Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

“Who did?”

“Oh, some bum who happened to be drifting along the street and saw the car where Jules had left it parked.”

“Then you could make a guess as to the identity of this party?”

Horace Homan’s eyes narrowed. He lowered his voice and said, “Well, if you put it that way...” Abruptly he laughed. “Wait a minute. You are the big bad wolf so far as this house is concerned. ‘What big teeth you have, Grandma!’ No, Mr. Mason, I couldn’t even venture a guess, and I have got an appointment with a perfectly swell wren in exactly twenty minutes, and it is going to take me ten to change. Sorry, old boy, but you know how it is. And I am going to drop in on that Miss Claire. You don’t think she will mind?”

Mason said, “That is all right, if you don’t expect to work any information out of her. She will be under instructions not to tell you anything.”

Homan grinned. “Well, I don’t know anything that could be fairer. I haven’t told you anything, have I?”

“Not a thing,” Mason said.

“Okay, we are quits. Glad I met you.”

Lean, brown fingers enclosed Mason’s hand. Horace Homan raised his voice and said, “Oh, Felipe, he is ready to go, and the family silver is all intact.”

The Filipino boy glided noiselessly from behind a heavy drape across an archway. He had, Mason realized, worked himself up to a position of vantage where he was within earshot. Wordlessly, he held the door open for the lawyer, and silently Mason walked out into the night.

A slender, gray-headed man, whose eyes twinkled alertly over a pair of half spectacles, was standing at the hospital desk when Mason entered. Slightly behind him and to one side was a young man in a gray overcoat. Mason had a blurred impression of broad shoulders, coal black hair, and a deeply cleft chin.

The woman at the cashier’s desk said to the gray-headed man, “We aren’t permitted to let anyone see Miss Claire without permission from the police.”

Mason moved toward the barred wicket, keeping unobtrusively in the background.

“You have changed the patient into a private room?” the gray-headed man asked.

“Oh, you are Mr. Olger?”

“That’s right.”

“Yes, Mr. Olger. We followed your instructions to the letter. You mentioned over the telephone that you were her uncle.”

“That’s right.”

“As a relative, I think you shall be permitted to see her. I shall find out in just a minute, if you will wait please.”

“And Mr. Sterne too,” Olger said. “This gentleman here.”

“He is a relative?”

“Well, in a way.”

The nurse smiled. “I am sorry. I shall have to know. Is he or isn’t he?”

The young man in the gray overcoat moved uneasily, said, “Max, I don’t think I should better go in.”

“Why not?” the older man snapped, biting off the words.

“It is going to upset her. She will think I am trying to get to her when she is down and... well, I don’t know. I think perhaps it would be better... I could wait a while.”

“Nonsense!”

“I could wait here for a few minutes, and you could see how she feels.”

“He is not a relative?” the office nurse asked.

“He is engaged to her,” Olger said.

“Oh.”

“Was at one...”

“Shut up,” Olger interrupted the young man, and turned to let his eyes glitter at the nurse. His motions, Mason saw, were birdlike in their swift accuracy. He was a wiry little wisp of a man, perhaps somewhere in the late sixties, but he seemed far more forceful than young Sterne, who had a deep-chested physique, rugged features which would have graced a color ad, and quite apparently a lack of decision.

The office nurse caught Mason’s eye. “Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Mason. You may go in. I have received special instructions concerning you.”

Mason nodded his thanks, noticed that apparently his name meant nothing to either of the two visitors who stood in front of the wicket watching the nurse as she swiftly dialed a number.

Mason walked on down the linoleum-covered corridor, clean with its smell of antiseptics, and paused at the door of the ward. A nurse in stiffly starched garments rustled past, looked up at him with a smile, and said, “Your patient has just been transferred, Mr. Mason.”

“Where?”

“Private room, sixty-two. I will show you.”

Mason said nothing, followed along behind the nurse, his heels thudding the linoleum in contrast to the subdued pad... pad... pad of the nurses rubber-soled heels.

She knocked gently at a door. Stephane Claire called, “Come in,” and Mason pushed at the door, smiling his thanks at the nurse.

Stephane Claire was sitting up in bed. “Who,” she asked, “is Santa Claus? Private room, flowers...”

“When did it happen?” Mason asked.

“Just a few minutes ago. They took me out of the ward, removed my stiff nightgown, brought me this come-hither creation — or do you notice nighties, Mr. Mason?”

Mason smiled down at the lace over her shoulders, at the pale blue of the silk which swelled over the contours of her breasts. “Nice going,” he said. “And the flowers?”

“They were delivered just now.”

Mason said, “Apparently, Santa Claus is a gentleman by the name of Max Olger. He is now...” He broke off at the expression on her face. “What’s the trouble?” he asked.

“Uncle Max?” she said. “How in the world did he find out?”

“Apparently you overlooked the fact that the story is a natural for headlines: Car belonging to Hollywood producer involved in accident. Beautiful blonde accused of theft — Claims she was hitchhiking. Mysterious man makes passes at blonde and vanishes. What is your objection to your uncle?”

“Oh, he is all right, but he wants to dominate me. He can’t get it through his head that I have grown up.”

“When did you see him last?”

“A little over a year ago.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“No, but I suppose I have to.”

Mason sat down on the edge of the bed. “I think he will be in here at any moment,” he said, “so you should better hurry. He is in the hospital office now.”

“Was he — alone?”

Mason regarded her searchingly. “The young gentleman who was with him is the broad-shouldered, masculine type. However, he seemed to have some difficulty making up his mind...”

“That will be Jackson,” she interrupted. “It is just like Uncle Max to bring him along.”

Mason said, “Let us hear about the uncle first.”

“He was my father’s brother, quite a lot older. Uncle Max made money. When Dad and Mother died, Uncle Max took me over. My parents didn’t leave me anything. I hadn’t been accustomed to much. At first, Uncle Max was afraid I was going to think I was a rich girl and go on a spending spree. He wanted to impress upon me that I was living with him merely by sufferance.”

“And you didn’t like it?”

“I reveled in it,” she said. “It was swell while it lasted. I had a job and felt independent, and then Uncle Max got parental complexes, and started being both a father and a mother, as well as an uncle. He began to squander money on me. I was waited on by servants, spent about half of my time being measured for clothes. He talked me into giving up my job because he wanted me with him when he went to Palm Beach. Just a lot of hooey to get me away from work and into the life he thought I should lead.”

“And Jackson Sterne?” Mason asked.

“Jacks,” she said, and smiled. “Another one of the things Uncle Max thought would be good for me. He...”

A knock sounded at the door.

She glanced at Mason, called dubiously, “Come in.”