Erle Gardner: The Case of the Haunted Husband

The cars bore down on her. White, blazing headlights dazzled her eyes. The first car roared past. The air currents sucking in behind the car whipped her skirts. She automatically raised a hand to her hat. The second, third, and fourth cars whizzed by. A fifth car was almost on her when she opened her eyes. It came on with a smooth hiss of power, a mere whisper of speed as it rocketed past, intent upon overtaking and passing the four cars ahead. Then the rear blazed into red light, weaved slightly as the brakes slowed the big car to a stop.

Stephane glanced behind her to make certain the road was clear, and started to run. That running was a gesture. She hoped the driver would back up but he didn’t, and when Stephane drew abreast of the car, she realized he was the sort who wouldn’t.

He matched the arrogant luxury of the car in every way, a man in the early thirties with dark, impudent eyes which shifted from her face to her legs as she climbed in beside him. He was wearing a dinner jacket, under a lightweight black topcoat. The hand on the gearshift lever was soft-skinned. The nails were well manicured. A diamond ring glittered on the fourth finger, and Stephane’s nostrils caught the faint but unmistakable reek of whiskey. He had a short, black mustache, and drink-red eyes.

But the man seemed competent. The car was a big modern machine geared for speed, totally different from the car in which she had made the long trip from San Francisco to Bakersfield.

The man shifted through the gears. The motor noise became a reassuring whisper as the car sped forward.

“Los Angeles?” he asked casually as he made the boulevard stop.

“Yes. Are you going that far?”

“Uh-huh. Cold?”

She knew what was coming, so she smiled, despite the chill which had been gripping her ankles ever since sunset, and said, “No, I am fine, thank you.”

“Flask in that glove compartment. Nice stuff.”

“I am fine.”

“Better take a drink. It will warm you up.”

“No, thanks.”

He turned to look at her, dark eyes glittering with assurance. “You aren’t going to go puritan on me, are you?”

She laughed. “I am not puritan. I am just me.”

“All right, have it your own way. We will stop up the road a ways. I need a short one. Get out of some of this traffic first.”

For a few minutes he devoted his attention to driving. The car slid smoothly past the string of four cars which had been ahead of them. The wheels seemed to lift up the cement miles, roll them through the speedometer, and toss them scornfully behind. Stephane thought they must be doing sixty. She glanced at the needle of the speedometer. It was holding steady at eighty-five.

“You don’t believe in speed laws, do you?” she asked with a light laugh, making conversation.

“No.”

By the time they reached Lebec, Stephane knew her man like a book. She took one short drink from the flask, listened to him gurgle down a good jolt of the whiskey.

The man evidently had money. He seemed to take intimacy for granted. He had a quick, cynical mind. Back of his complacent assurance there was a cold savage something — a contempt for women. Here was a man, Stephane decided, whose attitude and temperament would appeal to but one type of woman — and because his experience had been confined to that selfish, vacuous-minded fringe, he judged the entire sex by those standards.

But there was a cold wind blowing up on the ridge. The car had a heater which sent a current of warm air caressing her cold ankles, thawing out the numbness of her feet. The man was a good driver, and within a little more than an hour they should be in Los Angeles. She could kid him along and go on through in this car.

Stephane played up to him as little as she could, just enough to keep him from putting her out on the road, a maneuver of which he seemed thoroughly capable.

After the second drink, he screwed the cap back on the flask tossed it into the glove compartment. His hand patted her back, slid along her shoulder, down her arm, touched her leg briefly.

“Okay, baby,” he said, “let us get to L.A. And when I get there, I have got a job to do... a... oh, well, what the hell?”

He crowded the car into speed. A gust of wind hurtled against it, swaying it on its springs. The night was cold and intensely clear. The headlights streamed down the pavement in a brilliant fan of illumination. Oncoming motorists blinked their lights repeatedly, but that was all the good it did them. This driver wasn’t one to bother with roadside courtesies. His own lights were bright enough to minimize the glare of lights from other machines.

They were going faster now. Stephane could feel the car, despite its low center of gravity, swaying on the curves. She realized that that last drink he had taken had been pretty heavy. He was stealing glances at her now, glances which were frankly appraising. She pretended to be very much preoccupied, looking at the scenery through the right window so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. Thank heavens, the front seat was wide enough so he couldn’t...

“Come on over here, baby.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“Come on. Don’t be so standoffish.”

She laughed. “I always did like to sit in a corner.”

“Well, forget it, and come on over here.”

She slid over a few inches.

“Hell, that’s not over.”

“You need room for driving.”

“You can drive this bus with one finger. Come on... Say, what’s the matter with you? You aren’t an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud, are you?... Oh, come on over... Here...” His right arm circled her neck, dragged her over toward him. He gave one quick glance at the road, then, still holding the wheel with his left hand, forced her chin up.

She saw his eyes, felt the touch of his lips. The reek of liquor was in her nostrils. She fought free, not worried so much about the embrace as about the careening course of the car. Her gloved hand shot to the steering wheel. “Watch where you’re going,” she cried sharply.

He laughed and caught the wheel from her hands. The big car had swerved across to the left side of the highway. Now it came screeching back to the right, as an indignant motorist shot past, his palm pressed against the horn.

“What are you trying to do, kill us both?” Stephane asked.

“When I want something, I want it.”

She moved back toward the far corner of the seat. She was trembling.

“All right, stop the car. I shall take a transfer.”

“No chance, sister. This is a nonstop flight.”

She was frightened, but wasn’t going to show it. She calmly opened her purse, took out her compact and lipstick. She took off her right glove, placed lipstick on the tip of her little finger.

He said, “We aren’t finished yet.”

She turned calmly toward him. “I am.”

“Think you are going to pull that stuff with me?”

“If you will stop the car, I will get out.”

He said, “There is the door.”

A ring of keys dangled down from the switch. She reached forward quickly, turned off the ignition, and jerked out the keys. She popped the keys into her purse, snapped it shut.

“Your little devil,” he said and lunged.

She fought him back, pushing out with her right hand. The lipstick on her little finger left a long red streak down the front of his shirt. He grabbed her wrist. The car, with the ignition shut off, was slowing from eighty-five to seventy, from seventy to sixty. He was trying to wrench the purse from her left hand. As her grip resisted his efforts, he took his left hand from the steering wheel. Her lips pressed against his shirt.

She raised her knee to push back against his body, twisting to look through the windshield.

“Look out,” she screamed and quit struggling.