Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

“I don’t know. I can try. A girl doesn’t get by very long in the looks jobs without learning how to put on an act.”

“What do you mean, looks jobs?”

“Oh, being a cigar and cigarette girl in a night spot, checking hats, and stuff of that sort. You are an ornament as well as a worker. People feel free to make passes and you kid them along.”

“Well,” Mason said, dropping the keys back in her purse, “we can try one rehearsal when we have a little more time. I don’t want to rehearse you so much that it will look staged. I want you to make it appear spontaneous and natural. Go ahead now. Try and think of something else about that man, something that would be a clue.”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“That dinner jacket,” Mason asked, “he didn’t mention it to you, where he had been or anything of that sort, or how he happened to be wearing it?”

“No. I didn’t think much of it at the time.”

Mason said, “It’s a key clue, if we only knew how to interpret it.”

“I don’t see why. Tuxedos aren’t so unusual.”

Mason said, “Stop the first five thousand cars going over the Ridge route at ten o’clock in the evening, and see how many drivers are wearing tuxedos.”

Her eyelids narrowed as she thought that over. “Yes,” she said, “I can see what you mean. It is unusual.”

“And that,” Mason observed, “is the secret of crime solution. You find the things that are unusual, the things which vary from the normal or average, and, using them as clues, you get away from generalities, and down to specific individual cases.”

“I see what you are getting at, but I can’t help you. He didn’t say a thing about how he happened to be wearing it.”

“You must have left Bakersfield at around ten o’clock.”

“Yes.”

“And you think this man must have come from some place north of Bakersfield.”

“I can’t be certain. I was watching the other cars. No, he may have swung around that traffic circle.”

“Did you notice any baggage in the car?”

“No, I didn’t. It might have been there, and I wouldn’t have noticed it. And, of course, some might have been in the trunk.”

“Do you think there was any baggage in back?”

She frowned. “I don’t think there was.”

“He could hardly have gone back, opened the trunk, and taken out baggage after the accident. What’s more, you have the keys in your purse.”

“That’s right.”

“Did he have any rings on his hands?”

“Yes. There was a diamond ring on his right hand. I remember seeing it when he reached for the gearshift, and his hands were well cared for, pudgy with short, thick fingers, and they were well manicured.”

“He wasn’t wearing gloves?”

“No.”

Knuckles sounded on the outer door. Stephane said, “This will be Uncle Max, and the boyfriend,” and called, “Come in.”

It was Max Olger who pushed the door open. The young man hung back. Stephane called, “Come on in, Jacks. I won’t bite.”

He walked over to the bed and stood looking down at her. “Hello, kid,” he said, and then very diffidently picked up her hand, which was lying on the counterpane, held it for a moment, stroking the back of it with his other hand. “How you feeling?”

“Swell.”

“I didn’t want you to think I was — following you up. I wanted you to know about that. I am just here to help you. Your uncle got detectives to try and trace you. I didn’t do a thing. Not that I didn’t want to know where you had gone, but I knew you went away because you wanted to go, and I didn’t want to do anything — Well, you know how it is.”

“Thanks, Jacks.”

“And I came here just to see what I could do to help. That’s all, I am not going to be a nuisance. I told Max I would stay at a different hotel and...”

She withdrew her hand, said, “This is Mr. Mason, my lawyer.”

The young man turned. He was as tall as Mason, and thirty pounds heavier, despite a slender waist. His big hand enfolded the lawyer’s wiry fingers. “How are you, Mr. Mason? Mr. Olger has been telling me about you. Do the best you can for her. How do things look?”

“I can’t tell yet,” Mason said, shaking hands.

Stephane Claire said to Mason, “Really now, how do they look?”

“Right now, they look black. All cases do at the start.”

“This is a long way from the start.”

“And a long way from the finish,” Mason said. “You gentlemen won’t mind if Miss Claire tells you what happened in rather general terms? I don’t want her to tell her story so many times it will sound rehearsed when she gets on the witness stand.”

Max Olger nodded vehemently. “Good idea, Mason. That is splendid strategy. I have been in court and heard people tell stories that sounded as though they had been learned by heart.”

“They probably were. Well, I will be going.”

“Can I get her out of here?” Max Olger asked.

“You can, if you want to put up ten thousand dollars cash bail or twenty thousand dollars bond.”

Stephane Claire said, “Good heavens, Mr. Mason! Am I as much of a criminal as that? When did all this take place?”

Mason said, “Late this afternoon.”

Max Olger said, “I shall put up cash within the next thirty minutes. I didn’t know how much would be required, so I carried ten certified cheques, each for ten thousand dollars.”

“You must have thought bail was going to be high,” Mason said.

“No. I simply came prepared in the event it was high.”

“You don’t want to get out tonight, do you?” Mason asked Stephane Claire.

“I most certainly do. I haven’t said anything because there was no use crabbing about something you couldn’t help, but this business of being detained has been like a nightmare.”

Mason said to Max Olger, “All right, go put up the bail and get her out. Where are you staying?”

“The Adirondack. We will have a suite there.”

Jackson Sterne said, “I shall go to some other hotel, Stephane. I don’t want to intrude. Can you tell me some good hotel that is nearby, Mr. Mason?”

“Might try the Gateview,” Mason said. “It is within three or four blocks of the Adirondack. It is a quiet place, small but comfortable.”

Stephane said savagely, “Jacks, if you wouldn’t be so damned self-effacing, I would like you a lot better. Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

“Do you really mean it? May I?”

She turned her head away with a jerk. “No!”

Mason tiptoed out of the room, let the door swing shut behind him, and walked rapidly down the hospital corridor. A cold wind had started to blow, and he buttoned up his coat, made certain that he wasn’t followed, and dropped into a drugstore at the corner. He called Drake’s office. Drake had just come in.

Mason said, “Paul, I have been thinking we may have overlooked a bet.”

“On what?”

“On Mrs. Warfield.”

“What about her?”

“We didn’t put a tail on her.”

“Well, I can do it if you want.”

“I think we should better. Put two good men right in the hotel. They can rent a room and take turns watching and sleeping.”

“I shall have them there within half an hour.”

“Call me back at my apartment,” Mason said, “and before they start work, have them find out if Mrs. Warfield is in her room.”

“Right.”

Mason hung up, drove to his apartment, slipped out of his coat, vest, shirt, and trousers, put on a pair of slacks and a smoking jacket, and was lighting his pipe when the phone rang.

“Drake talking,” the detective said. “Everything’s okay at the Gateview.”

“She is in her room?”

“Uh-huh. The light is still on.”