Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

“Why, yes, I get it, but...”

An elevator stopped at the lobby floor. Mason all but pushed him in. “All right then,” he said, “get started. If I am still here in the lobby when you come down, don’t speak to me. Don’t look at me.”

“But what will I tell Stephane?”

Mason turned his back. A moment later the elevator door clanged. Mason rejoined Paul Drake and the operative.

“Who?” Drake asked.

“Stephane Claire’s boyfriend,” Mason said. “Wanted a quiet place to stay, and I suggested this hotel just because it was close to the Adirondack and...”

Drake said, “If Tragg finds out he was here, he will darn near pin the killing on Stephane Claire.”

“Are you telling me?” Mason asked, looking anxiously at his wrist watch. “Come on, Paul. Let us go back up and stand in the corridor. I don’t want to be talking with Tragg when this drink-of-water checks out.”

“Didn’t you tell him not to give you a tumble if...”

“I told him,” Mason said, “but he is just the sort who would walk up and say, ‘Mr. Mason, why didn’t you want me to speak to you when I came out?’”

“You do have the nicest friends, Perry.”

“Don’t I,” Mason said. “Come on, let’s go up.”

It was a good half hour before Tragg sent for Mason.

Members of the Homicide Squad were still at work, developing latent fingerprints, taking photographs of the body, drawing a scaled map of the room.

“I hope,” Tragg said with the flicker of a smile at the corners of his eyes, “you have got your story ready.”

“I have.”

“If you want any more time to think up a good one, I shall talk with Drake first. You understand the position I am in. The chief will think you used me as a cat’s-paw.”

Mason said, “I get fed up with this. If I cooperate with you, I am using you as a cat’s-paw. If I go ahead on my own, I am included in the list of suspects.”

“The trouble, Mason, is that you find too many bodies.”

Mason said, “No. The trouble is that I can’t stay in my office and wait for people to come in and see me the way clients are supposed to. I have to get out on the firing line. When you do that, you circulate around quite a bit and...”

“And you still find too many bodies,” Tragg said.

“I was going to add,” Mason remarked with some dignity, “that once a man gets a reputation for being a good lawyer in a murder case, murders have a tendency to gravitate in his direction.”

Tragg thought that over for a few moments, and said, “Yes. I guess that’s so. A person who has committed a murder naturally thinks of Perry Mason. And, by the same token, a person who intends to commit a murder naturally thinks of Perry Mason.”

“I am glad you recognize that fact. It may simplify matters.”

“Who is this guy?” Tragg asked, jerking his head toward the bed.

“I don’t know,” Mason said.

“You don’t know! I thought you said you did.”

“I know that he was registered here as Walter Lossten. That is all I know about him.”

Tragg looked at him suspiciously. “You couldn’t see the face when you came in?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know that you don’t know him?”

“If he is the man I think he must be, I have never met him.”

“And who do you think he must be?”

“The man who was driving Homan’s car.”

Tragg frowned. “Listen, Mason, you keep trying to drag Homan into this thing. Hollywood has a few million dollars invested around this town. A group of the highest-salaried men and women in the world are gathered into a few square miles. Naturally, it is the richest blackmail pasture on earth. The D.A.’s office knows this, and tries to give Hollywood the breaks. You know that as well as I do.”

Mason nodded.

“Now, I can’t go barging up to Homan the way I would an ordinary citizen. You know that.”

Mason said, “You were asking me for facts. I was giving them to you. I take it that you want them?”

“Nuts,” Tragg said.

Mason said, “Perhaps I would better take a look at the body.”

“Perhaps you had.”

Mason walked over to the bed, stepping over a tape measure with which two of Tragg’s assistants were measuring the distance from the bed to the window.

The body had been turned over on its back, and Mason looked down upon features so perfectly in accord with the description Stephane Claire had given him of the man who was driving the car that Mason felt he must have known this man at some time, personally and intimately.

He turned away. Tragg raised his eyebrows. Mason nodded.

Tragg said to one of the men, “You boys finished with this telephone?”

The man to whom he had spoken said, “Yeah. The fingerprints on it are all pretty badly smudged, and I think they are old. I don’t think anyone has used it within the last twenty-four hours.”

“All right,” Tragg said, picked up the telephone, called headquarters and said, “This is Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide. I am in five-twenty-one at the Gateview Hotel working on a case. Stephane Claire, who is being held on that automobile accident on the Ridge Route, may know this man. Have a couple of radio officers pick her up and bring her here fast. She is at the Adirondack Hotel.” He hung up.

Mason said, “So you know where she is?”

Tragg grinned. “Don’t be silly. It is a county case, but when she was released on bail — well, they asked us to cooperate. After all, it is a homicide, you know.”

“I didn’t know you boys worked together with so much harmony.”

“Orders from the Chief,” Tragg said.

Mason smiled. “Hollywood certainly does have a drag!”

Tragg changed the subject.

“You were looking for this man?”

“Naturally. He is the driver of the Homan car.”

“What name did you know him by?”

“I tell you I didn’t know him.”

“What name did he give your client?”

“He didn’t give her any. The accident happened before they got that well acquainted.”

“Cagey, aren’t you?”

“No. Truthful.”

“When you wanted me to come out, you said something about a Spinley or Semley, or some such name.”

“I don’t remember it.”

Tragg tried another tack. “How did you happen to look for him in this hotel?”

“Paul Drake’s men were making a search. They asked the clerk if a man who answered this description had arrived at the hotel last night and found he had.”

Tragg’s slight frown showed his irritation. “Very, very nice,” he said, and then added, after a significant pause, “for you. That is, it would be nice if I believed it.”

“You can prove it,” Mason said.

“How?”

“By checking with the clerk.”

“I am not doubting that. You are too shrewd to give me a false lead on something that could be checked as easily as that. But what I want to know is how Drake’s men happened to pick this particular hotel.”

“They were looking for the driver of the car.”

“You mean the corpse over here?”

“Yes.”

“And why did they happen to look here?”

“They were covering the hotels.”

“How many other hotels did they cover?” Tragg asked.

As Mason remained silent, Tragg grinned. “You are a tough customer, Mason. You know your rights, and you will keep within them, but if I have to I will get the facts from Paul Drake. Remember, Drake is running a private detective agency. He would hate to have anything happen to his license.”

Mason said, “Drake and I had a witness we were keeping in the hotel. We thought this man might try to reach her.”

“That is better. Who was the witness?”

“I would prefer not to discuss that.”