picked up a notebook and balancing it on her leg started taking down the conversation.

“In other words, from your best recollection of the car that you saw parked here early in the morning when you were returning from La Jolla, you couldn’t say definitely that this car you’re looking at now is that car, and you couldn’t say that it isn’t that car.”

“I’ll say it looks like the car,” Irving said. “In fact, from all I can tell from here, it is the car.”

“You didn’t notice any distinguishing features?”

“Just that it was a light-colored convertible and it was just about the same size and color and just about the same shape as this one. I... what do you want me to say? That this is the car?”

Mason grinned and said, “I just want you to tell me the truth. I’m investigating the case and trying to find out in good faith just what type of car it was and just how well you saw it and how well you can identify it.”

“Well, to tell you the truth,” Irving said, “just looking that thing over... Look, I was coming from the other direction. Suppose we go down the road a little bit, turn around and come back.”

Mason, nudging Della Street, said, “All right, I’ll drive, Della.”

He got out and walked around the car to slide in behind the steering wheel. Della Street, still keeping her notebook out of sight on her lap, slid over to the right-hand side.

Mason drove the car down the road, made a U-turn, then came on back, driving slowly.

“Stop just about here,” Irving said. “Now let me take a look... Shucks, that could be the same car as far as I’m concerned. It has the same lines and — and it’s standing in just about the same place. Right about here is where I stopped my car. I saw that other car from just about this angle. As far as I’m concerned that could be the same car. You understand I can’t identify it and say it is the same car, but I sure can’t say it isn’t.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “That, I think, covers it. That seems to me to be a pretty fair statement of facts. As nearly as you can tell that could be the car standing right there.”

“That convertible standing right there,” Irving said.

“By the way,” Mason said, “my eyes aren’t too good. Can you read the license number on it?”

“Move back just a little bit,” Irving said, “and I think I can.”