Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

Della Street smiled. “You wouldn’t be any fun. You are getting to be a wet blanket, Paul. You are worrying too darn much. Why don’t you be like Homan’s chauffeur?”

“I used to worry about my work,” Drake admitted. “Now I am worrying Perry will get my license revoked. If I had no more to worry about than that chauffeur, I would be taking girls to dinner and spending money like a drunken sailor, too.”

Mason winked at Della Street. “Perhaps we could get that Hortense girl to take him out some night. It might cure him of worrying.”

“Meaning it may be the company I keep?” Drake asked.

Mason jerked his head toward Della Street’s office. “Go in and see if you can locate this agent friend of yours on the phone, Della. You can trust her?”

“Asking if she is a good friend?”

“Yes.”

“I shall say she is.”

“Well, come right out and tell her you want the low-down on Homan. After all, this case is in the papers. You couldn’t make a stall that would stick. She would see through any attempt.”

“Okay, I shall see if I can get her.”

Della Street went into her office. They could hear the dial on her telephone whirring.

Drake said to Mason, “Judge Cortright may turn Stephane Claire loose tomorrow. That Lions girl didn’t make a good impression on him... And I shall bet Tragg is interested in what we are uncovering. I wouldn’t doubt if he dropped in.

“Will you work with him, Perry?”

“It depends. I am going to get my client out from under. He can solve his own murders. Next time I give him a tip, he will follow it.”

“What tip did he muff this time?”

“Homan.”

“Be your age. Homan would have gone in to the big shot in his company, and said, ‘Mr. Whosis, I can’t work on that script, because this lawyer has put the police on me, and they are asking me questions about what I had for dinner last Wednesday.’ Then the big shot would pick up the telephone, call the Mayor. The Mayor would call the Chief. The Chief would call the Captain, and... you get the sketch.”

Mason smiled. “Homan has to be lying about that car.”

“Well, Tragg can’t dig down into the hopper, pull out your dirty linen, and...”

Della Street emerged from her office to say, “I have located her, Chief. She is in her office. Still want me to run out there?”

“Yes. Take my car. I will wait.”

“Here?”

“Uh-huh. Let’s eat when you get back.”

“Okay, I shall grab something to tide me over and meet you here.”

“You, Paul?” Mason asked the detective.

“No. Della says I am a wet blanket.”

“Snap out of it,” she said, smiling. “There is nothing the matter with you that four good cocktails won’t cure.”

Drake said, “I shall let you know later. I hate to turn down a chance to dance with Della.”

She laughed. “You hate to waste a chance to eat your way through a deluxe dinner. Be seeing you. When I come back, I shall have all the inside Hollywood gossip. Give this girl a couple of drinks, and she talks a blue streak.”

Drake said, “Watch her, Perry. She is getting ready to turn in an expense account consisting of a lot of bar cheques. I know the symptoms.”

“You should,” Della Street retorted, putting on her hat and coat in front of the mirror in the cloak closet. “It is a trick I learned from auditing your swindle sheets.” She drew on her gloves. “It will take about two hours, and if I draw a blank, don’t be too disappointed.”

“I won’t,” Mason said.

Mason and Drake listened to Della Street’s steps in the corridor of the deserted office building.

“One in a million,” Drake said.

“Make it ten million, Paul.”

They smoked in silence for several seconds. Steps approached the door. Mason frowned as knuckles beat an authoritative tattoo.

“Sounds like a cop,” Drake said.

“You don’t need to be a detective to tell that,” Mason remarked, opening the door.

Lieutenant Tragg said, “Hello, boys. Trying to make one thought grow where two grew before?”

Mason looked at his watch. “I shall bet it is bad news.”

Tragg walked in, and sat down.

“Things didn’t go so well for you in court today, Mason,” Tragg said.

“Oh, I don’t know. I am satisfied.”

Tragg said, “I have a murder on my hands. You have got an intoxicated-driver manslaughter case. That case is in the county. I don’t care a hell of a lot about it. The murder case is right down my alley. If I solve it, I get a pat on the back. If I don’t, I get a kick in the pants.”

Mason said, “I believe you are leading up to something.”

“I am.”

“Spring it.”

“How would you like to be working with us for a change instead of against us?”

Mason said, “I don’t know. For all I know you might be trying to pin the murder on my client before you got done.”

Tragg said, “Well, we can go into that right now.”

“What about it?”

“There are a couple of clues which point her way.”

Mason sat rigidly erect in his chair. “For the love of Mike, Tragg! All a person needs to do is to be a client of mine, and the police immediately...”

“Keep your hat on,” Tragg said. “I am giving you a break.”

“Go ahead. Give it to me.”

“Let us talk about your client a while first.”

“All right, what about her?”

“Her rich uncle showed up, plunked down a certified cheque for the bail, and took her out of the hospital where she was being held under detention and rushed her to the Adirondack Hotel. And where is the Adirondack Hotel with reference to the Gateview?”

Mason said, “Let’s see. From Seventh and... it’s four blocks.”

“That’s right. A person could walk those four blocks in less than five minutes.”

“Go ahead. I presume my client had the murder gun in her handbag when you searched it?”

“No, but she had something else.”

“What?”

“Well, you see she went to the hospital. It was a homicide and a county job, but they asked me to check on a couple of angles. I heard her story. She said she had taken a key out of the ignition switch on the automobile. I checked up with the garage to which the car had been towed. The ignition was locked. Naturally, I made an investigation of the girl’s purse.”

“Without her knowledge?”

“Oh, certainly.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, there was a key ring with three keys on it. Now then, Mason, before I go any further, I want to know whether that was a plant.”

“I don’t get you.”

Tragg said, “Naturally, I wanted to know about those keys. One of them looked like the key to an automobile ignition. I thought it would be better to find out first and ask the questions afterward. So while your client was laid up in the hospital, I had an expert locksmith bring an assortment of blanks. The nurse had slipped the keys out of the purse, and the locksmith made duplicates. I took the duplicate keys down and tried them on the car. The automobile key fitted the ignition okay. That left me with two other keys. I didn’t know what they were for. Somehow or other, Mason, I distrusted those keys. It looked like the fine Italian hand of a master dramatist.”

“Go ahead.”

“You started beefing about Homan, so I made a quiet trip out to Homan’s place, and tried the other two keys on his doors just to see if they would fit.”

“What was the big idea of all the secrecy?”

“Oh, I just wanted to see what little surprises you had thought up for the D.A.”

“Well, did the key fit?”

“No, not the door — but one of those keys is to Homan’s yacht.”

“The hell you say!”

“Surprised?”