Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

Tragg took the suit to hold it under the light. After a few moments, he looked up at Mason. “Nothing I can see,” he said.

“Wouldn’t there have been some spots on the suit,” Mrs. Greeley asked, “if — if that girl is telling the truth?”

“Perhaps,” Tragg said.

“She was cut in several places, wasn’t she?”

“There were some gashes, yes.”

“And if my husband had been driving the car, he would have been on the left-hand side. That would have been on the lower side. She would have been above him. In order to have squirmed out from under the steering wheel, got past that unconscious woman, and crawled out through the window — well, it seems to me there would have been some spots on his suit.”

“Yes,” Tragg said, “you would think so. What are you getting at?”

She said simply, “I brought the shirt to you because I found it, because it was evidence. I suppose it was my duty, but — well, you will understand. My husband and I were very close. I don’t want to be sentimental. I don’t want to get to feeling sorry for myself, and I don’t want to impose my own private, individual grief on you people, but I would like a fair deal.”

“You will get it,” Mason said.

She smiled her thanks.

Tragg said, “I don’t understand, Mrs. Greeley. In the face of this evidence, do you still think that your husband wasn’t driving the car?”

“Yes.”

Tragg said, “I am afraid I don’t understand, Mrs. Greeley.”

She said, “Adler wouldn’t have done the things this man who was driving the car did.”

Tragg indicated the shirt. “You mean he didn’t try to kiss...”

“Oh, that,” she interrupted. That is nothing. He had been drinking. He was feeling good. This girl has a butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth manner, now that she is telling about it but in the car, she was probably kidding him along. They all do. I don’t care about that. Adler was no saint. But what I mean is he wouldn’t have climbed out of the car and left the girl behind the steering wheel. Adler didn’t do that. That isn’t his way of doing things.”

“But he must have,” Mason said.

She shook her head stubbornly.

“There is something else that we don’t know about, Mr. Mason. If Adler was at the wheel of that car and he got out and left the girl to take the responsibility, there was someone who forced him to do it, someone who was hidden in that car, either down on the floor in back, or in the trunk, or somewhere. Or perhaps someone who was following along behind.”

“Wait a minute,” Tragg said. “That is a theory. The evidence shows a lot of cars stopped almost at once. There was quite a mix-up.”

“Someone,” Mrs. Greeley said with calm sincerity, “forced Adler to get out of that car. Someone took him away from the scene of the accident, and that someone forced him to keep quiet. When you have found who that someone was, you will have found who killed my husband, and... and...” She began to sob — after a few moments got control of herself and said, “I am sorry. I am pretty much unstrung.”

Mason glanced at Tragg. “I don’t think we need her any more, do we, Lieutenant?”

Tragg shook his head.

Mrs. Greeley gave Mason her hand. “When I first met you — well, I found myself liking you, and yet you made me very angry. I... I hope we understand each other better now.”

She gave his hand a quick pressure, smiled at Tragg, nodded to Drake, and left the office, walking rapidly down the corridor.

Drake, listening to the sound of her diminishing footsteps said, “If I had been Greeley, I wouldn’t have been playing around. Gosh, Perry, you certainly talked a sermon.”

“Did I miss something?” Tragg asked.

“Did you miss something ? I shall say you did. A five-minute talk on the philosophy of life and death I will never forget.”

Tragg glanced at Mason, elevated his eyebrows quizzically.

Mason said apologetically, “She had had an overdose of this all-for-the-best business. I tried to give her a little of my own philosophy about life and death.”

Tragg said, “Well, I have got some news. I couldn’t get up here sooner because I was camped in a telephone booth down in the restaurant. I had headquarters half crazy, but I got action. A man wearing a tuxedo suit chartered a plane to go from San Francisco to Fresno early on the morning of Wednesday the nineteenth. Two o’clock to be exact. Get that, Mason? At two in the morning.”

“What time would that have put him in Fresno?” Mason asked.

“Oh, within an hour or so.”

“And then what?”

“We are tracing him from Fresno,” Tragg said. “We should be able to get a line on him.”

“Get the name under which the ticket was sold?” Mason asked.

Tragg grinned. “L. C. Spinney.”

“How soon can you get something from Fresno?”

“It should be coming in any time now,” Tragg said.

“Headquarters knows you are here? They can reach you on the telephone if anything turns up?”

“Sure.”

Mason said, “Well, we are commencing to get it unscrambled. This all begins to fit into a perfect picture.”

“That Warfield woman,” Tragg said, “has simply disappeared into thin air. I don’t like that. A simple, unsophisticated, working woman couldn’t have walked out of a hotel in a city where she had no connections...”

Drake said, “You aren’t overlooking that cafeteria friend of hers, are you?”

“No, I am not,” Tragg said. “We have interviewed her. She says she doesn’t know a thing. We are going to keep a watch on her. We found out this much after Mrs. Warfield got that cafeteria job lined up, someone came in, flashed a buzzer, and said Warfield was a convict who had escaped, that Mrs. Warfield was sending him money, and asked a lot of questions. That naturally cooked Mrs. Warfield’s chance of getting the job. The cafeteria didn’t want the wives of any escaped criminals...”

Mason interrupted, “Then that man must have known Mrs. Warfield had the promise of that job. Only Spinney knew that.”

Tragg smiled. “The man’s description,” he said, “fits Greeley.”

Drake whistled.

Tragg said to Mason, “It is certainly beginning to look as though you were right about Homan...” He broke off as the sound of quick steps in the corridor approached the office door.

“We are having a procession tonight,” Drake said.

“Probably Della,” Mason assured him.

He opened the door. Della Street, walking rapidly, bustled into the room, said, “Hello, everybody. Hope I didn’t keep you waiting... Oh, good evening , Lieutenant.”

Mason smiled and said, “For the moment, Della, Tragg is one of the bunch. There have been momentous and important developments. The police agree that Stephane Claire is innocent of the negligent homicide. She is exonerated from driving the car, and, believe it or not, I am cooperating with the police.”

Della Street looked down at the suitcase, then over at the shirt on Mason’s desk. “How come?” she asked.

“Mrs. Greeley,” Mason said. “It was her husband’s. She found it in the soiled clothes after his death.”

“Oh-oh,” Della Street said, and then after a moment, “I presume then what I have found out doesn’t amount to anything?”

Mason said, “On the contrary, it is more important than ever.” He turned to Tragg and said, “She was getting some gossip on Homan.”

“I would like to hear it,” Tragg said, studying Della Street with quite obvious approval.

“Go ahead, Della,” Mason said.

She said, “ La-de-dah , am I Hollywood!” She made a little gesture with her hand. “I mean really, you know. It’s terrific. That is, I think I have got something here.”