Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

Frank Ruscell of the district attorney’s office was suave but insistent. “We would like to get that Stephane Claire case on its way, Mason. How about having an arraignment and setting the preliminary for Friday?”

“You haven’t got any case against her,” Mason said.

Ruscell refused to be drawn into argument. “I don’t know very much about it. I am not going to handle it myself. The office thinks there is a case. How about Friday at ten o’clock?”

Mason hesitated.

“Of course, we could go ahead and take her into court and let the judge fix the time. I understand she has been admitted to bail. If she is going to object to a prompt hearing, we would want the bail increased.”

“All right,” Mason conceded, “Friday at ten. We can have the whole thing handled at that time by stipulation and go right ahead with the preliminary.”

Ruscell said, “Thank you,” with the smug courtesy of a deputy district attorney who thinks all defense lawyers are crooks, and hung up.

Mason dropped the phone into place and said to Della Street, “I am damned if they are going to send her to the pen to cover up for some Hollywood big shot.”

“Any ideas?” she asked.

Mason pushed the books over to one side of the desk and sat on the space he had cleared away. His brows were level. “I think that dinner jacket has something to do with it, Della.”

“I don’t get you.”

“A man doesn’t put on evening clothes to drive an automobile. This man either expected to arrive in Los Angeles and attend some party, or else he had some reason for dressing up before he left. Now look at the time. He would have got in here sometime after midnight. He would have hardly gone to a party then. On the other hand, he left Bakersfield around ten. There is some question whether he came from Bakersfield or down the San Francisco highway. Gatherings for which people go to the trouble of putting on formal or semi-formal clothes don’t usually break up that early in the evening.”

“Stay with it,” Della Street said. “You are doing fine.”

“Bakersfield isn’t so large but what we should be able to check with the society editors of the papers and find out anything unusual which would have called for evening clothes. Then we might check a list of the guests and see if someone left early.”

“Swell,” Della Street said.

“Make a note of it. We will get Paul Drake working on it.”

“Any other ideas?” she asked, making pot hooks in her notebook.

“There is some influence back of Homan,” Mason said. “He has gone up like a skyrocket.”

“Don’t people do that occasionally in Hollywood?”

“Occasionally. When it happens, there’s usually someone back of them, someone who knows the ropes. You know how it is out in Hollywood. Joe Doakes can go begging for years. Then someone mentions at a Hollywood party that MGM is trying to sign him up on a long-term contract. Within twenty-four hours, Joe Doakes will have four or five telephone calls.”

“But what difference does it make about Homan unless you can prove something about the car? He wasn’t driving it himself, was he?”

“No, apparently not. He doesn’t even answer the description.”

“I don’t see how the secret back of his Hollywood success is going to help you.”

“Neither do I,” Mason admitted, “not yet. But I want to learn more about him, get all of the different angles on his character and personality. Then I will have something to work on. Of course, the man I want is Spinney. It looks as though I would have to reach Spinney through Homan, and Spinney is being kept under cover. If I could only find some way of smoking him out in the open...”

Mason became silent, staring down at the carpet.

“Look,” Della Street said, “I have an idea.”

“Shoot.”

“If your theory is correct, Spinney is a yes-man, a fixer who cleans things up for Homan, takes care of Homan’s dirty linen and all that stuff.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And Homan knows you are looking for Spinney.”

“He probably doesn’t know exactly how much we have on Spinney, but he knows enough to keep Spinney out of sight for a while.”

“But if Homan got in a jam, he would call on Spinney, wouldn’t he?”

“He might. Why?”

Della Street’s eyes were twinkling. “Why shouldn’t we...”

“We couldn’t even worry him, Della,” Mason interrupted. “He would have to be faced with something bigger than anything we could frame up to bring Spinney out into the Open.”

“Well, can’t you think up something?”

“Let us try looking at it from Homan’s angles. He must be worried. Somewhere, somehow, it must be possible to associate Spinney with him. He must be afraid of that.”

“How about Mrs. Warfield? What do you think happened to her?”

“She must have left under her own power. They all say she couldn’t have got out of the hotel and taken her baggage with her without being stopped. It sounds reasonable, too. If a person could leave a hotel and take his baggage without going through the lobby, a lot of people simply wouldn’t bother to pay hotel bills. So somewhere in there is a factor we have missed.”

Della Street said, “She didn’t stay, yet she couldn’t have left. She...”

Mason, jumping from the desk, exclaimed, “You have got it, Della! You’ve got it!”

“What have I got?” she asked, puzzled.

“The solution. Don’t you see? You have got the whole thing.”

“Oh, yes. Clear as mud. Pardon me if I don’t share your enthusiasm.”

“Get Drake,” Mason said excitedly. “Don’t bother with the telephone. Beat it down the corridor. By gosh, we have got it! We have got the whole thing. This time, Homan has stuck his neck out, and we are going to... Get started, Della.”

“On my way,” she said. “World’s record in the fifty-yard dash. Hold the stop watch, Chief.” She dashed through the door, and Mason could bear her running steps in the corridor.

The lawyer paced the floor, nervously impatient, snapping his fingers from time to time. Occasionally he nodded his head.

Drake, accompanying a breathless Della Street, entered the office and said, “What is the excitement, Perry?”

“Della gave me the solution to that hotel disappearance.”

“This,” Della Street explained to Paul Drake, “is the way you give something you haven’t got. It is the way bankrupt nations finance armaments.”

“It is so damn simple and so damn daring,” Mason went on.

“Go ahead, Perry. What is it?”

“Don’t you see, Paul? Your men were in the lobby. She couldn’t have checked out. She didn’t even come down to the lobby to talk with anyone — not even the clerk. Her baggage is missing. The manager says she couldn’t possibly have got out the back way, particularly with her baggage. He mentioned the fire escape, but she couldn’t have carried her baggage down it.”

“Well?” Drake asked.

“She is still in the hotel. Don’t you get it?”

“No,” Drake said. “I am damned if I do. They searched her room. My man says they...”

“Don’t you see? She is in another room.”

Drake thought for a moment, then frowned and shook his head. “No, she would have had to go down to the desk to get another room. She didn’t...”

“Wake up, Paul,” Mason said. “We were tailed to that hotel. Someone else was following every move we made. After we got her placed in a room, that someone simply checked into the hotel and got a room. After he was in his room, he went down to Mrs. Warfield’s room — and he must have gone there very shortly after we left. Now he was able to say something to her which meant more to her than the job you had offered, something which made her decide to double-cross you and go with him.”