The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

Chapter number 4

Olga Jordan was accompanied by her father when she brought the photographs and the telegram to Mason’s office. She was more than twenty minutes late and started apologizing to Mason almost as soon as she had entered the office and introduced her father to him and Della Street.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Mason. Usually I’m very prompt, but Father pointed out it would be ever so much better to get the negatives rather than merely bring you the photographic prints.”

“That will help a lot,” Mason said, his eyes on Olga’s father.

Homer Corbin could have posed for pictures of a typical Southern colonel. He was a spare, erect man, with a white Vandyke beard carefully trimmed, bushy eyebrows and steel-gray, cold eyes in which the pupils seemed to be mere pinpoints.

“My daughter,” he said, speaking with some dignity, “is a very estimable companion, a competent secretary and a rather poor photographer. However, these pictures give you a good idea of the man. I’m glad you’re working on that angle, Mr. Mason. I think Douglas Hepner holds the key to whatever has happened.”

“Sit down,” Mason invited, and then to Corbin said, “You think something has happened, Mr. Corbin?”

Corbin said, “I believe it takes a great emotional shock to bring on amnesia.”

“There has, of course, been a physical shock,” Mason said. “As I understand it there was an automobile accident.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Of course that could have happened, but Olga is rather shrewd, very observant and she is quite familiar with Eleanor’s temperament. In fact Olga had to be something of a mother as well as an older sister to Eleanor.”

“So she told me,” Mason said.

“She very definitely feels that there is some emotional shock in the background, something that has brought on this attack of amnesia. If, of course, that is true, when we discover the event we are going to be faced with another problem, that is how to spare Eleanor from further suffering.

“Eleanor is very dear to me, Mr. Mason. I certainly trust that she hasn’t married that bounder Hepner. If she has I feel that this amnesia can be turned to very great legal advantage. I feel that the ceremony can be annulled. Evidently, Mr. Mason, she remembers nothing after that automobile accident, therefore any marriage ceremony must have been performed while her mind was a blank.”

“Except,” Mason pointed out, “that she knew who she was after that accident and after the wedding ceremony. She sent you this telegram.”

“That’s true,” the older man admitted, reluctantly.

“And some postal cards,” Mason went on.

“Two postal cards — one from Yuma, one from Las Vegas.”

“They were in her handwriting?”

Homer Corbin stroked his Vandyke, bringing his fingers down to the very point of the beard with a caressing motion. “Well there, Mr. Mason, we’re confronted with a peculiar situation. I simply didn’t notice the handwriting on the post cards, that is, I took it for granted it was Eleanor’s handwriting. I may say that it bore a resemblance to her handwriting, but that, of course, is a far cry from being able to say definitely and positively, ‘Yes, that is Eleanor’s handwriting.’

“Now as far as the telegram is concerned that could have been sent by anyone. Personally I wouldn’t put it a bit past this bounder Hepner to have taken advantage of Eleanor’s befuddled mental condition, to have talked her into a marriage and then, in order to keep her family from finding out her real mental condition, sent a telegram in Eleanor’s name and forged those postal cards. After all, the postal cards were rather brief and... they hardly seemed like Eleanor. There was a certain element of restraint in them and one doesn’t usually associate Eleanor with restraint.”

Olga started to say something, then changed her mind.

“Just what would have been his object in marrying your daughter?” Mason asked.

“I think the man is a bounder, a cad, a fortune-hunter.”

“I take it that Eleanor has good financial prospects?”

Corbin fastened his cold eyes on Mason and then shifted them slightly toward Olga and then back to Mason. “On my death Eleanor will inherit a very substantial sum of money. Both of my children will be very well fixed as far as this world’s goods are concerned.”

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s take a look at the photographs.”

“I have here some prints that I tore rather hastily from my photograph book,” Olga said. “I’ve circled Doug Hepner. Here he is standing with Eleanor and another girl. Here he is in a group. Here he is talking with Eleanor at the ship’s rail. This probably is the best one of all. Eleanor took this with my camera. It shows him alone, standing by the rail, about the only time I ever saw him on the ship when he didn’t have some woman making a pass at him.

“Now here are the negatives. You can find the negatives that go with these pictures... You will get to work at once, Mr. Mason?”

“Get to work?” Mason exclaimed. “Good Lord, I’ve been working for an hour and a half. The Drake Detective Agency has men out. We’re trying to trace the automobile accident. We’re trying to trace that telephone call that Eleanor says Douglas Hepner put through to his mother in Salt Lake City...”

“But you don’t know where the call was placed,” Olga said.

“I’m assuming that they started out with a full tank,” Mason said. “Probably they stopped for gas either at Banning or at Indio, possibly Brawley. We’re checking all three places. Were also checking all reports of accidents on the night of the second. We’re checking car registrations and... perhaps you know what kind of a car he was driving.”

“He had an air-conditioned Oldsmobile,” she said, “one of the big ones. He was very proud of it.”

The unlisted telephone on Mason’s desk rang sharply.

Since only Della Street and Paul Drake had the number of that telephone Mason motioned to Della Street to hand him the phone and said, “Here’s Paul Drake on the line now. He may have something to report.”

Mason picked up the telephone, said, “Hello, Paul,” and heard Drake’s voice saying, “We struck pay dirt on the phone call, Perry.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said. “My clients are in the office now. I’d like to get the information.”

“Well,” Drake said, “your hunch was right. It came through from Indio. It was put in at nine-thirty-five on the evening of August second. It was a person-to-person call put in by Douglas Hepner to Sadie Hepner at Salt Lake City. The number is Wabash 983226.”

“Have you made any investigation at the other end?” Mason asked.

“No time yet,” Drake said. “I thought I’d pass it on to you and see what you wanted to do.”

“I’ll call you back,” Mason said.

He hung up the telephone, turned to Homer Corbin, and said, “We’ve traced Hepner’s mother in Salt Lake City. Now if you want to work fast on this I suggest that I call her and tell her I’m interested in locating her son. If time isn’t so essential I can get detectives at Salt Lake to find out something about the woman and we can make a more indirect approach.”

Olga and her father exchanged significant glances. It was Olga who answered Mason’s question. “I think you’d better put through the call,” she said.

Mason said, “Della, put through a call, a person-to-person call. We want to talk with Mrs. Sadie Hepner at Wabash 983226, and you’d better monitor the conversation when the call comes through.”

Della Street picked up the telephone. “Give me an outside line, Gertie.”

She put through the call, asking the operator to rush it as it was quite important, while the little group sat in tense silence.

Abruptly Della Street nodded to Perry Mason.

Mason picked up the phone.

“Here’s your party,” the operator said.

“Hello,” Mason said.

A richly mellow, feminine voice at the other end of the line said, “Yes, hello.”

“Mrs. Hepner?” Mason said.

“Yes. This is Mrs. Hepner.”

“Mrs. Hepner, this is Perry Mason. I am very anxious to get in touch with your son, Douglas Hepner. I wonder if you can tell me where he could be reached?”

“Have you tried Las Vegas?” the voice asked.

“Is he there?” Mason asked.

“He telephoned from Barstow when he was on his way to Las Vegas two or three nights ago — now wait a minute, it was... I can give you the exact date... it was the thirteenth, the evening of the thirteenth.”

“And he was on his way to Las Vegas?”

“Yes, he said that he thought he might get up to see me but he evidently couldn’t make it.”

“You don’t know where he was staying in Las Vegas or what he was doing or... or whom he was with?”

“No, I’m sure I can’t help you on that, Mr. Mason. May I ask what your interest is?”

“Could you,” Mason asked, avoiding the question, “tell me if your son is married or single?”

“Why, he’s unmarried.”

“I believe there was an Eleanor Corbin who...”

“Oh yes, Eleanor Corbin,” the voice said. “Yes, he called me up... oh, it must have been two weeks ago. He was with Eleanor Corbin at the time and he said something that led me to believe his intentions might be serious, but when he called up from Barstow he was with another girl whom he introduced to me over the phone as Suzanne. May I ask why you’re interested in locating him, Mr. Mason, and how it happens that you’re calling me?”

“I’m trying to find him,” Mason said, “and I don’t have any other way of reaching him.”

“How did you get my address?”

“I happened to know that you were his mother and that he kept in close touch with you.”

“And how did you know that, Mr. Mason?”

“Through friends.”

“What is your occupation, Mr. Mason? Are you a reporter?”

“No, definitely not.”

“What is your occupation?”

“I’m an attorney.”

“Are you representing my son?”

“No. However, I’m interested in...”

“I think perhaps, Mr. Mason, I will have to refer you to my son for any further answers to questions. I’m sorry, perhaps I’ve been a bit indiscreet. I thought you were a friend of Doug’s. Good-by.”

The telephone clicked at the other end of the line.

Mason said to Della Street, “Jump down the hall to Drake’s office, get him to put Salt Lake detectives on Mrs. Hepner. Find out everything they can about her. Get some elderly woman operative who has a sympathetic approach to get in touch with her and win her confidence, start her talking.”

Della Street grabbed her shorthand book. “Shall I repeat the conversation to Paul Drake?”

Mason nodded. “Give him all of it.”

“We’d like to know what it was,” Olga Jordan said as the door closed behind Della Street.

Mason repeated his conversation with Mrs. Hepner. When he reached the references to Suzanne, Olga and her father exchanged glances.

“Now then,” Mason said, “do you know anyone whose first name is Suzanne? Think back over the passenger list. Think carefully. See if you can remember anyone on the ship with that first name. She would probably be some young, attractive woman who showed an interest in Hepner, a rather...”

Abruptly Olga Jordan snapped her fingers.

“You have it?” Mason asked.

She turned to her father. “Suzanne Granger!” she exclaimed.

Her father’s bushy eyebrows drew together, his eyelids lowered as he considered the problem, then he said slowly, “Yes, it could well have been Miss Granger.”

“Who is Suzanne Granger?” Mason asked.

“As far as we know she’s just a name — that is, we met her, of course. Eleanor knew her better than we did. She was in that crowd that played around together — they usually put the ship’s bar to bed every night after the dancing and... I think she lives here in the city.”

“Any chance you can get her address?” Mason asked.

“I... now wait a minute. Eleanor has an address book that she jots down names in and keeps track of people she meets... I’m wondering if she took that book with her or whether it’s in her desk. I can see if Bill’s home. He could...”

Olga reached toward the telephone.

Mason handed it to her, said, “Just tell the girl at the switchboard to give you an outside line.”

“An outside line, please,” Olga said into the telephone, then her fingers flew rapidly over the dial.

After a moment she said, “Hello. Hello, Bill. Bill, this is Olga. Bill, this is important. Don’t stop to ask questions. Run up to Eleanor’s room. Look in her desk. See if you can find her address book. See if you can find Suzanne Granger’s address. If you don’t find it there, see if she didn’t save the passenger list on the ship home — there were some autographs and addresses on it.”

Mason said to the father, “We can find it from passport information if we have to, or we may locate it from a directory, but this may be faster.”

He picked up the other phone, said to the girl at the switchboard, “Gertie, look through the telephone directory. See if a Suzanne Granger has a listed telephone.”

Mason held on to the phone while Gertie was looking up the information and Olga held on to the other phone while she was waiting for her husband to look through Eleanor’s address book.

A few moments later Gertie relayed the information to Perry Mason. “I don’t find any Suzanne Granger listed, Mr. Mason. There’s an S. Granger and an S. A. Granger and an S. D. Granger and...”

“I have it,” Olga interrupted triumphantly from the other telephone.

“Never mind,” Mason said. “Skip it, Gertie.”

He hung up.

Olga said, “It was on the passenger list. Suzanne Granger autographed it and her address is on there — the Belinda Apartments.”

Into the telephone she said, “Thanks, Bill. We’re at Mr. Mason’s office. We’ll be home shortly. Better wait.”

She hung up.

“Well,” Olga said, “this gives us a definite lead. Of course it’s rather a delicate matter, Mr. Mason. You can’t come right out and ask a young woman if she spent a week end with the husband of your client who is suffering from amnesia.”

“Mr. Mason will know how to handle it, Olga,” Homer Corbin said. “As a lawyer he will understand that we can’t any of us afford to lay ourselves open to an action for defamation of character.”

“That, of course, is the danger in a matter of this kind,” Mason said. “I think I’ll handle this personally.”

“I wish you would,” Corbin said. He got to his feet. “Come, Olga,” he said, “I think we’ve done everything we can here. You have the negatives, Mr. Mason, you have the telegram and you have the information about Suzanne. You’ll know what to do with all of that.

“There is only one other matter that I thought I might call to your attention. When she left the house on the second, Eleanor had some rather expensive and very distinctive luggage.

“We do quite a bit of traveling and as you are probably aware, on these large steamers the problem of getting luggage through Customs is rather complicated. There is usually a considerable delay finding and collecting all one’s luggage in one place because luggage usually looks very much alike. So I had some distinctive luggage made for the two girls and myself. Olga’s luggage has a pattern of orange and white checkers. Eleanor’s is red and white. Eleanor has two suitcases and an overnight bag. I feel certain that anyone who saw those cases would remember them because of their unique color design. When you start trying to trace Eleanor’s movements in Yuma and in Las Vegas you might remember that point about the luggage.”

“Thanks,” Mason said. “That could be very valuable. Her luggage was simply in alternate squares of red and white?”

“Completely checkerboarded,” Corbin said. “It is very conspicuous. It was purposely designed to be conspicuous.”

“Thanks,” Mason said. “Now I think I’ll see what I can do with Miss Granger.”

“You will, of course, be circumspect,” Corbin cautioned. In the doorway he turned. “Spare no expense, Mr. Mason. Employ all the assistance that you need. Do anything that you think is required under the circumstances.”

Mason nodded.

Corbin walked two steps through the door, then turned, retraced his steps and said, “That is, spare no reasonable expense, Mr. Mason.” With that he turned and marched from the office.