Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

“And your men are on the job?”

“That’s right. But I have found out something that doesn’t look so good.”

“What?”

“She went up to her room, then after a few minutes came back down to the lobby. The girl at the newsstand was just closing up. Mrs. Warfield tried to get some back copies of Photoplay .”

Mason whistled. “Did the girl have any?”

“No.”

Mason frowned at the telephone. “That picture of Homan,” he asked, “was that published in Photoplay ?”

“I think it was.”

“You don’t know when?”

“Some time last summer.”

“She didn’t ask for any particular number?”

“No, just asked for back copies of Photoplay .”

“We will have to raise our sights a couple of notches on Mrs. Lois Warfield.”

“You may be right at that,” Drake admitted. “It makes my cheeks burn. She didn’t act smart. She seemed like a woman who is accustomed to pick up her hand after the deal and find she holds all the low cards.”

Mason said, “Scrimping out of her salary to send those monthly remittances to Spinney certainly sounds on the level.”

“I am not so certain, Perry, but what that is just a dodge. If she was sending eighteen dollars a month, it would be two hundred and sixteen dollars a year. That’s pretty cheap for a phony build-up.”

“Not for a person who is working in a cafeteria in New Orleans,” Mason said. “Keep your eye peeled, Paul. I feel that we are walking in the dark, and there are banana peels on the sidewalk.”

“Well, I have got two men on the job who aren’t exactly simpletons.”

“Keep them there,” Mason said, and hung up.

Mason was up at seven-thirty. He closed the windows, turned on the steam heat, glanced through the headlines of the paper, and took a lukewarm shower.

When he had dressed, he went to the bookshelves and selected a large white-backed volume which he spread open on the table in front of the window.

The volume gave much biographical information concerning the prominent men identified with the film industry, and, using it as a reference, Mason checked back against the information which Drake had given him concerning Jules Carne Homan. The producer was thirty-four years old, had had high school education and two years of college. There was a long list of screen originals he had written and plays which had been produced under him. While the volume didn’t say so in so many words, it was apparent that Homan’s Hollywood activities had occupied a period of but little over two years. He had started as a writer, and, from the meteoric advance. Mason felt certain that there was a story behind the scenes. But there was no inkling as to what that story might be.

Mason zipped open his brief case and stood staring at the photograph of Jules Carne Homan. He turned it over and looked on the back. The words, “Photoplay Magazine,” had been stamped on the back. Mason pulled the shades, turned on a desk lamp, and tried holding the photograph at different angles. The words on the back didn’t show through the photograph, except when it was held directly in front of a bright light.

Mason was still frowning thoughtfully an hour and fifteen minutes later when he entered the office.

Della Street brought in the morning mail. “How did your interview turn out?” she asked.

“Nothing doing,” Mason said.

“She wouldn’t talk?”

“Apparently she knew nothing to talk about. But there is an angle I can’t get.”

“What, for instance?”

Mason handed Della Street the photograph of Homan. “Look at it,” he said. “Don’t turn it over. Just look at it. How would you know that was taken by a photographer of Photoplay Magazine?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Well, it was , and she did .”

“You are certain?”

“I am not certain of anything in this case. You follow a blazed trail that looks broad as a boulevard, and all of a sudden it evaporates into thin air and leaves you in the middle of a swamp somewhere. The...”

“Wait a minute,” Della Street said, staring at the photograph. She held it up to the light.

“No, I have tried that. The paper is too heavy. The light doesn’t shine through. Then again, there wasn’t any light on the table. She didn’t even turn it around, just held it in her right hand, looked at it and then passed it back.”

Della Street said, “It’s funny she didn’t hold it in both hands.”

“She was doing some little feminine stunt or other at the time, digging in her bag or something.”

Della Street’s eyes twinkled. “Not powdering her nose?”

“Yes,” Mason said, “I believe she was. Why?”

“Goosey!”

“What’s the idea?”

She opened her bag, took out a compact, snapped it open, said, “Hold out the photograph.”

Mason held the photograph out in front of her. Della Street tilted her compact.

“Get it?” she asked.

“Get what?... Oh, my gosh!” Mason exclaimed.

“You should have had me along,” Della Street told him reproachfully. “This takes a woman’s touch.”

Mason said to Della, “I am just a lawyer, but Paul Drake is supposed to be a detective. Wait until he hears...”

A knock sounded on the door. “That’s Paul now,” she said.

Mason grinned. “Open up for him, Della. This is going to be good.”

Drake came swinging into the office, said, “Hello, gang,” and sprawled out in the big leather chair.

Mason grinned at him. “How is the great detective this morning?”

Drake cocked a baleful eye in Mason’s direction. “This,” he said, “has all the earmarks of being the preliminary for a sock right between the eyes.”

Mason said, “The trouble with us, Paul, is that we need a guardian. It serves us right for not taking Della along last night.”

“What now?”

“Do you remember what Mrs. Warfield was doing when we showed her that photograph last night?”

“Sitting at the table,” Drake said.

“Did she look at the back of the photograph?”

“No. I remember she held it for a minute, then passed it back.”

“Don’t you remember what she was doing when I showed her the photograph?”

“No, hanged if I do. Was it before or after we had the cocktail?”

Mason said, “She was fixing up her face.”

“I guess that is right — come to think of it — she was.”

Mason said, “Show him, Della.”

The lawyer held up the photograph in front of Drake. Della Street snapped open her compact. Drake looked puzzled for a moment, then, as Della Street tilted the mirror to one side and then the other, Drake gave a low whistle.

“So,” Mason said, “she may have been dumb enough to send all of her money to the man she loved, but she certainly made us look like a couple of amateurs. Reading the imprint on this photo in her minor, she had to transpose it in her mind, too. Yet she never so much as squinted.”

Drake said, “Well, we won’t take it lying down. We shall really give her something to think about this time.”

“She is smart,” Mason warned.

“She is clever all right. She never let on she had the slightest interest in that photograph — but she made up her mind she would check the back issues of Photoplay , read the ‘left to right,’ and then wouldn’t need to ask any questions.”

“Ready to go?” Mason asked.

“Uh-huh.”

Mason said to Della Street, “Get your things, Della. In dealing with this woman, we need you on the job.”

While Della Street was putting on her coat and hat, Mason said to Drake, “One other thing, Paul. Read up on Homan’s career in Hollywood. He didn’t skyrocket up that far and that fast without having somebody shoving him up the ladder.”