Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

“Well?” Mason asked.

“That’s your case,” Tragg said. “Put her on the stand tomorrow, and your client goes free as air.”

Mason said, “That is a load off my shoulders. How do you feel?”

“I feel like hell,” Tragg said.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think Greeley stole Homan’s car. If Greeley was driving Homan’s car, he was driving it with Homan’s consent. That means I have got to go after Homan. And you know what that means.”

“You have certainly got enough to justify you in...”

“It isn’t a question of whether I am justified or not, Mason. Look here, how about getting you to be the goat in this thing?”

Mason said, “When the police department needs a cat’s-paw, it certainly does cooperate.”

“Nuts to you,” Tragg retorted. “Remember, I brought you those keys.”

“You did at that. What do you want?”

“Call Homan back to the stand tomorrow. Hold this dress-shirt evidence back, and go after him. Use these keys as a basis for your cross-examination. Rip him wide open. See if you can’t catch him in some contradiction, and when you do, put the screws on him.”

Mason said, “I think it is all right, Tragg, but I want to think it over a bit.”

Tragg said, “Well, I shall go out and grab that sandwich, Mason. You can think it over. How about it, Drake? Want to come with me?”

Drake grinned. “You are a great guy, Tragg — at times. But I can’t dance with you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Della Street is coming back,” Drake said, “and Mason is going to buy a dinner.”

Tragg smiled. “Wise guy,” he said.

“Don’t be too certain,” Mason said. “The way things are breaking now, it looks like a busy night. We shall probably grab a hot dog and be lucky to get that.”

“Just the same, Perry, I shall wait.”

Tragg picked up his hat as he started for the door. “Well, personally, I am going to grab a sandwich while the grabbing is good. I don’t want to seem to be putting any high pressure on you, Mason, but it might not be a bad idea for you to give the department a break. You might need it sometime.”

“It is all right,” Mason told him, “if I can work it out so it doesn’t affect my client’s interests.”

“Shucks, she is out of it,” Tragg said. “You could send Mrs. Greeley to the D.A., and he would dismiss. You know that.”

“I shall think it over, Tragg. I think it is okay, but there are a couple of angles I want to check.”

“All right, be seeing you in about twenty minutes.”

Tragg went out. As the automatic door-closing device clicked the latch shut, Paul Drake turned to Mason. “Why not grab at it, Perry?”

Mason said, “It’s all right. I just didn’t want to seem to be too eager. I don’t want Tragg to get the idea he can use me as a stalking horse any old time he wants to and have me fall all over myself doing just what he wants.”

“Well, you have got your client out of the mess on this one.”

“As a matter of fact, Paul, I would do just about what Tragg wants, anyway — whether he had suggested it or not. I hate to see a man with money start putting the screws on a hitchhiker just to get himself out of a mess.”

“But why is Homan doing it? Just to avoid a few thousand dollars in civil liability? You would think that a man in his position and with his means would...”

“Throw money to the birdies for champagne,” Mason interrupted. “When he takes a bunch down to Tiajuana or Palm Springs on a party he does, but when it comes to something of this sort, he is tight as the bark on a tree.

“He...”

The telephone rang.

Mason said, “This will be Horty again... Hello.”

Hortense Zitkousky’s voice sounded harsh and high-pitched. “Is this Mr. Mason?”

“Yes.”

“Horty, Mr. Mason. You got a minute?”

“Why, yes.”

“Listen, could you get out here right away? There is — well, I can’t tell you over the phone what it is.”

“I am afraid not,” Mason said after a moment. “I am waiting for a woman to come to my office with some evidence which will put Miss Claire entirely in the clear. I...”

“Listen, can’t you please come? It is awfully important.”

“Where?”

“The Adirondack Hotel, room five-twenty-eight. If you could come quick, it would help a lot.”

Mason said, “It may mean a lot if I leave here. Can’t you tell me something of what it is?”

“I... No. You have got to come, right away.”

Mason said, “Wait for me in the lobby.”

“I think I would better wait here in the room, Mr. Mason.”

“All right.”

Mason slammed up the telephone.

“Who is it?” Drake asked.

“Hortense. Something has happened that is damnably important. I wouldn’t go for anyone else but that young woman has a most unusual and priceless possession — horse sense.”

Drake nodded.

Mason reached the coat closet in four swift strides, jerked his coat from the hanger, struggled into it, and clapped on his hat.

“Listen, Paul, you have got to hold the office. I will be back before Mrs. Greeley gets here. Tragg may be back before she arrives. Tell him I had to talk with Stephane Claire and get her consent before I agreed to cooperate with him. Tell him it is a matter of form, just my idea of professional ethics.”

“And I will tell him you went to see her?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t it sound a little more like it if I told him that you had telephoned her and tried to explain it to her, and she couldn’t understand so you had to go on up and see her?”

“Perhaps so. Use your own judgment. Don’t be too voluble. Take it as a matter of course. I am on my way.”

Mason grabbed a taxicab from a stand in front of his office building. “Adirondack Hotel,” he said, “and drive like the devil.”

The cab-driver said, “I can make it in five minutes.”

“Try making it in four. Stop across the street if it will save time.”

The cab shot forward. Mason didn’t relax against the cushions, but kept a precarious position on the edge of the seat, hanging on to the door handle, watching the traffic whiz past.

It began to sprinkle before the cab had gone a block, and was raining steadily by the time the cab-driver pulled up in front of the hotel, but directly across the street.

“If you want to spring across, Captain, you can save a full minute. I would have to go around.

Mason jerked the door open.

“Want me to wait?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I shall be right in front of the place, all ready for you.”

Mason ran across the wet street. Once in the hotel he walked rapidly across the lobby, stepped into the elevator, said, “Five, please,” and was whisked on up to the fifth floor. The elevator operator looked at him curiously, apparently trying to ascertain whether Mason was registered in the hotel or merely a visitor. The lawyer, turning to the left without the slightest hesitation, walked confidently down the corridor.

After he had given the elevator time to drop back to the lobby. Mason examined the numbers on the doors, and saw he was going in the wrong direction. He retraced his steps past the dark elevator shaft, found room five-twenty-eight and knocked.

A woman’s voice called softly, “Who is it?”

“Mason.”

The door opened. Hortense Zitkousky said, “Come in.”

She looked garish below her make-up. The splotches of rouge on her cheeks, the dark red on her full lips seemed in startling contrast to the pallor of her skin where the make-up failed to cover it.

“What is it?” Mason asked.

She crossed the bedroom, placed her hand on the knob of a door, then drew back. “You do it.”