The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

Two

At ten o’clock the next morning Perry Mason, appearing before the State Supreme Court, sitting in bank, was able, after a masterful thirty-minute argument bristling with authorities, to convince the high tribunal that the statement which had been received in evidence by the lower court was a part of the res gestae, and the Court thereupon affirmed a judgment previously awarded in the lower court to one of Perry Mason’s clients.

Mason took a taxicab to his office, and shortly after eleven o’clock opened the door of his private office.

Della Street, his private secretary, glanced up from her desk, smiled a greeting, and said, “How did you come out, chief?”

“On top.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“You look tired.”

“I was up most of the night.”

Della Street smiled.

“Why the smile?” Mason asked.

“Have you, by any chance, seen the newspaper?”

“Yes, I saw the morning newspaper and...”

“I’m referring to the early edition of the afternoon newspaper,” Della Street said. “You might like to see the Gossip Column.”

“Why?” he asked.

She raised two forefingers, rubbing one across the other and said, mockingly, “Naughty, naughty, chief.”

“Now what?” he asked.

Della Street placed a folded newspaper on his desk.

Mason noticed a marked section in the Gossip Column on the inside page:

Mason’s face darkened as he read the column. “Damn snooping buzzard!” he said. “Why do newspapers have to employ people to snoop around in gutters?”

“And alleys,” Della Street said.

“And alleys,” Mason amended. “How the devil do you suppose he got the information?”

“You forget that you’re pretty well known now,” she said. “Who was the athletic stranger?”

“A big tub of lard,” Mason said. “I should have smashed his jaw. Some fellow trying to show off to the women with him. He grabbed my coat as I went by and gave her just enough time to get out of the way.”

“Who was your girl friend?”

“She said her name was Virginia Colfax,” Mason said. “Judging from the law of probabilities, I would say that there was possibly one chance in one hundred million that Colfax actually was her last name, but I have a hunch the Virginia part may be all right.”

With a wry smile he told Della about the invasion of his office the night before.

“And what did she want?”

“She wanted out. I should have called the police in the first place.” Della raised her eyebrows. “Called the police?”

“Well,” Mason said, “I admit it would have looked rather incongruous,” and then suddenly he threw back his head and laughed wholeheartedly. “A smart little devil,” he said, “and she certainly slipped one over on me. I thought I was escorting her down to the parking lot so she could point out her car to me.”

“And something slipped?”

“Something came up unexpectedly, Della — her right hand.”

“Why?”

“She was smart enough to know that bystanders would sympathize with a woman who was trying to get away from the pursuing wolf. She apparently knew that a taxicab customarily waited in front of our office building, and she knew that there would probably be people on the sidewalk... As it was, she had all the breaks. I definitely didn’t.”

“I’m afraid,” Della Street told him, “that it’s not safe to trust you alone up here in the office. I told you I’d be glad to come up last night and work with you.”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Mason said. “I worked pretty late — oh well, it was an adventure, anyway.”

Mason opened the drawer in the lower left-hand side of the desk, took out the handkerchief the girl had left behind.

“What do you make of that, Della?”

Della Street regarded the square of linen. “Dirty,” she said.

Mason nodded. “She wiped the grime of the fire escape from her hands. What’s the scent, Della?”

Della Street clamped a thumb and forefinger on a corner of the handkerchief, raised it gingerly.

“Oh, oh,” she said, “your visitor uses expensive perfume.”

“What is it?”

“Ciro’s ‘Surrender,’ I think.”

“I’ll try and remember it,” Mason said. “What’s new in the office, Della?”

“There’s a Mr. Garvin waiting outside,” Della Street said. “He’s anxious to see you. He has offices in the same building, on the floor above us, in fact — the Garvin Mining, Exploration...”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Mason said, “The Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company.”

“You’ve noticed the name on the directory?” she asked.

“Virginia Colfax,” Mason said, “was supposed to be a secretary working for that organization. By all means, show Mr. Garvin in. Let’s see what he looks like. There’s a chance he may be the other point of a triangle.”

“He’s a well-rounded point, then,” Della Street said, laughing.

“Heavy?”

“Well-fed.”

“How old?”

“Around forty. Well-tailored, manicured. Probably accustomed to getting what he wants when he wants it.”

“Well, well! Apparently he has the external appearance of a first point in a triangle. The second could be a jealous wife, and the third a blond girl with smoldering slate-gray eyes and a — well, you know...”

“I believe ‘superb figure’ is the cliche you’re trying to think of,” Della Street said as she moved toward the door of the reception room. “I’ll bring Mr. Garvin in.”

Garvin ostentatiously consulted his wrist watch as he entered the office. “Thought you’d never get here, Mason,” he said. “Been waiting twenty minutes. Damn it, I don’t like waiting for anyone.”

“So it seems,” Mason said dryly.

“Well, I’m not talking about this instance,” Garvin said. “I mean generally. I’ve noticed you coming in and out several times, Mason. Never thought I’d have occasion to consult you but — well, that’s the way it is.”

“Sit down,” Mason told him. “What can I do for you?”

Garvin glanced at Della Street.

“She stays,” Mason said. “Makes notes, keeps my time straight and my appointments.”

“This is a delicate matter.”

“I specialize in delicate matters.”

“I recently married a mighty fine young woman, Mason. I... well, it’s important that nothing happen to that marriage.”

“Why should anything happen to your marriage?”

“There are — complications.”

“Tell me about it. How long have you been married?”

“Six weeks,” Garvin said somewhat belligerently.

“A second wife?” Mason asked.

“There’s the rub,” Garvin told him.

“Well, let’s have it,” Mason said.

Garvin settled himself in the overstuffed client’s chair, after first unbuttoning his double-breasted coat. “Mason,” he said, “how good are Mexican divorces?”

“They have a certain value,” Mason said. “It depends on the jurisdiction.”

“How much value?”

“Well,” Mason told him, “they all have a certain psychological value.”

“What do you mean?”

“Technically,” Mason said, “when a man has a Mexican divorce and remarries, the authorities could get tough about it. Actually they don’t do very much about it, where it appears a man acted in good faith, because if they did, they wouldn’t have enough jails in the country to hold all the persons charged with bigamy. It would break up all sorts of families, disrupt the domestic life of the state, and, after the state had gone to the trouble and expense of getting a conviction, the judge would usually impose a sentence of probation.”

“They’re good, then.”

“Some good,” Mason said smiling. “Of course if you want a careful, exact opinion, it would take study. While it isn’t generally known, the Mexican government doesn’t want to have its border courts made a dumping ground for our domestic entanglements. It’s done a lot to clean up situations which did exist. But our courts are under no legal obligation to be bound by the validity of Mexican divorces.”

“Hang it, Mason,” Garvin said, “I’m afraid I’m in a jam.”

“Suppose,” Mason said, “you begin at the beginning and tell me what it’s all about?”

“I married a girl named Ethel Carter ten years ago,” Garvin said. “She was a mighty sweet girl then. I remember how completely hypnotized I was — and hypnotism is the right word for it, too, Mason, don’t make any mistake about that. As it turned out, she was a cold, clever, scheming — well, I hate to use the word that comes to my mind in front of a lady,” and Garvin bowed in the direction of Della Street’s desk.

Mason said, “Love brings out the best in people. When love leaves, it frequently happens the best is gone. Perhaps there was trouble on both sides.”

Garvin shifted his position. “Well, perhaps,” he said, “it’s barely possible. But what I want you to realize now, Mason, is that she’s a holy terror.”

“In what way?” Mason asked.

“In every way,” Garvin said. “She’s... well, she’s a wildcat. You know, that old saying about ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ ”

“How long have you been separated?”

“I don’t think the separation had so much to do with it,” Garvin said. “It was when I remarried. She became absolutely insane with rage.”

“By the way,” Mason asked, glancing significantly at Della Street, “what does your present wife look like?”

“A beautiful redhead, with the bluest of blue eyes, Mason. You can look right down into the depths. The fair, delicate skin that goes with a redhead of that type. Hang it, she’s beautiful! She’s a gem. She’s a marvel.”

Mason broke in, “I get it. While we’re on the subject of women, do you by any chance have a woman in your employ about twenty-three or twenty-four, with a good figure, trim, slim-waisted, long-legged, high-breasted, blond hair, gray eyes...”

“In my employ!” Garvin said. “Good Lord, Mason, you make her sound like a Hollywood movie actress!”

“She’s good-looking,” Mason admitted.

Garvin shook his head. “Don’t know anyone.”

“Know anyone by the name of Colfax?” Mason asked.

Garvin thought. “Yes,” he said, “I had a business deal at one time with a man by the name of Colfax, some sort of a mining deal. I can’t remember much about it. I have a lot of things on my mind. However, I wanted to talk to you about my first wife.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well,” Garvin said, “we separated about a year ago. Now, there was something strange about that separation. My wife and I hadn’t been getting along too well and I’d been — well, I’d been turning to other interests, staying at the club a lot, playing a little poker, going out with the boys. But my wife was not sitting home, pining her life away... Hang it, Mason, we’d just reached the point where we’d started to grow apart. Frankly, she bored me and I suppose I bored her. Anyway, when the separation came there were no hard feelings, no tears shed. It was just a plain business matter. I gave her a mine in New Mexico that looked pretty good.”

“Any formal property settlement drawn up?” Mason asked.

“Now, on that I admit I made a little mistake. I didn’t have it formal, but Ethel had always been pretty square that way. We talked things over and I gave her this mine and we were going to see how it turned out. If it turned out all right, she was going to take that as a complete property settlement; if it didn’t turn out so good, I told her we’d make some sort of an adjustment.”

“And did it turn out good?”

“I think it was all right,” Garvin said, “but the point is Ethel went out to New Mexico, stayed at the mine for a while, then wrote me she was going to Nevada to get a divorce. Then after a while I heard in a more or less roundabout way that she had a divorce.”

“A letter from her?”

“From one of our mutual friends.”

“You’ve saved that letter, and the letter from your wife?”

“Unfortunately I haven’t.”

“Did she get a divorce in Reno?”

“Apparently not.”

“Tell me the rest of it.”

“Well, I met Lorraine Evans.” His face lit up with a fatuous smile. “I can’t begin to tell you about Lorrie, Mason. It was just like turning back the hands of the clock. She has everything that I’d expected to find in Ethel when I first married her. Hang it, I still can’t believe my good fortune.”

“I know. She’s a gem! She’s a dream! But now let’s get on with it,” Mason said impatiently.

“Well, I hadn’t bothered about records before, but after I met her and — well, I wanted to be sure I was free, so I wrote to Reno and tried to find records of my wife’s divorce, and apparently there weren’t any.”

“Then what?”

“Well,” Garvin said uncomfortably, “I’d acted on the assumption, of course, that there had been a divorce in Reno, particularly after receiving that letter from our friend about Ethel’s divorce.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I... I tell you, Mason, I’d naturally acted on the assumption I was a free man and...”

“What did you do?” Mason asked.

“Well, I’d gone pretty damn far by the time I found out that there was some question about a Reno divorce... I still thought that there was a divorce there, all right, but that the records were missing or something.”

“So what did you do?” Mason asked.

“Well,” Garvin said, “I went down to Mexico and had a talk with a lawyer there who told me I could establish a residence by some sort of proxy and — well, he made it sound pretty good. Anyway, I got a Mexican divorce and Lorrie and I were married afterwards in Mexico. We followed a procedure worked out by a lawyer in Mexico. He seemed to know his business.”

“And then what happened?” Mason asked.

“Well,” Garvin said, “I’m worried about Ethel. She’s — she’s suddenly turned bitter. She wants a property settlement. She wants things that would completely ruin me. She wants — me!”

“And so,” Mason said, “you find yourself with two wives on your hands?”

“Well,” Garvin said, stroking his heavy jaw, “I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, Mason. I’d rather be a happy bridegroom than a dubious one. I hoped that Mexican divorce would be good. I wanted to find out something about it.”

Mason said, “I’ll look into your Mexican divorce. Where’s your wife now?”

“She’s right here, in the city somewhere, but I don’t know where. She telephoned me from a pay station. She won’t give me her address.”

“She has a lawyer?”

“She says she’s going to handle the property settlement by herself.”

“Doesn’t want to pay a lawyer’s fee?” Mason asked.

“No,” Garvin said, “she’s smarter than any two lawyers in the country — present company excepted, of course. The woman’s damned clever. She was my secretary before I married her, and believe me, she certainly knows her way around when it comes to business — a smart woman.”

“All right,” Mason said, “I’ll see what I can do. It’s going to cost you money.”

“I expected that.”

“By the way,” Mason said, “your present wife — was she down at your office last night?”

“Down at the office? My wife? Heavens, no!”

“I thought I saw a light up there,” Mason said. “I was looking out of the window, and I noticed light striking the upper landing of the fire escape. I believe your office is directly above mine.”

“That’s right, it is,” Garvin said, “but you couldn’t have seen a light in my office. It must have been in the office up above that, Mason. No one works in my office at night.”

“I see,” Mason said. “Well, I’ll look into it. Go into that other office and dictate all the data to Miss Street. Give her all the names, addresses, descriptions, anything else you can think of. And leave a check for a thousand-dollar retainer. We’ll get busy on it.”