Erle Gardner - The Case of the Haunted Husband

Drake said, “I don’t know. I was watching you two! Gosh, I am sorry, Perry.”

Mason frowned down at the tablecloth. “I would like to work with Tragg,” he said, “but he is pretty fast on his feet, and after all, he is on the opposite side of the fence. Some of my methods wouldn’t meet with his approval.”

“What happened while you were gone?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “I went to Hortense Zitkousky’s house, found her pretty high, prescribed coffee, and came back.”

“Nuts,” Drake said. “When you came back, you had that grim line around the corners of your mouth that — dammit, Perry, you are a gambler.”

“Of course, I am a gambler.”

“You gamble for the sheer joy of risking terrific odds against your ideas of justice.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Someday you are going to break through that thin ice you skate on.”

“Well?”

“And when you do,” Drake said, “you are going to take me with you.”

“I haven’t yet,” Mason said.

“No. You haven’t yet because you keep moving so damn fast, but...”

“Forget it,” Mason interrupted. “They are coming back.”

“What is the matter?” Mason asked.

Della Street said, “The floor is getting too crowded, and I am getting too famished to do any more dancing until after I have had some good thick steak with mushroom sauce. Did you order mine medium rare, Chief?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mine?” Drake asked.

“Well done.”

“How did you know?”

Mason said, “First and last, Paul, I have bought you enough steaks so that I should know.”

“You mean your clients have. I...”

A bus boy approached the table, motioned to Lt. Tragg. “Telephone, Lieutenant,” he said.

“Excuse me.” Tragg pushed back his chair.

Mason glanced across at Della Street.

“Trying to pump me,” she said tersely. “Paul was, too. I didn’t mind him. He is harmless, but Tragg was deadly.”

“What did he want to know?”

“Where you went while I was out.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I asked him how I would know you had been out when I wasn’t there.”

“Didn’t say anything about Paul Drake asking you the same question?” Mason asked.

She said, “Don’t be silly. Then he would know you had gone out. As it is, he only surmised it from seeing the raindrops on your hat-brim.”

Drake heaved a sigh. “Good girl,” he said. “Gosh, I was worried over that.”

“What’s in the wind?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “Nothing, only we are gradually closing the net.”

“Did Homan kill Greeley?”

“That,” Mason said, “is going to keep for a while. What I am concerned with right now is finding out how I can prove that Adler Greeley was operating that automobile as Homan’s agent and in accordance with specific instructions by Homan. Then Tragg will have enough to force him to go after Homan.”

“Why?” Drake asked. “If you can prove that she wasn’t driving the car, that lets you out, doesn’t it?”

Mason said, “Homan has been so willing to let her take the rap that I want to see him get his. And it would be a good thing for her to stick him for damages. She might be able to use the money.”

Drake gave a low whistle.

“There is no question but that it was Greeley who was driving the automobile?” Della Street asked.

“Not unless someone planted a smeared shirt in his soiled-linen bag,” Drake said and looked significantly at Mason.

Mason shook his head. “Don’t blame that on me.”

“You would have done it though,” Drake charged. “And that red mouth print looked like Della’s lips.”

The waiter appeared with seafood cocktails, said deferentially to Mason, “And I shall keep the dinner moving right along, sir.”

Tragg was back before the waiter had finished serving the cocktails. He waited until the waiter had left, then sat down, and pushed the plate with the cocktail glass away from him so that he could lean across the table and look directly at Mason.

“Find out anything?” Mason asked, holding a fork over his cocktail.

Tragg said, “Mason, I have to hand it to you. You have a touch of — well, more than a touch of the genius.”

“What now?”

“Spinney showed up at a garage just as you had predicted, took the automobile and the driver, was driven exactly eighty-two miles, stopped the car in the middle of a mountain road, said he would get out there, and the last the driver saw of him he was sauntering along the mountain grade, just a harmless nut attired in a tuxedo, light dress shoes, and a topcoat, strolling casually in the deep dust of a dirt road among the pines. Now then, that is one thing I learned.”

“And the other?” Drake asked.

“And the other,” Tragg said, keeping his eyes fastened on Mason, “was that the body of Ernest Tanner has been found doubled over the bathtub in the bathroom which communicates between the rooms of Stephane Claire and her uncle Max Olger, in the Adirondack Hotel. And in case you don’t remember, Mr. Mason, Ernest Tanner is the chauffeur for Jules Homan, the man Homan virtually accused of using his telephone to place unauthorized long-distance calls to Mr. L. C. Spinney in San Francisco.”

Mason straightened. His fork clattered against his plate. “You are not kidding?” he asked.

“I am not kidding,” Lieutenant Tragg said in a calm, level voice, “and for your information, Mason, the murder was apparently committed at just about the time when you left your office while I was eating my hamburger sandwich.”

Mason said suavely, “Can’t resist the spectacular, can you, Lieutenant? If you had asked me about those wet spots on my hat-brim...”

“That,” Tragg interrupted, “was simply my starting point. What the hell do you think I have been doing all the time I have been telephoning? I have had headquarters get in touch with the taxi drivers who stand around your office building. The time I have reference to Mason, was when you dashed out, jumped in a cab, went to the Adirondack Hotel, stayed about twelve minutes, and then tore back to the office.”

Paul Drake’s face showed surprise and consternation, but Lieutenant Tragg wasn’t watching him. He was studying Mason with the concentration of a surgeon making a diagnosis.

Della Street said casually, “Chief, don’t tell me you’ve committed another murder?”

Tragg, still looking at Mason, said, “He didn’t commit a murder, but Stephane Claire did, or else found the body in her room and telephoned Mason, and he told her to go out and concoct an alibi.”

Mason said, “Come, come, Lieutenant. You jump at the most absurd conclusions. How do you know that I didn’t go to the Adirondack Hotel while you were eating your sandwich, to find out from Miss Claire whether it would be all right for me to take you into my confidence?”

“And what did she say?” Tragg asked.

Mason laughed. “Rather obvious, Lieutenant. I am afraid I can’t help you there. I didn’t see her at the Adirondack.”

“Why did you go there?”

“I could have gone to see her, and yet not seen her.”

“You could have, but did you?”

Mason said, “I see no reason why I should account to you for all my moves.”

Tragg said, “Mason, you are a delightful host. Personally, I like you. Officially, we are opposed. And I am asking these questions in my official capacity.”

Mason said, “All right, I will answer you in my official capacity. I am an attorney at law. I protect my clients to the best of my ability. I don’t have to disclose anything that a client has told me. A client could tell me he had committed a cold-blooded, deliberate murder, and that communication is absolutely confidential.”