The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

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.”

“When was that?”

“Very shortly after we’d left Los Angeles. It had been a little cloudy, and then the sun came out and was quite brilliant and Edward wanted his dark glasses. I opened the door of the glove compartment and the glasses were in a case toward the back of the compartment. Now that you mention about the gun, I remember thinking that everything had been pushed toward the back part of the glove compartment and wondered why. It was as though some other object had occupied the front of the compartment for a little while. But it certainly wasn’t there when I got those glasses. There were just some maps and a small flashlight, a pair of pliers, and this case with Edward’s sunglasses.”

“No gun?”

“Definitely not.”

Mason said to Garvin, “But you’re certain the gun was in the glove compartment?”

“It certainly was, and I guess the only time when it could have been removed was when I was out in front of my house waiting for my wife. She had the baggage all packed and I went in and got the baggage and then...”

“And then we had a bottle of beer,” Lorraine said. “You remember that you wanted to have some beer. You said you were thirsty so we went back to the icebox and had a bottle of beer.”

“That’s right,” Garvin said.

“And during this time the car wasn’t locked up?”

“Heavens, no,” Garvin said. “As a matter of fact I almost didn’t shut off my motor. Lorraine said she had the baggage all ready and I went in and got it and it wasn’t until after I got in the house that I thought about the beer. Lorraine joined me. We went back to the icebox, opened a bottle and split it in two glasses. Now someone could have taken the gun out at that time.”

“Someone who had followed you for that specific purpose?” Mason asked.

“I don’t think so, Mason. I doubt if anyone could have done that. It would have been more apt to have been kids in the neighborhood.”

“It wasn’t kids in the neighborhood,” Mason said. “Whoever got that gun, got it for a specific, deliberate purpose. That was the gun that was used in killing your former wife.”

“They’re absolutely certain about that?” Garvin asked.

“They will be as soon as they recover the fatal bullet and then shoot a test bullet through the gun and make a series of tests with a comparison microscope. But you can gamble a thousand to one that it was that gun which did the job.”

“That, of course, complicates things,” Garvin admitted. “I suppose police might even discover my fingerprints on that gun.”

“You handled it?”

“I handled it, Denby handled it, and Livesey handled it. And whoever put it out on the fire escape must have handled it. In other words there must be quite a few fingerprints on it.”

“I suppose so,” Mason said. “The police aren’t taking me into their confidence.”

“The body was found near Oceanside,” Lorraine Garvin said significantly.

“That’s right,” Mason said. “We haven’t interviewed Hackley yet. The police don’t know anything at all about him. I’m going to have a car drive me back to Oceanside. Paul Drake is going to meet me there.”

“Paul Drake?” Lorraine asked.

“The detective who’s been working with me. The one who located Ethel Garvin for me. He’s a good man.”

“Well,” Mrs. Garvin said. “I can’t help but say that I consider it highly significant that she drove to Oceanside — if that is where her lover is living.”

“We don’t know he’s her lover. We don’t know very much about him,” Mason said. “He may be a tough nut to crack. The only satisfaction we have to date is that we know about him and the police don’t. It is, of course, significant that she went to Oceanside. There are a couple of other angles in the case that indicate she may have gone to keep an appointment with this man, and...”

From the patio outside came the sound of the voice of Señora Inocente Miguerinio.

“Thees place ees very old,” Señora Miguerinio said, “muy viejo — old, you understand, like the ruinas. My father, and before him my grand-father, have owned thees place. Now I have feex heem up so the turista have a place to sleep, no?”

“I see,” a man’s voice answered.

“An old estate, a hacienda,” Señora Miguerinio went on.

The masculine voice said, “I am glad to know it. Two years ago when I was here, I did not notice it.”

“Of course you deed not notice. Ees so much ruin that my father make a board fence so he ees hid, no?”

“No,” the man said.

Señora Miguerinio’s laughter was like bubbling water. “Ah, well, the turista love to stay in my old Spanish house, inside ees very old, ees what you call quaint, no?”

“Yes.”

“Si, señor, ees quaint. You speak my language, no?”

“No, only a few words.”

“You weel come in and sit down, no?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Mason glanced at the grinning Garvin, frowned and placed his finger to his lips in a gesture for silence.

The man’s voice came through the open window.

“You have a Señor Edward Garvin and his wife staying here? He owns that big convertible in the driveway.”

“Oh, but certainly. The Señor Garvin, and the Señora. She ees beautiful, with the hair like red gold. And they have their fren’ the Señor Perry Mason weeth them.”

“The devil!” the voice exclaimed in irritation.

Mason walked over close to Garvin. “That voice,” he said, “is the voice of Lieutenant Tragg, of the Metropolitan police force. And if you don’t think he’s a smart cookie, just stick around.”

Señora Miguerinio said, “They are een these rooms now. Five and seex. If you are a fren’ of theirs they weel be glad to see you, no?”

“No,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

They heard a door close, then steps in the hallway, knuckles on the door. Mason opened the door.

“Well, well, Tragg! How are you?”

“Mason!” Tragg exclaimed. “And the estimable Miss Street. Well, Mason, I’m certainly glad to see you. I don’t get to see you very often these days.”

“It’s been a while,” Mason admitted. “Lieutenant, shake hands with Mr. Edward Garvin.”

“Glad to know you,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

Mason turned toward Lorraine Garvin at the far side of the room. “Mrs. Garvin, may I present Lieutenant Tragg of the Metropolitan police — Homicide Squad.”

Her smile was a wan motion of tight lips. Of a sudden, she seemed to be cowering by the closet door. “How do you do, Lieutenant? I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Tragg said to Edward Garvin, “You’ve heard about your wife?”

“Yes, I was shocked, surprised. I... I hardly know what to do.”

“There’s a good chance she was killed in Los Angeles and transported to Oceanside. That’s why I’m interested in the case. Now if you want to help,” Tragg said, “you can come on back and make arrangements for the funeral and while you’re back we’ll...”

“Arrest him on a bigamy complaint that was issued yesterday by the district attorney’s office,” Mason interpolated.

Tragg turned to Mason, said, “Now, that wasn’t necessary.”

“I merely wanted him to know what the score was,” Mason said.

“Now look,” Tragg said, in the voice one uses to an obstreperous child, “I want to talk with Mr. Garvin. I’m not going to hurt him, and he certainly has nothing to conceal, but there are some things about his wife’s death that I want to uncover. He can help me.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “We’ll both help.”

“I can get along without your help.”

“Come, come, Lieutenant. Two heads are better than one.”

“We’re getting into the field of a different proverb now,” Tragg said, smiling. “At this point you can refer to the good old proverb that too many cooks spoil the broth.”

“Didn’t Ethel Garvin commit suicide?” Mason asked.

“She did not commit suicide,” Tragg said. “The bullet in her head produced almost instant death.”

“Well?” Mason asked.

“She was shot while she was in the right-hand seat of the car. Someone drove her for some little distance, then parked the car and pulled and hauled the body over until it was behind the driver’s seat. He then pushed the left arm through the spokes of the wheel, shut off the lights and ignition and drove away in another car.”

“That had been following?” Mason asked.

Tragg shook his head and said, “Frankly, Mason, I don’t think so. It looks as though the murderer had gone to a certain spot and had parked the getaway car. Then he’d gone out and joined his victim, shot her right in the head at close range, then driven the car for some little distance, perhaps quite a few miles, to the point where his own car had been parked and was waiting for a getaway. The murder may well have been committed while she was in Los Angeles. The murderer drove Ethel Garvin’s car up as close to his own car as he dared, then got out, stood on the running board of his own car, pulled the body over behind the steering wheel, fixed everything the way he wanted, then stepped into his own car and drove away.”

“Unless, of course, he had an accomplice waiting,” Mason said, “which would make it a two-man job.”

“Which would make it a two-man job,” Tragg told him, “but for certain reasons, we don’t think that it was. We think that it was a one-man job.”

“How come?”

“Well, to begin with, if there had been an accomplice waiting in the getaway car, the tendency would have been for the murderer to have driven the car with the body in it to a stop and then the getaway car would have driven alongside. Actually it was the other way around. The murderer even had to back once in order to get the car with the body in it in exactly the position that he wanted. Then he got over into the other car.”

“That’s good deductive reasoning,” Mason said.

Tragg turned to Garvin. “Now, I know this is a painful subject,” he said, “but if your wife was murdered, I know you’ll do everything in your power to clear it up. Despite the fact that you’d been separated, despite the fact there was some friction between you, you would want to clean it up, wouldn’t you?”

Garvin hesitated.

“Let’s put it this way,” Tragg said, his eyes cold as ice, “you wouldn’t want to put yourself in a position of seeming to protect a murderer, would you, Mr. Garvin?”

“Of course not,” Garvin said hastily.

“I thought not,” Tragg told him. “Now then, if you’ll just come back across the border we’ll...”

“What about this bigamy warrant, Tragg?”

“I tell you, that’s out of my jurisdiction. That’s between this man and the D. A. But whether he comes back with me or whether he doesn’t isn’t going to help matters any. He’s a defendant in a bigamy rap. I don’t know what the D. A. will do. He may dismiss the case now that the complainant is dead. He may just keep on continuing or he may let the guy plead guilty and apply for probation. I’m not interested in bigamy; I’m interested in a murder.”

“That’s the difference between us,” Mason said cheerfully. “I’m interested both in the murder and in the bigamy charge.”

“Well,” Tragg said irritably, Mason’s manner forcing him to lose his good nature, “don’t think that this man has any choice in the matter. He’s faced with a rap for bigamy. We can get him out of Mexico any time we want him out. There’s an easy way and a hard way. I’m asking him to come the easy way.”

“We prefer to go the hard way,” Mason told him cheerfully.

“Now, don’t be like that,” Tragg said to Mason. “You know we can bring this man back any time we want him. We can nail him on an absolutely dead-open-and-shut bigamy charge. He has no possible defense to that and we can get him extradited from Mexico to face it. I thought we could expedite this murder investigation by not having to go through all that red tape.”

Mason said, “You face an interesting situation on that bigamy charge.”

“Phooey!” Lieutenant Tragg said. “Don’t hand me that line of double-talk, Mason. You know as well as I do that the Mexican divorce this man had isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. You also know that the Mexican marriage is a bigamous marriage.”

Mason said, “There’s some interesting law involved, Lieutenant. Section 61 of our Civil Code provides that a second marriage made during the lifetime of an undivorced spouse is illegal and void from the beginning.”

“That’s what I was telling you,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

“On the other hand,” Mason said, “Section 63 of the Civil Code also contains some very interesting language.”

“Such as what?” Tragg asked.

Mason took a piece of paper from his pocket, on which he had copied Section 63 of the Civil Code.

“Listen to this, Lieutenant: ‘All marriages contracted without this state, which would be valid by the laws of the country in which the same were contracted, are valid in this state.’ ”

Tragg said, “What are you getting at? That marriage in Mexico wasn’t any better than the divorce.”

“Exactly,” Mason said, “but Mexico recognized the divorce.”

“Well, what if it does?”

“Notice that language again,” Mason said. “I’ll read it to you once more.” He again held up the paper and read, “All marriages contracted without this state, which would be valid by the laws of the country in which the same were contracted, are valid in this state.”

Tragg tilted his hat back and scratched his head. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

“There you are,” Mason said. “The marriage is legal in Mexico. Therefore, it’s legal in every other country, particularly in the state of California, because the California law specifically so provides.”

“But look here,” Tragg said. “It’ll be possible to prove that these two people left California in order to perpetrate a fraud on the marriage laws of California and...”

Mason smiled, and shook his head. “Read the case of McDonald versus McDonald, 6 California (Second) 457. It’s also reported and discussed in 106 A. L. R. 1290 and is reported in the Pacific Reporter in 58 Pacific (Second) Page 163. That case holds squarely and fairly that where people leave California for the sole purpose of contracting a marriage, in defiance of the laws of California, and go to another state, and, as a part of that general scheme, a marriage is contracted in that state, that marriage is valid. It is a legal and binding ceremony in California, regardless of the fact that such marriage is not only contrary to the laws of California but contrary to the under-lying policy of the laws of California.”

“Well, dammit,” Tragg said, “the divorce in Mexico is no good in California, you have to admit that.”

“I don’t admit it, but I’m willing to concede it for the purpose of the argument.”

“Then the marriage has to be bigamous.”

“The marriage is as good as gold,” Mason said.

“You mean that this man has two wives and...”

“He doesn’t now,” Mason said, “but until an early hour this morning he did have. He’s in the rather unique position of having committed legal bigamy and having had two perfectly legal wives.”

“You’re nuts, Mason. You’re pulling a lot of double-talk and a lot of fast legal stuff in order to get me mixed up. You may be able to put up a good razzle-dazzle for a jury, but that’s all it is.”

Mason said, “Tragg, I’m telling you, the minute this man sets foot in Mexico, he’s married to this woman standing here at his side. I’m willing to concede that when he goes back to the United States, he may be held to have committed bigamy. That’s why I don’t propose to have him go back to the United States. He’s living here with his lawfully wedded wife.

“Now, Mexico will grant extradition for a crime that is a crime against the laws of the United States, but it’s not going to grant extradition for an act performed under the laws of the Mexican government which is perfectly legal here but which could be held to be illegal in California.”

Tragg said irritably, “You make the thing sound so damn convincing that... That’s the trouble with you, you’ve built up a reputation because you are able to make things sound so convincing.”

“You don’t want to go back to the United States, do you, Garvin?” Mason asked his client.

Garvin shook his head.

“There you are, Tragg,” Mason said.

Tragg took a small fingerprint outfit from his pocket. “Well,” he said, “I take it you’ll at least be willing to do whatever you can to help us clear up that murder case.”

“What do you want?”

“I want your fingerprints.”

“Why?”

“I think I found one of your fingerprints on the weapon with which the crime was committed.”

“You don’t need to bother about that,” Mason said. “I can tell you very frankly, Tragg, that my client handled that gun — that is, if it’s the gun we think it is.”

“What gun?” Tragg asked suspiciously.

“A gun,” Mason said, “that was left on the fire escape outside of the window of the Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company. That gun was handled by Mr. Garvin and was, in fact, placed in the glove compartment of his automobile. Someone removed it from the glove compartment before he had left Los Angeles.”

Tragg threw back his head and laughed. “You do have the most naive, ingenious explanations! You admit your client put that gun in the glove compartment of his automobile?” Tragg asked.

“It was put there for him,” Mason said.

Tragg turned to Garvin. “You admit you put that gun in the glove compartment of your car?”

“He admits someone else put it there,” Mason said.

“I’m talking to Garvin,” Tragg said irritably.

“I’m talking for him.”

Lorraine Garvin said, “Well, I know very well that gun was not in the glove compartment after we left Los Angeles. Someone took it out.”

“How do you know?” Tragg asked.

“Because my husband had left his sunglasses in the glove compartment. After we got going he asked me to get them out for him. I opened the glove compartment and took out the dark glasses. If there had been a gun in there I certainly would have seen it, and if I’d seen it, I naturally would have demanded to know what Edward was doing with a gun.”

“And you’re sure there was no gun in there?”

“Absolutely certain.”

“After all,” Tragg said, suavely, “by that time your husband could have removed it from the glove compartment. He might have put it anywhere.”

Lorraine glowered at Lieutenant Tragg and said, “If you’re not going to believe any statements made by a person, what’s the use of asking him to submit to an inquiry and answer questions?”

Tragg grinned, and said, “It’s the way we solve murder cases sometimes. You have to admit, Mrs. Garvin, that a man who would commit murder would be perfectly willing to tell a falsehood.”

“Well, I can tell you one thing,” Lorraine snapped, “my husband might have taken that gun but he never could have used it. He was here with me all night.”

“All night?” Tragg asked.

“Yes, all night.”

“You didn’t sleep a wink?”

“Well, I know I woke up around one o’clock and he was lying in bed right beside me and snoring. I was awake from around quarter to three to three-thirty and he was there.”

“You looked at your watch to check the time, of course,” Tragg said sarcastically.

“I listened to the time.”

“You listened?”

“Yes. They have a clock — just listen for yourself.”

She held up her hand for silence. The musical chimes of the big clock in the lobby melodiously tolled a preamble, and then after a pause, chimed the hour.

“Okay,” Tragg said. “If you’ll swear to those times...”

“I’ll swear to them.”

“And if you’re not mistaken...”

“I’m not.”

“In that event I’m all finished,” Tragg said, “except that I want to get Mr. Garvin’s fingerprints. I want to see whether or not he left a fingerprint on that gun. Any objection, Garvin?”

“Certainly not,” Garvin said. “I’m only too eager to do anything I can to help clear this matter up.”

“Except return to California,” Tragg said.

“So far as that is concerned, I am not going to subject my wife to a lot of vulgar curiosity, nor am I going to walk into a trap that was set for me by...”

“Go on,” Tragg said, “by whom?”

“There’s no need mentioning her name now,” Garvin said with dignity. “She’s dead.”

“All right,” Tragg said, opening his fingerprint outfit and taking the cover off a blank ink pad, “let’s have your hands and we’ll get the fingerprints. At least we’ll accomplish that much.”

Garvin extended his hands. Tragg carefully took fingerprints, marked them with the name, date and place, then grinned cheerfully. “That’s fine. I hope you enjoy your stay in Mexico.”

He bowed, said, “Glad to have met you, Mr. and Mrs. Garvin. You’ll hear from me later.” Then he opened the door and was gone, as though suddenly in a great hurry.