The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “Sure.”

  “Then she hasn’t been back?”

  “No. Now, wait a minute,” Drake said, “we’ve got one piece of information out of the clerk that I forgot to tell you. She came downstairs to the lobby, and while she was waiting for the taxicab she took two dollars over to the clerk and asked him if he could give her some quarters, two dimes and a nickel. She didn’t want anything larger than quarters … Now, there must have been some reason for that.”

  “I get you,” Mason said. “She was going to telephone from a pay station.”

  “That’s right, she had a phone call to make, long distance.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Now, unfortunately,” Drake went on, “my night secretary is a little too thoughtful sometimes. She knew that I was tired and needed rest and she wouldn’t let them call me until five o’clock this morning. I have a night manager on duty who’s a veteran and who did all of the usual things. He got busy with the garage, got a description of her automobile, the make, model, license number, and all that, and found out that the gas tank was only about half full when she took it out. That may mean something.

  “When I got on the job at five o’clock this morning,” Drake said, “I put another operative in a car and started him for Oceanside. I told him to take a look in a very quiet discreet way around Hackley’s house down there and see if he could find any trace of the car. If he couldn’t, to circle around Oceanside and see if any of the stations that were open all night had remembered about servicing a car of that description. It may give us a lead. I should be hearing from my man pretty quick now.”

  “Okay,” Mason said. “It looks as though you’ve done the best you can. Anything else?”

  “That’s all to date.”

  “Stay with it,” Mason said. “I’ll be right here. I guess I can arrange to have them call me—it’s pretty early and no one seems to be stirring, but call me back if anything develops, and if I don’t hear from you, I’ll call you in an hour.”

  “Okay,” Drake said. “I’m sorry, Perry.”

  “It’s all right,” Mason told him. “That’s one of the things that you just can’t guard against.”

  “I’ll call you if anything new turns up,” Drake promised.

  The lawyer hung up, looked around the lobby, could find no one, went to the front door, opened it and looked out into the driveway and parking space.

  There were some half dozen cars in addition to Mason’s and Garvin’s in the driveway. The wooden-faced Mexican boy who had aroused Mason was sitting on the upper step soaking up the morning sunlight.

  “What’s your name?” Mason asked.

  “Pancho,” the boy said, without looking around.

  Mason took a dollar from his pocket, stepped forward, and the young man promptly shoved out an expectant palm. Mason dropped the dollar.

  “Gracias,” the boy said, without getting up.

  Mason smiled, “You’re not so dumb as you look. If you answered that telephone, found out what my room number was and called me, you’re a pretty smart boy. You sit right there and listen for that telephone. If it rings again, answer it. If it’s for me, you come and call me quick. Understand?”

  “Si, Señor.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Mason said. “You got me all right? You understand English?”

  “Si, Señor.”

  “Okay,” Mason said, “If the phone rings again and it’s for me, you get another dollar.”

  Mason retraced his steps through the lobby to his room, showered, shaved, put on clean clothes and was just ready to inquire about breakfast when he heard sandals in the corridor, and a gentle tap-tap-tap on the door.

  Mason opened the door.

  The same boy stood in the corridor. “Telefono,” he said.

  “Momentito,” Mason said, grinning.

  The boy paused.

  Mason took another dollar from his pocket.

  The boy’s face lit in a smile. “Gracias,” he said, and shuffled off down the corridor.

  Mason followed along behind, found the door of the telephone booth open, took the precaution of making certain the adjoining booth was empty, then picked up the receiver, said “Hello,” and waited again until he heard Paul Drake’s voice on the line.

  “Hello, Paul,” Mason said. “What’s new?”

  Drake’s voice came over the wire so fast that the words seemed to telescope each other in rattling their way through the receiver.

  “Get this, Perry,” Drake said. “Get it fast. We’re sitting on a keg of dynamite. My man found Ethel Garvin.”

  “Where?” Mason asked.

  “Oceanside. About two miles south of town, sitting in her automobile parked about fifty or seventy-five feet off the road on the ocean side, dead as a mackerel, a bullet hole in her left temple. From the angle, there’s not much chance the wound could have been self-inflicted. She’s slumped over the steering wheel and it’s rather messy, quite a bit of blood and all that. The window by the steering wheel is rolled down, and the gun, apparently the one with which the crime was committed, is lying on the ground directly beneath the window.

  “She could have twisted the gun around and managed to fire the weapon herself by holding it upside down, but it’s an unnatural position and an unnatural angle for a woman to fire a gun in a suicide attempt.”

  “What about the police?” Mason asked.

  “That’s just the point,” Drake said. “My man’s on the job. He discovered the body. No one else knows it’s there—yet. My operative managed to notify me. He’s notifying the police but he’s notifying them the long way around, calling the sheriff’s office in San Diego. It’s outside of the city limits of Oceanside, so technically he’s within his rights in calling the sheriff’s office and the coroner … Now get me on this, Perry. My man was too smart to touch the gun or disturb any of the evidence but he’s sure been taking in an eyeful. It looks as though two cars had been parked there, side by side, and the other car had driven away—and by bending down my man was able to get the number on the gun. It’s a Smith and Wesson .38 and the number is on the tang which crosses the grip on the gun. It’s S64805. I’m working my head off trying to trace that gun before the police get all the information. We may be just one jump ahead of them.”

  “Okay,” Mason said, “I’m on my way. Get one jump ahead of them and stay one jump ahead of them.”

  “Garvin and his wife are there with you?”

  “Here,” Mason said, “but they’re not with me.”

  “What do you want to do about them?”

  “Hell,” Mason said irritably, “I don’t want to do anything about them. I want them to stay right here. Garvin can’t get across to the United States without being arrested on a bigamy charge. I don’t want to have that happen.”

  Drake said, “I’ve had a little trouble getting this call through. I guess on account of getting a call across the border … Now, I took it on myself to do something, Perry, that I hope is all right.”

  “What?”

  “I called Della Street as soon as I got the flash and told her to jump into some clothes, grab her car and beat it down to Ocean-side just as fast as she could … Now my man’s playing pretty dumb down there. The way he put the call in and everything there’s a pretty good chance there’ll be a delay. When he called the sheriff’s office in San Diego, he was going to make it sound like a suicide, sort of a routine affair. The sheriff’s office probably has some deputy in Oceanside. They’ll telephone that deputy to go out and cover the thing. Then the deputy will find it looks like a murder and call back to the sheriff’s office and all in all it will be some time before the sheriff and the coroner get there. The body won’t be moved until the coroner’s office arrives. Now, that’s going to give you a chance if you hurry.”

  “Hell’s bells,” Mason said, “‘hurry’ is my middle name. I’m glad you got Della started. I may want some notes taken.”

  “I told her to look around and cover e
verything she could,” Drake said. “You should be able to get there from Tijuana just as soon as she can get on the job from Los Angeles, maybe sooner, depending on traffic conditions, and in view of the delay in my getting this call through.”

  “Okay,” Mason said. “I’ll get going.”

  He hung up the receiver, ran down the corridor to his room, threw things in his bag, then sprinted out for the lobby.

  Pancho was seated on the front steps.

  Mason said, “Pancho, I have two friends here, a Mr. and Mrs. Garvin. They’re in Rooms 5 and 6. When they get up, tell them that I had to go away on business, tell them that someone we both know is dead, and that they’re to wait right here until they hear from me. They aren’t to go anywhere. Tell them to wait right here. You understand?”

  “Si, Señor.”

  Mason said, “I haven’t paid my hotel bill. Here’s twenty dollars. See that the woman who runs the place gets the money for my room, will you?”

  “Si, Señor.”

  “Okay,” Mason said. “I’m on my way.”

  He flung his suitcase into the car, opened the door, jumped in and was fumbling with the ignition switch when Pancho emerged from the office, grinning, and said in excellent English, “Your keys, Mr. Mason. You leave them in the cash drawer in the desk so that as yard boy I can move the cars in the morning if necessary—only my aunt, Señora Inocente Miguerinio, is very careful to take all of the cash out of the cash drawer when she goes to bed.”

  Mason grinned, took the keys and said, “You do speak good English, don’t you, Pancho?”

  “What the hell do you think I go to school for?” Pancho asked.

  Chapter 9

  Perry Mason slowed his car as he saw the little group ahead.

  To the north, the outlying buildings of Oceanside showed white in the morning sunlight. To the west of the highway was a flat mesa and then, beyond that, the sparkling blue of the ocean, lying calm and tranquil under a cloudless sky.

  Mason parked his car to one side of the road.

  A uniformed traffic officer was making a valiant attempt to keep the traffic moving, but it was possible for cars to be driven off to the side of the road and parked.

  Mason approached the group, and a deputy sheriff warned him to stay back. “The coroner hasn’t got here yet,” he said. “Get back and keep back.”

  Mason fell back, then as the officer moved away, inched forward.

  Paul Drake’s man, picking Mason out from the crowd, sidled over toward him and said, “I’m Drake’s operative. I found the body. Anything I can do for you, Mr. Mason?”

  Mason led him off to the outskirts of the group. “You looked around a little?”

  “Sure I looked around,” the detective said. “I didn’t do anything illegal, and didn’t leave any fingerprints, but I looked around.”

  “What about the gun?”

  The man opened a notebook and said, “Here are the numbers on the gun.”

  Mason checked the numbers from the ones he had written in his notebook, said, “Paul Drake gave them to me over the phone. How many shells were fired?”

  “Only one. It’s a .38 Smith and Wesson, double-action revolver. All the chambers were loaded and the hammer is resting on the one cylinder that was discharged. Shot in the left side of the head.”

  “Powder burns?” Mason asked.

  “I believe so. The hair’s singed. I couldn’t look too closely.”

  “Was she wearing gloves?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else of interest?”

  “One thing that may be important,” the man said. “The ignition switch was turned off on the car. I turned it on long enough to look at the gasoline gauge. The gas tank shows that it’s completely full.”

  “Did you check the gasoline stations in Oceanside?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Find out which one of them filled her tank?”

  “I checked every one that was open all night. None of them remember it.”

  “Well, check again after you get away from here,” Mason said. “It’s important. I’m going to take a little look around here and see what I can find.”

  The lawyer moved in as close to the car as the deputy would permit him, then started slowly moving around the car, looking it over.

  The body was slumped down to the right of the steering wheel. A gloved hand had protruded through the space between the spokes of the steering wheel, and, as the body had slumped, the tension had pulled the arm tight against the spokes.

  Drake’s man followed Mason.

  “Headlights on when you found the car?” Mason asked.

  “No, it was just like you see it now. It could have been suicide.”

  “But why the devil,” Mason asked, “should she have driven all the way down here to pull off to the side of the road and commit suicide? Moreover, a woman who is going to commit suicide isn’t concerned about having the gasoline tank filled on her automobile.”

  Mason walked around the car once more, looking it over, noticed that there were numerous spots on the windshield, caused by night-flying bugs which had been picked up and smashed by the windshield as the car speeded through the night.

  “Any chance she could have been killed some other place and the car driven over here?” Mason asked.

  “I haven’t thought of that.”

  “You haven’t seen my secretary, Della Street?”

  “I don’t believe I know her.”

  “A good-looking … here she comes now.”

  Della Street, driving rapidly from the north, slowed her car. The traffic officer motioned that she was to keep moving. She nodded, smiled, drove on for a ways, then parked her car and started walking back.

  “Any tracks around the car when you got here?” Mason asked, keeping an eye on Della Street.

  “None that I could see, not around that particular car. It’s evidently a place where couples come for a little necking. You can see that a lot of cars have been in here from time to time and have made a regular roadway in here from the highway. From the way the tracks look they customarily park and turn around … But there weren’t any tracks, not any that I could see, except car tracks … Of course, it’s all trampled out now. There have been a hundred people in here at various times. They come and gawk and hang around until the cops chase them off and …”

  Della Street, looking compact and competent in a neatly tailored skirt and jacket came up to join them. “Hi, chief,” she said.

  “Hi, Della. Sorry you had to get up so early. Do you have a notebook?”

  “Right in my jacket pocket.”

  “This is Paul Drake’s man. He was telling me about tracks—go right ahead. This is my secretary.”

  “Well, like I was saying, it’s a place for picnics and necking, a nice little strip of mesa. Now over on the left a car had been parked and there were tracks in the dust walking away from it, but most of them were obliterated before the police got wise and kept the crowd back.

  “Now I left a few tracks of my own around this car. I did a little snooping, all right. But I told the police I had to see whether she was dead or drunk, or if anyone else had been in the car with her. But there weren’t any tracks around the car when I got here. If anyone else had been in that car, he sure didn’t leave tracks when he got out.”

  A siren sounded, coming from the direction of San Diego. A car with two red spotlights became visible in the distance as it speeded along the highway. The deputy sheriff called out, “Where’s the man that discovered the body? Hey, you, come over here!”

  Drake’s man left Mason’s side, moved over toward the deputy.

  Mason said to Della, “I think I’ve got all I can get here. You look the thing over from a woman’s viewpoint. I’m going to telephone Paul Drake. You meet me at the airport.”

  Mason called Drake’s office from Oceanside. “You get anything on that gun yet, Paul?”

  “I’m working on it,” Drake said. “I have the nam
e of the original purchaser.”

  “Who?”

  “A Frank L. Bynum, who lives in Riverside. I’m having my men find out about him. We haven’t been able to contact him as yet.”

  “Okay,” Mason said, “I’ve picked up Della. I’m going to charter a private plane and fly back. There’s something cock-eyed about the case. It looks as though she’d driven at a fast rate of speed all the way down the coast road. Her windshield is smeared up with places where bugs have hit it, and, believe me, when they hit they hit hard. Just spattered all over the windshield.”

  “Well, of course she was going fast,” Drake said. “She wouldn’t have started out at that hour and given my shadow a slip merely in order to take a little pleasure ride.”

  “That isn’t the point,” Mason said. “She had a full tank of gas. It must have been filled in Oceanside, although so far none of the service stations have identified her. They may not remember the car but when they look at the body it could be different. However, I don’t think it will be.

  “Now, if you can tell me why a woman should go tearing madly down the highway to fill up her tank with gasoline at Oceanside, then drive off the road and commit suicide, I’ll give you a furlined fountain pen.

  “And if, on the other hand, you can tell me why a woman should tear down the coast road in order to drive suddenly off the road to a parking place usually used by couples who are out for a little necking, and wait there to get shot, I will again give you the second prize consisting of a twenty-one jewel watch which runs backwards.”

  Drake laughed and said, “It’s too much for me, Perry.”

  “Use your head,” Mason said. “See what it means? She filled the tank where she didn’t get any windshield washing thrown in. Get me?”

  “Oh, oh! You mean at a ranch?”

  “At a ranch gasoline pump, Paul. You know what I mean.”

  “I get you, Perry. Want to go call on him?”

  “Not yet. We’ll run down that gun first. You’ll probably have a lead by the time I get back. Della’s covering the corpse from a woman’s angle and I’ll get a plane and have the motor all warmed up. We’ll be in soon. Try to have that gun angle all worked out by the time we arrive. I’d like to keep one jump ahead of the police on that.”