The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom
- Автор: Гарднер Эрл Стенли
- Серия: Perry Mason #35
- Год: 1949
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom». Краткое содержание книги:
“I don’t blame you,” Drake said.
Mason said to Della, “Get Edward Garvin on the phone, Della.”
Della Street put through the call.
“How about the time element?” Mason asked. “Have police been checking up on what everyone did, why, where and when?”
“You mean as to an alibi for the time of the murder?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve done a little preliminary checking. Understand, Perry, the police don’t take me into their confidence. I have to pick up what I can from pumping newspaper reporters and getting tips here and there.”
Mason said, “You always manage to do pretty well, Paul. What are the police doing?”
“Well, to begin with, they checked on Denby. Denby was up here all night working on the books, dictating some correspondence and getting data ready for the stockholders’ meeting. He says he worked all night. He looks like it. And he had a whole night’s dictation on his secretary’s desk when she arrived this morning. What’s more this story agrees absolutely with a story he told Livesey when Livesey rang him up earlier and before anyone knew that Mrs. Garvin had been murdered. It also agrees with the story that Virginia Bynum told the police a half hour or so later when they located her, by tracing the numbers on the gun. She was watching from her station on the fire escape again last night. They’ve asked her to describe just what she saw, and her story really gives Denby an alibi. She describes everything he did. Not that the police figure Denby has any motive.”
“The story Virginia told me and told the police is fantastic — but some fantastic stories arc true. What about Livesey?” Mason asked.
“Livesey’s a bachelor. He was at home in bed. He says, unfortunately, he can’t furnish any alibi because he was sleeping alone and what would the police suggest in the line of preventive measures in the future. The police suggested matrimony.”
“They would,” Mason said.
“But, of course, the one the police want to talk with now,” Drake said, “is Garvin. They understand he’s going to be here for the stockholders’ meeting and as far as anyone knows he’s simply out on a second honeymoon with his wife, so the police are planning to come down like a thousand tons of brick when he...”
“Here’s your call, chief,” Della Street interrupted.
“Garvin on the line?”
“Yes.”
Mason picked up the receiver, said, “Hello, Garvin. Mason talking. I want to ask you some questions. I want you to be very, very careful about your answers.”
“Good heavens, Mason,” Garvin said, “this is awful! This is terrible! This is the worst thing... Why did you leave this morning? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I thought you didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“My God, Mason, something like that happens and you simply get up and leave — Mason, I want to come back up there. I want to find out what this thing is all about. I want to...”
“You stay right there,” Mason said, “and keep your shirt on. Now, don’t worry about that stockholders’ meeting at two o’clock this afternoon. Della has been working over that list of names you gave her, and we have a bunch of staunch and loyal supporters of yours coming in here in person. That will throw all proxies they’ve signed out the window. We’re going to be able to control the stockholders’ meeting all right.”
“But I want to be there, Mason. I must be there. If I should lose control of that company...”
“You just sit tight,” Mason said, “and quit worrying. Don’t do anything. Don’t talk with anyone. Don’t stir out of the hotel until I can have a chance to see you, and if anyone should find you, then don’t answer any questions. Simply refuse to say a word until you’ve seen me.”
“But, hang it, Mason, that will put me in a false light.”
“I can’t help that, Garvin. There are a lot of angles to this thing that you don’t know anything about yet. Now listen carefully. I want you to answer questions, and I want you to be very careful about your nouns.”
“What do you mean, nouns?”
“I mean nouns,” Mason said. “A noun is an object. Now listen to this. The other morning when you were standing in your office you looked out of your window and noticed something on the fire escape, some object?”
“On the fire escape?”
“Yes, a metallic object, something heavy.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. Why, yes, I pointed out this...”
“Careful,” Mason warned. “Let’s keep the conversation on an ambiguous note, if possible, and remember that the walls of that telephone partition you’re talking from are paper-thin. The front door is all right but the wall between that and the other telephone booth is just like paper. Now, what happened to that object?”
“Livesey crawled out of the window and picked it up. We talked about it and I... I told Livesey to put it in the glove compartment of my car. He said he was going out to get a cup of coffee, and I wanted to look the thing over — to tell you the truth, Mr. Mason, I’d entirely forgotten about that... that object. It must be in the car now.”
“Go out and take a look and see if it is,” Mason said.
“Right now?”
“Right now. Just leave the receiver off the hook and go out and take a look. I’ll hold the line. Your car’s still in front?”
“Yes.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said, “this is important. You didn’t turn your car keys in to the woman who runs the hotel last night?”
“No, I forgot. I intended to. I put them in my pocket and... but it was all right. They didn’t need to move the car.”
“That’s all right. The keys stayed in your pocket all night?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“The car wasn’t moved?”
“No, certainly not.”
“And the doors were locked?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“Why, of course. The car’s just where I left it last night when I went to bed.”
Mason said, “Go on out and take a look and tell me if that object is still there.”
“All right,” Garvin said. “Hold the phone.”
Mason waited, holding the phone, drumming impatiently with his finger tips on the edge of the desk for some fifteen seconds until he could hear over the phone the noise made by Garvin’s pounding feet as he hurried back toward the telephone. There was the sound of the receiver being moved, then Garvin’s excited voice, “It’s gone, Mason, it’s gone!”
“All right,” Mason said, “now when did it go?”
“My gosh, it must have been taken before we left Los Angeles. No one could have taken it out here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, of course — hang it, Mason, how do I know? All I know is that it’s gone — I know that Livesey put it in there.”
“Did you look in the glove compartment after...”
“Yes. Right after I came downstairs I looked in the glove compartment to make certain that Livesey had put it there. It was there.”
“And when did you next look in the glove compartment?”
“Just now. That’s the only time I’ve had it open... Wait a minute, no. Hold everything, Mason, Lorraine looked in there shortly after we got started. I told her to open the glove compartment and get out my sunglasses. I wanted to put them on.”
“Where’s Lorraine?”
“Right here. Right out in the lobby. Just a minute.”
“Don’t get excited and say anything where people can hear you,” Mason cautioned. “Get her in the phone booth with you.”
“Okay.”
Mason could hear the sound of a door opening and low-voiced conversation. Then Garvin said, “She’s here.”