The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom
- Автор: Гарднер Эрл Стенли
- Серия: Perry Mason #35
- Год: 1949
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- Жанр: Классические детективы
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“All right,” Mason said. “Ask her if she remembers looking in the glove compartment for your dark glasses and...”
“I already have,” Garvin said. “She says that she got my glasses out of the glove compartment all right, but that an object such as you mention was not in there.”
“But you know it was in there when you came downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“And did you drive the car away immediately then?”
“I... no, wait a minute. I went into the cigar counter to get some cigars and I shook a game of twenty-six with the girl at the counter. Then I got in the car and drove out and picked up my wife. She had the baggage all packed and we got started right away.”
Mason said, “All right. Sit tight. Hold everything until I get down there. I’ll be there by dark.”
Eleven
Garvin was pacing the floor of the lobby of the Hotel Vista de la Mesa when Mason arrived. Garvin jerked around at the sound of the opening door as though he had been pulled by a string, saw Mason’s face, and then his own features lighted up in a genial smile.
“Thank heavens you’re here, Mason,” he said. “I thought you never would get here. What’s new?”
Mason said, “We’ve just come from the stockholders’ meeting.”
“How did things go?”
“Like clockwork,” Mason told him. “Some man by the name of Smith started a revolt but it died aborning. The stockholders put the same board of directors in office for another year, elected all the same officers, and the directors organized, after the stockholders’ meeting, for the new year, employed you for another year as general manager at the same salary and bonus, and I gather that everything you’ve done has been duly ratified.”
“That’s fine,” Garvin said. “Now tell me about Ethel, Mason. My heavens, this is awful. I’ve been having the damnedest ideas. What happened? Did she commit suicide?”
“Apparently not. Apparently it was murder.”
“But who could have killed her?”
“That’s a question that’s bothering the police. Where’s your wife?”
“In her room.”
Mason said, “Suppose we all go down there. I’ll get Della Street.”
Mason called Della Street from the limousine; then, together with Garvin, they walked down the corridor. Garvin tapped on the door of the room and Lorraine’s voice called, “Come in.”
Garvin opened the door and said, “Well, he’s here, Lorrie.”
“Thank heaven!” she said, and came toward him smiling cordially, giving him her hand. “Mr. Mason, I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me to have you here. I’ve been worrying and Edward has been simply frantic.”
“Thank you,” Mason said. He presented Della Street to Mrs. Garvin and said, “The stockholders’ meeting and the meeting of the new board of directors is all out of the way. Everything moved along smoothly. There was no trouble at all. I had thought perhaps that there might have been an organized revolt planned, that the substitution of Ethel’s name on those proxies wasn’t simply a piece of isolated, personal skulduggery. I thought that perhaps it might mask something more sinister. As nearly as I could tell from checking the names of the stockholders, there were a lot of stockholders present who weren’t ones that we’d called.
“Della Street called that list you gave her this morning and nearly all of them showed up. I guess there was enough friendly stock there to control the meeting; but, for the life of me, I don’t know why some of those other people showed up. It was a peculiar situation.”
“Anyhow, we can quit worrying about that,” Garvin said. “It probably was all right. Let’s get down to news of this tragedy, Mason.”
Mason said, “I’m going to be blunt about this thing, Garvin. You’re now a widower. That doesn’t affect your status as having committed bigamy when you went through that marriage ceremony in Mexico. I don’t want you to go back to the United States. I know that it may look a little callous for you to stay over here and refuse to go to the funeral of your ex-wife, but nevertheless I want you to play it that way. There are a lot of things I can’t tell you about right now.”
“I want to know the details,” Garvin said. “Good lord, Mason, I’ve been biting my fingernails down to the knuckles. Tell me, how did it happen?”
Mason said, “I had a detective shadowing her. She left her apartment at ten-nineteen. She probably received a telephone call from someone shortly before she left. She ditched my shadow. The next contact we had was when we found her sitting in her car about two miles south of Oceanside on a mesa, a vacant lot. Someone had shot her with a .38 caliber revolver. One shot on the left side of the head.
“Now that .38 caliber revolver is probably the same one that you found out on the fire escape a couple of days ago. I’m going to have to ask you some questions. They’re going to hurt but we’ve got to go through with it. The police are going to ask you those same questions. I want to hear your answers before the police hear them.”
“Go right ahead. Ask anything you want,” Garvin said. “As far as that revolver is concerned...”
“I think I’ve checked up on the revolver pretty well,” Mason said. “What I want to check up on now is you.”
“On me?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where were you last night?”
“Where was I? Why, you were with me. You drove in here. You went across the border with me. You...”
“You went in your room and then what did you do?”
“I went to bed.”
“You stayed in there all night?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“Didn’t go out for any purpose?”
“No, certainly not.”
“How about it, Mrs. Garvin?” Mason asked. “Can you swear to that?”
“Why, certainly,” she said indignantly.
“Now, don’t get hot under the collar,” Mason warned. “I’m simply closing the thing up so the police won’t find any loopholes. Now, did you folks go to sleep, say around midnight?”
“Probably before that.”
“Do you sleep soundly?”
“I don’t sleep too soundly,” Garvin said. “My wife is quite a sound sleeper.”
“That’s bad,” Mason said.
“I don’t see anything bad about it,” she said.
“You can’t give him an alibi.”
“I certainly can. As it happens I woke up at — oh, right around one o’clock. Edward was snoring. I told him to roll over on his side. I had to speak to him twice before he did, but he rolled over on his side and then quit snoring. I went back to sleep. I will admit that I sleep very heavily, but at times I’m an intermittent sleeper. I didn’t know anything after that until about half past two or quarter to three. I woke up then and was awake until after quarter past three.”
“How do you know about the time?” Mason asked.
She said, “I heard a clock chime the hour at one o’clock and when I woke up and was awake for about half an hour I not only heard the clock chime three o’clock but I looked at my wrist watch. In fact, I got up and took a glass of water and an aspirin. I had a slight headache and felt a little restless. Then I went back to sleep.”
Mason heaved a sigh of relief and said, “Well, that’s fine. I just wanted to be sure that you had an absolute ironclad alibi. Now let’s get back to the question of that gun...”
“That gun definitely was not in the glove compartment, Mr. Mason,” Lorraine Garvin said. “I looked in there to get some sunglasses for Edward.”