The Case of the Curious Bride

Chapter 5

Perry Mason left the telephone and approached the drug counter. "What's 'Ipral'?" he asked.

The clerk studied him for a moment. "A hypnotic."

"What's a hypnotic?"

"A species of sedative. It induces sleep, not a drugged sleep, but a restful slumber. In proper doses there's no after effect."

"Would it act like knockout drops?"

"Not at all—in any proper dose. I told you, it induces a natural, restful and deep slumber. Can I?…"

Mason nodded, turned away from the counter. "Thanks," he said.

He emerged from the drug store whistling lightheartedly. The cab driver jumped to the sidewalk, opened the door of the cab. "Where to?" he asked.

Perry Mason frowned speculatively, as though weighing two possible plans of campaign in his mind. Three blocks down the street a car swung into Norwalk Avenue, the body swaying far over on the springs with the momentum of the turn. Mason's eyes focused on it, and the eyes of the cab driver followed those of Mason. "Sure is coming," said the cab driver.

"A woman driving," Mason observed.

Abruptly, Mason stepped from the curb, held up his hand. The Chevrolet swerved toward the curb. Tires protested as brakes were applied. Rhoda Montaine's flushed face stared at Perry Mason. The car jerked to a dead stop.

The lawyer's first words were as casual as though he had been expecting her. "I've got your purse," he said.

"I know it," she told him. "I knew it before I'd gone half a block from your office. I started back after it, and then decided to let it go. I figured you'd open it and ask a lot of questions. I didn't want to answer them. What were you doing at Gregory's?"

Perry Mason turned to the cab driver. "That, buddy," he said, "is all."

He extended a bill, which the cab driver took, staring in puzzled speculation at the woman in the coupe. Mason jerked open the door of the car, climbed in beside Rhoda Montaine and grinned at her. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't know you'd left a retainer. When I found out about it, I did what I could to help you."

Her eyes were glittering points of black indignation. "Did you call it helping me to bust in on Gregory?" He nodded. "Well," she said bitterly, "you've raised the devil. As soon as I knew you were there, I started to drive out as quickly as I could. You've spilled the beans now."

"Why didn't you keep your five o'clock appointment?" he asked.

"Because I couldn't reach a decision. I telephoned him, to tell him that he'd have to wait until later."

"How much later?"

"A lot later."

"What," asked Perry Mason, "does he want?"

"That," she said, "is none of your business."

The lawyer stared at her speculatively, and said, "That is one of the things you were going to tell me when you called at my office. Why won't you tell me now?"

"I wasn't going to tell you."

"You would have if I hadn't hurt your pride."

"Well, you did!"

Mason laughed. "Look here," he said. "Let's not work at cross purposes. I've been trying to get in touch with you all day."

"I presume," she said, "you went through my purse."

"Every bit of it," he admitted. "What's more, I purloined your telegram, went to see Nell Brinley, started detectives to work getting all the dope I could."

"What did you find out?"

"Plenty," he said. "Who's Doctor Millsap?"

She caught her breath in quick consternation. "A friend," she explained vaguely.

"Does your husband know him?"

"No." Mason's shoulders gave an eloquent shrug. "How did you find out about him?" she asked after a moment.

"Oh, I've been getting around," he told her. "I've been trying to put myself in a position to help you."

"You can't help me," she said, "except by telling me the one thing, and then leaving me alone."

"What one thing do you want to know?"

"Whether, after a man has disappeared for seven years, he's presumed to be dead."

"Under certain circumstances he is, yes. It's seven years in some cases, five in others."

There was vast relief on her countenance. "Then," she said, "a subsequent marriage would be legal."

Mason's face was lined with sympathy as he slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Montaine," he said, "but that's only a presumption. If Gregory Moxley is really Gregory Lorton, your first husband, and he showed up alive and well, your marriage to Carl Montaine is voidable."

She looked at him with eyes that were dark with suffering. Slow tears welled up in them. Her lips quivered. "I love him so," she said simply.

Perry Mason's hand dropped to her shoulder, patted it reassuringly. It was the impersonal gesture of the protective male. "Tell me about him," he invited.

"Oh," she said, "you wouldn't understand. No man would understand. I can't even understand, myself. I nursed him when he was sick. He had a drug habit and his folks would have died if they'd known. I'm a trained nurse, you know—that is, I was."

"Go on," Mason said. "Everything."

"I can't tell you about my marriage to Gregory," she said, her lips quivering. "That was ghastly. It happened when I was just a kid—young, innocent and impressionable. He was attractive—and nine years older than I was. People warned me against him, and I thought it was just jealousy and envy. He had that air of sophisticated deference that captivates a kid."

"Go on," Mason prompted as she paused.

"I had a little money saved up. Well, he took it and skipped out."

Mason's eyes narrowed. "Did you give him the money," he asked, "or did he steal it?"

"He stole it. I gave it to him to buy some stock. He told me about a wonderful bargain he could get by picking up some securities from a friend who was hard up. I gave him the money. He went out and never came back. I'll never forget the way he kissed me just before he beat it with all of my money."

"Did you tell the police?" Mason asked.

She shook her head, said, "Not about the money. I thought he had been in an accident of some kind, and I got the police to look over the records of accidents, and I telephoned all of the hospitals. It was a long time before I realized what had really happened. I was frantic."

"Why not have him arrested?" Mason asked.

"I don't dare to."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"It's something I don't dare tell any one. It's something that has driven me to the verge of suicide."

"Was that what the gun was for?"

"No."

"You intended to kill Moxley?" She was silent. "Was that," Mason inquired, "why you wanted to know about the corpus delicti?"

Again she was silent. Mason pressed his finger into her shoulder. "Look here," he said, "you've got a lot on your mind. You need some one to confide in. I can help you. Suppose you tell me the truth and the whole truth?"

"I can't, it's terrible. I wouldn't dare to tell you the truth!"

"Does your husband know about any of this?" Mason asked.

"Good heavens, no! If you understood about his background you wouldn't ask."

"All right, what's his background?"

"Did you," she asked, "ever hear of C. Phillip Montaine of Chicago?"

"No, what about him?"

"He's a very wealthy man—one of those old fogies who traces his ancestry back to the Revolution, and all that sort of stuff. Carl is his son. C. Phillip Montaine disapproved of me, very, very much. He's never seen me. But the idea of his son marrying a nurse came as a shock to the old man."

"You've met the father?" Mason asked. "After the marriage?"

"No, but I've seen his letters to Carl."

"Did he know Carl was going to marry you, before the wedding?"

"No. We ran away and were married."

"And Carl is very much under the influence of his father?" Mason queried.

She nodded vigorously. "You'd have to see Carl to understand. He's still weak—mentally and morally—because of the drug habit he had. That is, he hasn't a strong will power." She flushed, realizing what she was saying. "He'll be all right in time. You know what drugs do to a man." She went on nervously. "Now, he's still easily influenced. He's nervous. He's very impressionable."

"You see all of those defects in his character clearly," Mason said, in thoughtful speculation, "and yet you love him?"

"I love him," she said, "more than anything in the world. And I'm going to make a man of him. All he needs is time and some one strong to help him. You'd have to understand what I went through, in order to realize how I love him and why I love him. I went through hell for years after my first marriage. I wanted desperately to commit suicide, and yet I didn't have the nerve. That first marriage killed something in me. I could never love any man the way I could have loved my first husband. After that I didn't want that same kind of a marriage. I suppose there's a lot of the maternal in my love now. My first love was that of illusion. I wanted a man to worship, a man to look up to—oh, you know." She broke off.

"Does your husband," asked Perry Mason, "appreciate that kind of love?"

"He will," she said. "He's been accustomed to knuckling under to his father. He's had it drilled into him that his family name and his family position are the two main things in life. He wants to go through life carried on the shoulders of his dead ancestors. He thinks family means everything. It's become a species of obsession."

"Now," Mason told her, "we're commencing to get somewhere. You're telling me the things that are on your mind, and you're feeling better already."

She shook her head in quick negation. "No," she said. "I can't tell you all. No matter how sympathetic you might be. After all, what I wanted to find out was about the legality of my marriage to Carl. I can stand anything if that marriage is only legal; but if he can walk away and leave me, or if his father can take him from me, it will break my heart."

"If," Mason said slowly, "he's the type who would walk away and leave you, don't you think you're wasting your affection on him?"

"That's just what I've been trying to make clear," she said. "It's because he is that type that he needs me and that makes me love him. He's weak, I love him and perhaps one reason is because he's weak. I've had enough of strong, purposeful, magnetic men who sweep me off my feet. I don't want to be swept off my feet. Perhaps it's a starved mother complex, perhaps it's just being goofy—I don't know. I can't explain it. It's the way I feel. You can't explain your feelings—you can only recognize them."

"What," asked Perry Mason, "is it you're keeping from me?"

"Something horrible," she told him.

"You're going to tell me?"

"No."

"Wouldn't you have told me if I'd been more sympathetic when you called at my office?"

"Good heavens, no!" she exclaimed. "I never intended to tell you this much. I thought you'd fall for that line about the friend who wanted the legal information. I'd rehearsed it in front of a mirror. I'd gone over it hundreds of times. I knew just what I was going to say and just what you were going to say. And then you saw that I was lying, and I was afraid. I was never so afraid in my life as I was when I left your office. I was so afraid, that I went down in the elevator and walked for half a block before I realized that I'd left my purse behind. That was a terrible shock. Then I didn't dare to go back after it. I started back, but I couldn't bear the thought of facing you. I decided to let it wait until afterwards."

"Until after what?" Mason inquired.

"Until after I'd found some way out of the mess."

There was sympathy in the eyes of the lawyer. He said simply, "I wish you wouldn't look at me that way. Your husband disappeared. You married in good faith, after you thought he was dead. You can't be blamed. You can go ahead and get a divorce from him and remarry Carl Montaine."

She blinked tears from her eyes, but her lips were firm. "You don't understand Carl," she said. "If this marriage isn't good, I could never get a divorce and then remarry Carl."

"Not even if you took a chance on a Mexican divorce?" Mason asked.

"Not even then." There was a moment of silence.

"Are you going to confide in me?" the lawyer asked. She shook her head. "Promise me one thing, then," he told her.

"What?"

"That you'll come to my office first thing in the morning. Sleep on it and see if you don't feel differently tomorrow."

"But," she said, "you don't understand. You don't…" A look of decision stamped itself upon her face. A cunning glint appeared in her eyes.

"Very well," she said, "I'll make you that promise."

"And now," Mason told her, "you can drive me back to my office."

"No," she objected, "I can't. I've got to get back to my husband. He'll be expecting me. I was simply furious when I learned that you had gone to see Gregory. I didn't know what might happen. I came tearing out here to try and locate you. Now I've got to get back."

Mason nodded. His cab driver, hopeful of picking up a fare back to town, having learned from experience that merely because a man enters a car with a woman doesn't mean that he may not get out again, was waiting at the curb. Perry Mason snapped back the catch on the door. "Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock?" he asked.

"Make it nine thirty," she suggested.

Mason nodded assent, smiled reassuringly at her. "Tomorrow," he said, "you'll find that it isn't going to be hard to tell. You've told me enough now so that you can tell me the rest. I can almost figure it out for myself."

Her eyes regarded him wistfully, then hardened. "At nine thirty," she said, and laughed, a quick, nervous laugh. Mason closed the door. She snapped back the gearshift and the car growled into speed.

Mason nodded to the cab driver. "Well, buddy," he said, "you get to take me back after all."

The cabby turned away to hide his grin. "Okay, chief," he said.