Erle Gardner - Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Murderer’s Bride and Other Stories

Corporal Ed Cortland swung the boat in a sharp turn.

Lawrence Ives stopped the motor of the boat and smiled at his wife. “This is so beautiful, darling,” he said, “let’s just sit here and admire the scenery.”

Slowly the boat lost headway until the waves of the churning wake became gentle ripples; then the placid calm of the lake surrounded them.

“Not quite calm enough for the reflections to be clear,” Ives said, “but the air is still and beautiful.”

They sat in silence for a while, and then Nan slipped her hand confidingly into Larry’s. “I’m so completely happy,” she said. “I never knew what a difference being in love could make.”

“Neither did I,” Larry said absently.

The minutes passed. Each was absorbed with thoughts. Nan was soaking in the beauties, basking in the warmth. Larry was carefully studying the lake, the shoreline, and the almost imperceptible drift.

He lit a cigarette and tossed the match overboard. The distance between the match and the boat widened, despite the fact that the boat seemed to remain stationary. It was as though some mysterious force had started moving the match away from the boat.

“Let’s take a swim,” Ives suggested suddenly.

“We didn’t bring our suits,” Nan protested.

“Out here, we don’t need them,” Ives said. “Let’s jump in and—”

“But, Larry, I don’t swim very well.”

“I know you don’t, but you don’t need to,” he assured her. “We’ll take our cushions along. They’re life preservers, you know. There’s no one out here to see us. Look at that water. Isn’t it irresistible?”

It took only a little more persuasion; then she slipped out of her clothes and went over the side.

Ives tossed her a cushion from the rear seat, stripped, took the other cushion, and jumped overboard.

They splashed about in the water as gaily as children.

Ives surreptitiously watched the boat. It was drifting just as he had expected. Now he was in a foolproof position. If some boat came along and rescued them, they could tell the story of an ordinary boating mishap. No significance would ever be attached to it. If, on the other hand, no boat came along... In a short time Lawrence B. Ives would be ready once more to enjoy a period of complete freedom and relaxation.

Oddly enough, the thought of being free again did not excite him so much as it had on previous similar occasions. As he had watched Nan slip into the water, there had been a sharp stab of reluctance at the thought of losing her. It was not a pang of conscience; Lawrence Ives had no conscience. It was just that he realized that what Nan had said about being in love was true.

With a self-discipline that came from rigid training, he turned his mind to the insurance, and to the thoughts of the luxury and the variety it would afford him. It was at that moment that Nan noticed the boat.

“Look how far we’ve come, Larry,” she cried.

“Good heavens!” Ives said. “We haven’t moved! It’s the boat that’s drifting! There must be a wind. Stay right here and cling to the cushion, darling. Hold it tight against you. I’m going after the boat.”

“Can you catch it?” she asked.

“I think so,” he assured her. “I’ll put my cushion under my chest and swim. I think I can make it. In any event, the cushion will keep me afloat and you’ll be perfectly safe waiting right here. I’ll get the boat and bring it back.”

He swam away without once looking back.

Cortland piloted their boat back to the bend in the river.

“Now veer off to the left. Let’s try that broad expanse up there,” Dr. Dixon suggested. He moved up to the bow to study the situation with his glasses.

Suddenly he called, “Over there to the right, Ed. That looks like Ives’s boat.”

“I can’t see it,” Ed shouted above the roar of the motor.

“It’s off to the right. You can’t see it without the glasses. Move over a little. Steady. There you are. Hold it right on this course.”

Dr. Dixon braced himself, holding the binoculars to his eyes. The boat surged ahead, making only fair speed with its small motor.

After a while Cortland shouted, “I can see it now, Doc. What do you make out?”

Dr. Dixon was silent for a moment; then he moved back to where Cortland was at the motor. “There’s no one in it, Ed,” he said grimly. “It’s drifting with the slight breeze, but I can’t see anyone.”

Corporal Cortland’s lips tightened. “When that guy tells his story it had better be good,” he muttered.

Dr. Dixon began turning his head, sweeping the binoculars across the water. Suddenly he reached over to grasp Cortland’s arm.

“Turn it back to the left, Ed. Someone’s in the water.”

“Where?”

“Swing it around! Over to the left... Not quite so far. Keep going.”

A little over three minutes later, Ed slowed the boat next to the head and shoulders of Mrs. Lawrence B. Ives.

“You need help?” Dr. Dixon called.

“Yes, yes. Oh please help him,” she sobbed. “My husband, my husband!”

“Come on aboard. Here, let me give you a hand,” Dr. Dixon said.

“I’m... I have no suit...

“I’m a doctor,” Dixon reassured her. “We have a coat you can put around you. Come on.”

They helped her aboard and Dr. Dixon covered her with a coat.

"What happened?” Dr. Dixon asked.

Her eyes were dark with panic.

“Larry,” she said. “My husband. Oh, you must find him! You must! He’s in the lake near here somewhere. He took off after our boat, and then I heard him calling and calling and then I didn’t hear him any more. I tried to push my cushion through the water, but—”

“Take it easy now, take it easy,” Corporal Cortland said. “Tell us exactly what happened.”

“We stopped the boat and went swimming, and there was a current or a wind or something, and the boat started drifting. I’m not a good swimmer. Larry isn’t a strong swimmer, but he thought he could take after the boat. He told me to hang onto my life preserver and not let go of it no matter what happened.”

Dr. Dixon and Corporal Cortland exchanged glances.

First, they went to the empty boat. Dr. Dixon picked up Nan Ives’s clothes. The men turned their backs while she dressed. Then they started combing the water carefully, covering every inch. They retrieved the kapok cushion to which the woman had been clinging. There was no sign of the other cushion.

And there was no sign of Lawrence B. Ives.

They searched for two hours before they reluctantly admitted defeat. Dr. Dixon, with the painstaking attention to detail of a trained criminologist, had made cross-bearings showing the exact location of the tragedy. With Ives’s boat in tow, they headed toward Cottonwood Cove.

Mrs. Ives was inconsolable. “Why, oh, why, did that have to happen to us?” she said. “We were so happy, so wonderfully, deliriously happy; and now—”

Again Dr. Dixon exchanged significant glances with Cortland. “Just bear up, ma’am,” the Corporal said. “It’s tough, all right, but time heals all wounds.”

At Cottonwood Cove they organized a searching party. The wife of one of the owners fixed Nan Ives up in a chair on the cool porch of the luxurious floating dock. Dr. Dixon sat with her for a while, talking quietly, consoling her.

He and Corporal Cortland held a brief conference before going out to join the searching party.

“Get this straight, Ed,” Dr. Dixon said. “She’s never to know about any of this. Let her have the memory of a perfect marriage.”

“Who do you think is going to tell her?” Cortland asked.

“I was afraid you might have ideas,” Dr. Dixon admitted.

“I’m not that dumb,” Cortland protested. “It’s better for her to spend the rest of her life being true to the memory of one of nature’s noblemen than to go back to being a wallflower.”