The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

Seven

Mason’s car followed Garvin’s convertible across the bridge below San Ysidro.

The lights of Tijuana below the far end of the bridge were an aura against which the steady stars for the moment pitted their brilliance in vain.

Garvin piloted his car down the wide main street and into a parking place where there was opportunity for Mason to run his car in beside theirs.

The lawyer got out, crossed over to Garvin’s open convertible and said, “Well, here we are. You’re now husband and wife once more.”

“Dammit, Mason,” Garvin said irritably, “tell me what I’m up against.”

Mason said, “I don’t know. I’m going to find out as much as I can. The best way to spike her scheme on these proxies is to have enough friendly stockholders there in person to control the meeting. A proxy is always revoked when the person who gave it is present at the meeting.

“That means you’ve got to give me a list of big stockholders who are friendly and I’ve got to phone them. I’ve prepared papers for an injunction which I can file in court tomorrow morning if I have to, but getting your friendly stockholders to attend the meeting in person is the best way. And I’m not entirely satisfied your president and your secretary-treasurer aren’t in on the scheme.

“So the next time you plan to skip out and leave business behind, let your lawyer know where you are. I had detectives scouring the country for you. One of them finally located a filling station attendant in La Jolla who remembered your convertible and said you’d been asking about a hotel. So I drove down.”

Lorraine Garvin said, “Well, I’m starved. Personally I’m going to have something to eat right now.”

“There’s a restaurant two doors down,” Mason told her. “You can find a place to stay here tonight. Tomorrow you can go on down to Ensenada if you want.”

Garvin said, “You folks start on. I want to put up the top on the car.”

While he was undoing the fastenings which held the cover of the top in place, Lorraine came close to Mason, said in a low voice, “I’m afraid you’re too strong, too resourceful, Mr. Mason. Somehow I just can’t feel afraid.”

Her hand squeezed his arm.

She looked over at Edward Garvin, said, “He’s nice, but frightfully newlywed, if you know what I mean.”

“How would I know?” Mason asked.

She said archly, “How would I know how you know?”

Garvin raised the top of the convertible, came to join them.

“When can we come back from Ensenada?”

“Any time you want to face a bigamy charge,” Mason said.

“And where does that leave me?” Lorraine asked, thoughtfully.

Mason smiled. “In the United States,” he said, “you are an interloper, a correspondent, a mistress, a woman living without legal status, in a state of sin. Here in Mexico you are a lawfully wedded wife.”

“That’s the damnedest thing!” Lorraine said angrily.

“Isn’t it?” Mason agreed. “Such are the ramifications of international law. When you go to the United States, Garvin, you’re married to Ethel; you are probably also guilty of bigamy. When you are here in Mexico, you are lawfully wedded to your present companion, and Ethel Garvin is nothing more than an ex-wife who has no legal status.”

“I think that’s the most absurd damn thing!” Garvin blazed. “I suppose I should build a big house, with the International Border running through the bedroom. I could have triple beds in the room. Ethel could be...”

“Edward,” Lorraine said frigidly, “don’t be coarse.”

“I’m not coarse; I’m mad,” Garvin yelled. “Damn it, I’m on a honeymoon and I don’t even know whether I’m a bridegroom!”

“Get just as mad as you want to,” Mason told him, “but it doesn’t affect your legal status. I’m trying to get it straightened out. Now let’s eat.”

Mason led the way to the restaurant, ordered large, tender steaks and when they were finished said, “There’s a new hotel I know here, the Vista de la Mesa. Let’s stay there and tomorrow morning you can give me the names of some of the large stockholders who are loyal to your interests, Garvin, and we’ll run up a telephone bill.”

Garvin said, “Mason, I’ll telephone the stockholders. I want you to make a property settlement with Ethel. Do the best you can. Start with fifty thousand, and...”

Lorraine said hastily, “Edward, dear, don’t you think you’d better let Mr. Mason be the one to determine the figure? He’ll get as low a settlement as possible.”

“I want action,” Garvin said. “I’m impatient when I want something. How will you locate her, Mason?”

“Through detectives,” Mason said, looking at his watch. “I can telephone her tonight and make an appointment for tomorrow morning.”

“You have her telephone number?” Garvin asked.

“Yes. She’s in 624 at the Monolith Apartments. There’s a switchboard there and I can get them to ring her. She was a little difficult when I talked with her yesterday. She thought she had a trump card in that bigamy prosecution. However, when I tell her that you’re safely ensconced here in Mexico, where she can’t touch you with the bigamy charge, and tell her that you’re planning on transferring your property interests, buying a large hacienda in Mexico and living there — well, that will give her something to worry about.”

Garvin’s eyes lit up. “That’s a splendid idea, Mason! It’s a pippin! That’s going to knock her for a loop!”

Mason said, “I’m taking it for granted that Ethel has acquired other romantic interests of her own.”

Lorraine’s eyes lit up. “Of course she has! Edward, we should have thought of that.”

Mason said, “From what I’ve seen of her, she’s a good-looking woman who likes to have people admire her. She has a way of doing things so that she shows just enough leg to keep people interested and...”

Garvin laughed. “That’s Ethel, all right. That’s the way she used to be with me. I remember when she was my secretary she...”

“Edward!” Lorraine said.

“Pardon, my dear.”

Mason said, “Well, before we start talking any cash figure with her, we’ll spend some money on detectives and find out a little more about what she was doing with her time during that period when you didn’t hear from her.”

“I guess she must have been more in love with me than I thought,” Garvin said somewhat thoughtfully. “It was my second marriage that turned her into a hell-cat. She probably felt there was hope of a reconciliation before that.”

“Don’t be so certain, Edward,” Lorraine said, puncturing his ego in well-chosen words. “It was only that when you married me, she saw an opportunity to squeeze money out of you by filing a bigamy charge. You leave things entirely in the hands of Mr. Mason.”

The Hotel Vista de la Mesa was back from the main street, a high-class, low, rambling hostelry which had apparently just been completed.

The adobe wall which surrounded the place and which had been freshly whitewashed had an arched entrance and, farther along, an exit. The two big cars crunched up the graveled driveway one behind the other, came to a stop before an eye-pleasing combination of adobe bricks, red tile roof, whitewashed walls and green cacti showing in a pastel color combination against the adobe.

The woman who was seated behind the desk beamed at them with friendly cordiality.

“We want two rooms,” Garvin said. “One for myself and wife and one for my companion.”

“But certainly,” the woman said in English, “weeth connecting bath?”

“Separate baths,” Garvin said.

“But that weel be more expensive.”

“That’s all right. We want the best you have in the house.”

Her eyes glistened. “Ah, the señor! He’s accustomed to the best, no?”

“Yes,” Garvin said.

“And the best here you weel get, señor. I have two beautiful connecting rooms, but if you do not want to share the bath then you must take both rooms. The room for the other señor must then be in the other wing.”

“That will be fine,” Garvin said, and, picking up the pen, registered for the three of them.

“How about the cars?” Garvin asked.

“Oh, the cars you leave heem right there in the driveway. No one evaire steals a car from the Vista de la Mesa.”

“You have a watchman?” Mason asked.

“No, no watchman, but in thees country you are among honest people, no? But, as a precaution — just as a precaution — you lock the car and you leave the keys weeth me. I put them in the cash drawer. And then, if it should be necessary to move the cars in the morning before you are up, the yard boy can do it and you do not need to be disturbed, and your cars are safe.”

Mason said, “Okay, I’ll lock up the cars, bring in the keys. And how about the baggage?”

“Unfortunately,” she said, “I have no boy on duty tonight. You see, the place ees new. Soon I close up. I have one more room. Only one left. When that is rent, then, poof, I turn out the lights, close up the place and go to bed. No?”

And she smiled again.

Mason turned toward the door, “All right, Garvin, I guess we’re elected to bring in our own baggage.”

Lorraine said, “All I need, dear, is just that little overnight bag.”

“Yes, darling.”

She smiled at Mason. “I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am to feel that matters are in your hands.”

“Thanks,” Mason told her, “have a good night’s sleep.”

“I weel show the señora to her room while the señores are getting the baggage, no?”

Lorraine smiled and nodded.

The woman came out from behind the desk. “I am the Señora Inocente Miguerinio,” she said. “A hard name for Americans to remember, no?”

“It is difficult,” Lorraine agreed, good-naturedly.

“But I am running the fine hotel. For so long Tijuana has needed a fine first-class hotel, clean, nice, cool, comfortable. You come with me, señora.”

And the Mexican woman, amply fleshed, rolled ungirdled hips in a seductive, leisurely walk as she led the way through a door in the rear of the office.

Garvin, hurrying out after the baggage, seemed resentful of even the brief few minutes’ separation from his wife. While Mason was getting his own bags out of the car, Garvin tugged impatiently at the door of the baggage compartment, pulled out a suitcase and an overnight bag, said, “Well, Mason, I’ll be seeing you in the morning.”

“What time?” Mason asked.

“Not too early. I...”

“Remember, we have a lot of telephoning to do,” Mason said.

“Well,” Garvin conceded with a sigh, “eight o’clock.”

He slammed the car door and started up to the porch.

“Want me to take your keys in?” Mason asked.

“I have them with me,” Garvin said. “I’ll give them to the señora what’s-her-name as I go in. Good night, Mason.”

“Good night,” the lawyer said, and watched Garvin hurry through the entrance, a bag in each hand.

Mason locked his own car, took the ignition keys from the lock, and paused for a moment to admire the stars. The moon had vanished in the west now, and the stars were blazing in steady brilliance through the dry, clear air. The lawyer, who had been working under such great nerve strain for the past few days, stood still in contemplation of the calm tranquility of the heavens, then he climbed the steps to the porch, entered the lobby, and waited for Señora Inocente Miguerinio to return from showing Garvin to his room.

When the smiling hostess came rolling back into the room Mason said, “Now if you’ll show me my room.”

“Oh but yes, thees way, please.”

Mason followed her through the same door, turned to the right, down the north wing of the building. Señora Miguerinio flung open a door and stood smiling as Mason surveyed the large, commodious room with its comfortable bed, the waxed tile floor, heavy red drapes, shaded floor lamp, and the comfortable mission style furniture.

“See,” she said, “a room on the corner weeth windows on both sides — no?”

“Oh, fine,” Mason said.

“Thees window, señor, ees on the patio. That is why the drapes are drawn. You pool thees rope to open and close the drapes — no? But the windows on thees side, señor, thees open out on nothing — nada. You have here no need for drapes. You can dress, you can undress, nobody looks — no?”

“No,” Mason said, smiling.

“You are comfortable — yes?”

“Yes.”

Mason handed her the car keys. “Here are the keys to my car.”

“You said you weel have the keys to both cars.”

“Didn’t the other man give you his keys when he came in?”

She shook her head. “I should have the keys. Sometimes Pancho has to move the cars in the morning so early ones can get out.”

Mason smiled. “He simply forgot about the keys. His car’s all right. Let it alone.”

“That other man,” she said, “he has other things to think of — no?”

And she threw back her head and laughed with a jolly abandon which started her shaking like jelly on a plate.

Mason nodded, put down his bag, said, “Is it possible for me to make a telephone call from here?”

“A telephone call, but certainly. Right in the lobby are two booths. You do not notice them?”

Mason shook his head. “I didn’t see them.”

“They are not what you call conspeecuous, but they are there — no? You come weeth me. I weel show you.”

Mason closed the door of his room, followed her into the lobby and saw two doors which might well have opened into rooms, except that each had painted on it a small picture of a telephone.

“Unfortunately there ees no telephones in the rooms,” she said, “but perhaps the guests down here prefer to sleep anyway. Thees is Mexico, señor. We do not work all during the day and all during the night the way you people do. When we come home from work in Mexico we are done — no?”

Mason, preoccupied with his thoughts, merely nodded.

He entered the phone booth, found a conventional pay station, closed the door, and put through a station-to-station call to Paul Drake’s office. He had to wait in the close confines of the booth for some ten minutes before he had Drake’s office on the line.

“Drake there?” he asked. “This is Mason calling.”

“Yes he is, Mr. Mason. Just a moment.”

A moment later there was a click and Drake’s voice said, “Hello, Perry, where are you?”

Mason said, “I’m staying at a new hotel in Tijuana. A nice little place called the Vista de la Mesa.”

“Can I call you there?”

“Not very well. It’s a pay station here and they close up the joint. I guess they roll up the sidewalks in this end of town. I’m going to bed and get some sleep. This is a pay station. Just a minute and I’ll give you the number.”

Mason read the number from the disk on the telephone and Drake said, “Okay, I have it. Now wait a minute, Perry, I’ve got something for you.”

“What?” Mason asked.

“You wanted us to find out all we could about Ethel Garvin. Well, we’ve struck a lead that may prove promising.”

“What?”

“She had a mine in New Mexico. She played around with that for a while and...”

“I know all about that,” Mason said.

“Then she went to Reno. She took up a residence there, apparently intending to get a divorce. Something made her change her mind. I haven’t found out yet what it was, but while she was in Reno she became more or less involved with a man by the name of Alman B. Hackley. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing,” Mason said.

“Well, he has a cattle ranch up there. Apparently he’s a pretty rich chap and quite a playboy. Women went gaga over him and Ethel Garvin seems to have fallen in line.”

“She was ‘taking the cure,’ as they call it in that country, and was living at a dude ranch. She did quite a bit of riding and this chap, Hackley, had the adjoining cattle ranch. All of the dude girls who were living at the guest ranch and getting local color along with their six weeks’ change of husbands were nuts over him. Ethel somehow got the inside track. He and Ethel Garvin were together a lot.”

“Anything serious?” Mason asked.

“Depends on what you mean by serious,” Drake said, “but something happened. She didn’t go ahead and get her divorce. She stayed there six weeks and didn’t file. She stayed seven weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks, still didn’t file, and then all of a sudden Hackley up and left.”

“Sell his ranch?” Mason asked.

“No, he still has this big ranch there, but he came to California. Now here’s a funny one, Mason.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“He bought property near Oceanside, about fifty miles north of San Diego. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not a damn thing so far,” Mason said, “except that I want to find out something about this Hackley. What’s his full name, Paul?”

“Alman, A-l-m-a-n, Bell, B-e-l-l, Hackley, H-a-c-k-l-e-y. I’ve got men searching the records in San Diego and making arrangements to get one of the deputy assessors to go up to the office and open up the assessment rolls. We’ll have him located within an hour or two.”

“For heaven’s sake, Paul, how did you locate him in California?”

“I thought he might be here so I traced the new car registrations. It’s something we do all the time.”

“Well, Hackley will keep until morning,” Mason said, “I’m going to get hold of Garvin first thing in the morning and we’re going to get some of the big stockholders of his company to attend the meeting in person. That will supersede all proxies.”

“You located him in La Jolla all right?” Drake asked.

“That’s right. Your man had a good hunch there. I was just about to cover all the hotels when I happened to see them getting out of their car in front of a restaurant right in the center of town. Tell Della where I am and remember to call me here in case anything of prime importance turns up — but you can’t get me until sometime in the morning. I don’t know just when. They close this place up tight at night.”

“Okay,” Drake said, “I was just about to turn in, myself, Perry. I’ve got things running along smoothly and my investigators are right on the job. You don’t want me to make any approach to any of the parties, do you?”

“No, just keep digging up information.”

“Well, I... hold everything, Perry, here’s something just coming in.”

“Okay, what is it?” Mason asked.

“A bulletin on this Hackley, and where his ranch is located — you got a pencil there, Perry?”

“I’ll have one in just a second,” Mason said.

He took a notebook from his vest pocket and a small automatic pencil, opened the book, and placed it on the shelf under the coin slot of the telephone. He said, “Okay, Paul, go ahead. What is it?”

Drake said, “You go to Oceanside and right in the center of town there’s a road that turns to the east, with a sign giving the distance to Fallbrook. You turn on that road for about two miles until you come to a mailbox right on the side of the road — the north side. It has the name Rolando, R-o-l-a-n-d-o, C. as in Charles, Lomax, L-o-m-a-x, stenciled on it in black letters. There’s a driveway about three hundred feet beyond that mailbox. You follow it for about a quarter of a mile and it brings you up to Hackley’s house. He purchased it recently, bought it already furnished.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “Now you have a shadow on Ethel Garvin?”

“That’s right. I have a man sitting in an automobile and watching the place.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “I guess that’ll do the job all right. I’ll call you in the morning, Paul.”

Mason hung up the telephone, left the booth, and said to Señora Miguerinio, who was back at the desk, “Can you tell me the number of my friend’s room? I want to give him a last word before he goes to sleep.”

“But certainly. It ees down that corridor to the left. It ees right across the patio from your room. The two rooms on the corner, numbaire five and numbaire seex. No?”

Mason said, “I’ll just run down and tap on the door. Too bad there isn’t a phone.”

“No, no phone. You see we close at night so we can’t have service at a sweetchboard — no?”

Mason nodded, went down the corridor, and tapped on the door of number six.

There was no answer.

Mason raised his voice, said, “Garvin, just a minute,” and knocked again.

Garvin opened the door a crack. “What is it, Mason?” he asked, trying in vain to keep his irritation from registering in his voice.

Mason said, “I’ve just had a telephone message from Paul Drake, my detective.”

Garvin opened the door a little wider. “Yes, what is it?”

“I think we’ve found out the reason your former wife didn’t bother you for a while. His name is Alman Bell Hackley. At present he’s living on a ranch about two miles east of Oceanside. He owns a big cattle ranch in Nevada and apparently is quite a Romeo. The girls at the dude ranch which adjoins his property were all ga-ga over him.”

“What a break!” Garvin said, unable to keep the enthusiasm from his voice. “That’s the sort of stuff we want! Is he living there at Oceanside now, Mason?”

“On this ranch,” Mason said. “I have directions how to get there.”

“What are they?”

Mason gave him the information he had received from Paul Drake. Then he added, “I won’t do anything with him tonight, but tomorrow we’ll start looking him up a bit.”

Garvin’s right hand came pushing out through the door. “Mason,” he said, “I knew I could depend on you. You’re doing a fine job. It just illustrates what I say. When a man wants a doctor or a lawyer, he wants a good one!”

From the interior of the bedroom, Lorraine’s voice said, “We’d better not make any offer until we’ve found out about this new evidence. Don’t you think so, Mr. Mason?”

“I think so,” Mason said. “See you in the morning. Good night.”

“Good night,” they both called.

Mason turned away from the door. Garvin closed it and shot the bolt.

Mason, in order to get to his own room, had to retrace his steps through the lobby.

As he entered the lobby, Mason found that the bright lights had already been turned off. A single desk light gave illumination to the counter. The lights on the outside had been switched off. There was no sign of Señora Inocente Miguerinio.

It was at that moment that Mason realized he had left his automatic pencil in the telephone booth.

Feeling his way cautiously in the dim light across the lobby, Mason opened the door of the booth and was just retrieving his pencil when he heard the voice of a woman in the adjoining phone booth coming through the thin partition.

“Yes, dear,” Mason heard her say. “You guessed right... Yes, dear, across the border in Tijuana.”

There were more words Mason couldn’t hear, then the woman’s voice was raised a bit, “Yes, darling... No... I’ll do it... My eyes hurt from watching...”

Mason gently left the booth, making a note for future reference to be careful of the thin walls which separated the two artistic, but acoustically dangerous telephone booths.

Mason found his room, closed the door, and started undressing.

A clock in the patio chimed melodiously, a full set of rich, throaty chimes, then struck the hour — ten o’clock.

Mason switched out the lights, opened the windows on the west which faced out to what the Señora Inocente Miguerinio had so drastically described as nada, and got into bed.