The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

Five

Mason parked his car in front of the Monolith Apartments, a brick-faced corner building with severely plain lines. Paul Drake’s man, on duty in a car parked across the street, was apparently a rather harassed individual looking through the classified section of the newspaper in search of apartments available to renters of average income. He didn’t even look up as Perry Mason swung open the car door, crossed the curb and entered the apartment house.

The man at the desk regarded Perry Mason with polite curiosity, but a complete lack of cordiality.

“Mrs. Ethel Garvin,” Mason said.

“Does she expect you?”

“Tell her it’s about a proxy.”

“Your name?”

“Mason.”

The man turned to a switchboard, and, with the obvious condescension of one who is engaging in a menial work which he is quite certain is beneath his dignity, plugged in a line, waited a moment, then said, “There’s a Mr. Mason to see you about a proxy, Mrs. Garvin... No, he didn’t say... Shall I ask him?... Very well.”

“You may go up,” the clerk said, pulling out the telephone connection. “Room 624.”

“Thank you,” Mason said.

Mason entered the elevator, saw that it was designed so that it could be manipulated by an operator during the daytime and turned on to automatic by night, said, “Six, please,” and waited.

The woman who was running the elevator, a big woman with sagging muscles and a general air of weariness, put down the magazine she was reading, glanced expectantly down the corridor, hopeful of more customers before she closed the door. She was seated on a folding chair and her hips seemed to spread out over each side. A look of extreme weariness was stamped upon her countenance.

“Sixth floor,” Mason repeated.

She made no response, but leaned forward to peer once more down the corridor. Then, after an interval, she reluctantly closed the door, and the cage rattled upward to the sixth floor.

The operator opened the door, promptly picked up the magazine she was reading, resumed her place in the story and waited for a call to some other floor.

As Mason stepped out of the elevator and turned to the left, the buzzer on the elevator was calling for the ground floor.

The operator glanced up at the signal, then resumed reading for a few lines before closing the door and taking the cage back down.

Mason followed the corridor, checking the numbers, until he came to 624.

He knocked, and the door was promptly opened by a woman somewhere in the thirties who wore a clinging black gown and who smiled graciously.

“Mr. Mason?” she asked, her voice melodiously cordial.

“Yes.”

“I’m Mrs. Garvin. You wanted to see me about a proxy, Mr. Mason?” She smiled and the smile was one of warm friendliness.

“Yes,” Mason said, “a proxy covering voting privileges in the Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company.”

“Won’t you come in, please?”

“Thank you.”

Mason entered the apartment. She gently closed the door behind him and said, “Do sit down, Mr. Mason.”

While her figure did not have the lines of early youth, it had, nevertheless, maintained the slim-waisted symmetry which comes with a disciplined diet. There was about her face and about her eyes the calm, self-contained look of a woman who has coordinated her life with the greatest care and makes every move as the result of some carefully preconceived plan.

“Do sit down, Mr. Mason.”

Mason seated himself by the window.

Mrs. Garvin sized him up, then seated herself across from him, crossed her knees, settled back on the davenport, and said, “What about the proxy, Mr. Mason, was there something you didn’t understand about it?”

Mason said, “The designation of the person named in the proxy was a little different from the wording in previous proxies, wasn’t it?”

She threw back her head and laughed.

Mason waited for an answer.

The laugh became a smile, a roguish, tantalizing smile. “My, Mr. Mason,” she said, “did you take all the trouble to come up here in order to talk with me about that unfortunate matter of the wording?”

“Yes,” Mason said.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said in a tone of voice that indicated she might well have added, “silly boy!”

She shifted her position, sliding her right arm along the back of the davenport. “Really, Mr. Mason,” she said, and laughed again.

Mason sat quietly waiting.

She said, “And it must have been difficult for you to have found me. Tell me, Mr. Mason, how did you go about doing it?”

“I hired a detective,” Mason said casually.

Her entire body stiffened into wary attention. “You did what?”

“Hired a detective to find you,” Mason said,

“For heaven’s sake, why?”

“Because I considered it important.”

“And why?”

Mason said, “Just what did you intend to do with your proxies, Mrs. Garvin? Did you intend to take control of the corporation away from your ex-husband?”

“My husband!” she flared.

“Oh, pardon me. I thought you had been divorced.”

“Just who are you?” she asked.

Mason said, “I’m an attorney. I have offices in the same building as your husband.”

“Are you — did he hire you to come here?”

“Retain is the word one uses in connection with an attorney,” Mason said.

“All right, did he retain you to come here?”

“Not specifically.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I’m representing his interests.”

“And what do you want?”

“Primarily,” Mason said, “I want to know what you want.” She said, “As it happens, Mr. Mason, I see no reason why I shouldn’t answer that question.”

“That’s fine.”

She indicated a carved wooden cigarette case. “Care to smoke, Mr. Mason?”

“Thank you.”

The lawyer took the cover from the cigarette case, extended it to her. She took one and leaned forward for Mason’s match. Her eyes glanced up at him with steady appraisal while he was holding the light to her cigarette. Mason lit a cigarette of his own, resumed his chair, thrust his long legs out in front of him, crossed his ankles and said, “Well?” She said, “Mr. Mason, let’s be frank with each other. I think you’re going to prove rather a dangerous antagonist.”

“Thank you.”

“How did you find out about me?”

“I told you, I hired a detective.”

“How did you find out about the proxies?”

“That,” Mason said, “is another matter.”

She tapped the toe of her foot on the carpet, then, with a graceful, feline shrug of her shoulders, squirmed herself into a comfortable position on the davenport, adjusted a cushion to suit herself, and, with a flash of stocking, elevated her legs so that she was half reclining. She took a deep drag of the cigarette, blew a long stream of blue cigarette smoke toward the ceiling. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Mason said.

“My darling husband,” she said, “has accumulated himself another woman. Fie wanted to trade me in on the new model but something happened and he got all mixed up with the pink slip. I’m afraid I’m still his and the defect in title may be with the new model.”

“And so?” Mason asked.

“And so,” she said, “Mr. Mason, I intend to show my claws — just a little bit.”

“And, specifically, what do you want?”

“I want him.”

“You mean you would like to hold him legally, whether he wants to be held or not?”

She half closed her eyes and studied him thoughtfully, then she said, “I’m going to tell you something, Mr. Mason.”

“Go ahead.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “because I rather like your face; perhaps because I happen to feel philosophical. Are you married?”

“No.”

“When a man possesses a woman,” Mrs. Garvin said, “he has acquired a very peculiar possession. It is, in a way, an emotional mirror, a sounding board, an animated echo of his emotions. Fie gets back exactly what he gives.

“During the honeymoon, while he looks upon her as an angel, she looks upon him as a god. There is a period of mutual, worshipful admiration. Then, as the glamour wears off and the man realizes that he has acquired a working partner, he gets in return a working partner.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

Her eyes glittered slightly under the half-closed lids.

“Then,” she said, “a man sometimes begins to fret. He begins to chafe at restraint. He begins to be a little restless, because he has lost his freedom. He then does either one of two things. He begins to cheat a little bit, in a quiet, awkward manner, or he begins to nag. In any event, he shows that his wife has become something less than his most prized possession.”

“And then what?” Mason asked.

“Then,” she said, “he gets paid back in exactly his own coin. If a man is wise, he’ll take as much freedom as he feels that he needs; if a wife is wise, she’ll give a man as much freedom as he needs to keep him happy. Then the home life will be happy. The man may lie to his wife; he may cheat a little, but he’ll always value her as a prized possession. But when he starts regarding her as a ball and chain, she can slam the door of the prison very, very tight, Mr. Mason, lock the door and throw away the key.”

“Which is what you have done?”

“What I am going to do, Mr. Mason.”

“And just how do you propose to do it?”

She said, “You’re a lawyer. You’ve found out about my little trick with the stock proxies, haven’t you, Mr. Mason?”

“Yes.”

“Just what do you contemplate doing?”

“On behalf of your husband, I intend to see that any proxies that were fraudulently signed are held to be invalid.”

“So that my husband will then be here and assume control of the stockholders’ meeting, as usual?”

“Yes.”

“I think you are very clever, Mr. Mason. I think that perhaps you know your way around the law. I think perhaps you can do that. However, if you do it, I am going to do something that will enable me to achieve my goal by a different method.”

“What?” Mason asked.

“Perhaps,” she said, “you would care to listen.”

She was careless of her legs as she changed position on the davenport, drew the telephone to her, said to the switchboard operator downstairs, “Will you please get me the district attorney’s office?”

After a moment she said, “I want the complaint division, please.”

After another moment she said, “This is Mrs. Ethel Garvin talking. I am the wife of Edward Charles Garvin, who has gone through a bigamous marriage ceremony and is now living with another woman. He has deserted me and is openly cohabiting with this woman as his wife. He did, I believe, go through the formality of an invalid, fraudulent and entirely spurious Mexican divorce. I desire to swear to a complaint against him, charging him with bigamy. Could you give me an appointment for some time tomorrow morning?”

There was a moment’s silence, then she smiled and said, “I am aware that you would prefer not to stir up the question of these Mexican divorces, but, as it happens, I am the one who is stirring it up. I insist upon swearing to a complaint charging my husband with bigamy. What time may I have an appointment, please?”

Again she listened, then smiled and said, “Ten-fifteen. Thank you very much. And for whom shall I ask?... Yes, Mr. Stockton, yes. The deputy in the complaint department, yes. Thank you very much. At ten-fifteen promptly I’ll be there.”

She hung up the telephone, turned to Mason. “Does that answer your question?”

Mason smiled. “Do you think it will answer yours?”

She regarded him frankly for a moment, then said quietly, “I’ll be damned if I know, Mr. Mason, but when I get in a fight I keep moving. You’ve called my hand and now I’m going to lead my trumps. How many tricks I can take I don’t know, but I certainly intend to find out.”

“And you really intend to file a complaint against your husband, charging him with bigamy?”

“Mr. Mason, if it’s the last thing on earth that I ever do, I intend to charge my husband with bigamy. I’m going to prosecute him to the limit.”

“Once you start something like that it’s hard to quit.”

“Who wants to quit?” she asked, her eyes flaming. “Mr. Mason, will you kindly tell my husband what I said about a man finding in a woman a reflection of his own thoughts? Mr. Mason, my claws are going to be very, very sharp.”

Mason said, “Didn’t you lead your husband to believe that you had secured a divorce?”

“I am not responsible for what he believed.”

“But you told him you were getting a divorce, didn’t you?”

“Mr. Mason, a woman quite frequently tells a man a lot of things when she is trying to renew his passion, his love, his regard for her. For instance, she may tell him that she’s about to commit suicide; she may make all sorts of threats, all sorts of statements, all sorts of promises.”

Mason said, “Under the circumstances, I’m afraid you’re going to cost your husband some money.”

“I’m afraid I am.”

“Perhaps not entirely in the way you intended,” Mason said.

“What do you mean by that?”

Mason met her eyes. “I mean,” he said, “that I’m pretty good at fighting, too. I mean that sooner or later I’ll know every place you’ve been since you left your husband. We’ll know all about you. We’ll know...”

She smiled archly. “Mr. Mason, I don’t care how many detectives you employ, you’ll never know all that I’ve done during the last six months. And even if I had turned my bedroom into a dormitory, you wouldn’t have any defense against a prosecution for bigamy. I’m smart enough to know that, Mr. Mason, and you should be.

“And now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Mason, I have other things to do. There are other telephone conversations which I’d prefer you didn’t listen in on. Good afternoon, Mr. Mason.”

Mason arose. She escorted him to the door, said somewhat wistfully, “I wish I’d retained you before Edward did. However, that can’t be helped. I’m afraid you’re going to make a lot of trouble.”

The lawyer stepped into the corridor, “And I’m quite certain you are.”

Her eyes were suddenly hot with emotion. “You’re damn right I am,” she said, and closed the door.