The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife

Chapter 13

The dawn was cold and chilly and Della Street drew her coat around her as the automobile slid to a stop.

“What’s first on the program?” Drake asked Mason.

Mason surveyed the apartment house standing on the silent residential street, as though waiting for the warm morning sunlight to bring it to life.

“Like a sleeping horse standing on three legs with his head down,” Mason said. “You can’t believe this neighborhood is jammed with people.”

“Another hour you’ll see curtains going up, smell the aroma of coffee, see the people dashing down the steps running for the streetcars,” Drake said.

“I wish I were certain we had an hour,” Mason told him. “Well, there’s only one thing to do. Find out first where her apartment is and next where her garage is.”

“That garage business may be tricky,” Drake protested. “Some early riser could be looking out of the window and...”

“I know,” Mason said.

“I hate to take chances that way, Perry.”

“How would you go about it?”

Drake thought for a while and said, “I’m darned if I know. But if you went to Sergeant Dorset...”

“He’d laugh at me.”

“How about Lieutenant Tragg then?”

“Tragg would refer it to Dorset. He wouldn’t let me go over Dorset’s head, not the way things are now. Later on perhaps, but not now.”

“Well, why not wait?”

“Water,” Mason said dryly, “has a habit of evaporating. I want to take a look at that automobile before the cushions have had a chance to dry out.”

“All right,” Drake said. “If you feel that way about it, let’s go. Every minute makes things that much more dangerous.”

They left the automobile, walked up to the apartment house and by consulting the directory found that Ellen Cushing had apartment 16B.

As they turned back to the car Mason said, “Now, Paul, you take the car, drive up the driveway, and we’ll pretend that we’re looking for a stall to put the car in. If there’s any trouble, we can claim that some friend told us we could use his garage for a couple of days because he was going to be away.”

“And then if they ask us about the friend and where he lives,” Drake said, “it will be just another one of those things.”

“We’ll just have to talk fast and try to talk our way out of it. Be a sport.”

Paul Drake went back to the automobile, started it, backed into a half turn, then drove slowly up the driveway. Mason and Della Street walked ahead of him.

The driveway went around to the back of the apartment house, where there was a large cemented yard flanked with garages.

“Begins to look better,” Mason said. “Look, the garage doors even have the numbers of the apartments on them.”

“And padlocks,” Della said dryly.

Mason said, “We’ll leave that to Paul Drake. What’s a detective good for if he can’t pick a lock once in a while.”

“Isn’t that breaking and entering?” Della Street asked.

“It is,” Mason said, and then added, “I believe it’s a felony. I wouldn’t do it for a million dollars if there were any other way.”

Drake brought the car to a stop, climbed out, and looked at the padlock. “I don’t like this, Perry.”

“I don’t like it myself. Got those skeleton keys handy?”

“Not for this job, Perry. There are times when you have to draw the line.”

“Got those skeleton keys?”

“I have... Yes, there are some in the car.”

“All right. Get them for me.”

Della Street said, “Let me do it, Chief.”

“I’ll do it,” Mason said.

“Look, Perry,” Drake pointed out, “the windows of those back apartments look out here on the court and...”

“The longer you talk, the more chance there is someone will hear the discussion and look out to see what it’s all about. This is no time to get weak-kneed. We have to go ahead as though we owned the joint and we’re just putting the car in for the night. Get me those keys.”

Drake walked back to the glove compartment of his automobile, reluctantly took out the bunch of skeleton keys, handed them to Mason, said, “These are the padlock keys.”

Della, walking over to the door, stood so that her body shielded the large bunch of keys from any casual observer who might be looking out of the window. Drake took two lagging steps toward the door, then abruptly changed his mind and turned back to the automobile, apparently trying to disassociate himself from what was going on.

It took five keys before Mason found one that would open the padlock.

The lock clicked back and Della Street calmly opened the door and stood as though waiting for Drake to drive in.

Mason moved inside of the garage, after a moment called out, “Oh, Paul, come here.”

Drake hesitated a few moments, then reluctantly entered the garage.

Mason had the sedan doors open, was feeling the seat cushions and the carpet on the floor.

“Look at this rear cushion, Paul. Doesn’t that feel damp to you?”

Drake put a reluctant hand on the cushion.

“The left side,” Mason said.

“It feels sort of damp,” Drake admitted.

Mason frowned thoughtfully.

“But it would have been soaking wet if your theory was right, Perry.”

Mason hurriedly searched through the automobile. Disappointment showed on his face.

“Clean as a hound’s tooth,” Drake said with relief in his voice.

Mason said, “I guess we’re off on a wrong trail, Paul. The only thing to do is to get out of here fast. Hang it, I can’t get over that damp place in the seat cushion. What do you suppose caused it?”

“Darned if I know, Perry, but if it had been what you think it was, it would have been wetter than that.”

“I suppose so. Let’s take a look at the motor temperature.”

Mason clicked on the switch and then looked at the electric gauge.

“Cold as a cucumber,” Drake said.

Mason flicked off the switch, said, “Okay, I guess we’re licked.”

Della Street entered the garage. “No soap?”

“No soap, Della.”

“Do you suppose she could have used another car?”

“Darned if I know. I just know there isn’t the evidence here to back up my theory, and if it isn’t here I don’t know where we’re going to look for it.”

Drake said, “All right. Let’s get out and do our talking afterwards. I never did like this idea in the first place.”

Mason started for the door and Della Street, who had been making a quick survey of the garage, suddenly said, “Chief, look here!” Her voice was filled with excitement.

“What is it, Della?”

“Over here. Quick.”

The tone of her voice brought Mason and Paul Drake to her side.

Della Street was bent down over a dark corner which was under a workbench.

“What is it?”

Della Street straightened. She was holding an army blanket in her hands. “Feel this.”

Mason felt of it, then whistled.

“Soaking wet,” Drake exclaimed.

“And look under here.”

Della bent over and picked up a pair of men’s oxford shoes. “These,” she said, “were directly under the blanket.”

The shoes themselves were soaking wet.

Drake said to Mason, “You win, Perry. By gosh, I’ll hand it to you.”

“Thanks to Della,” Mason said.

“Well, what do we do?” Drake asked. “Take the evidence?”

“No,” Mason said, “we put everything back the way it was, get out of here, and let the police make the discovery.”

“Do you think they will?”

“They will after we get done with them, Paul.”

“Just put them back the way I found them, Chief?”

“Yes, but first look on the inside of those shoes. See if there’s a manufacturer’s name. See if you can get his size.”

Della Street said, “Do you want to read me the letters that are on the inside here, Chief? I’ll write them down.”

Mason picked up the shoes, held them so the light shone down on the figures which were stamped on the lining. He read off the numbers and the name of the manufacturer.

“Nothing to show the retail store which sold them?” Della asked.

“Nothing,” Mason said. “Just the shoe. Eight and a half B as I interpret the meaning of these numbers. However, we’d better check up with a shoe man on that.”

“And get out of here,” Drake said.

“Okay,” Mason said. “Put the shoes back, Della.”

Della Street put the shoes back, put the wet blanket over the shoes. Drake was the first out of the garage, Mason the last.

Mason locked the door of the garage and once more Della Street shielded what he was doing with her body so that no one in the apartment house could see Mason wiping fingerprints off the padlock with his handkerchief.

Mason helped Della Street into the car, then climbed in beside Drake.

“Now what?” Drake asked, turning the car and going out of the driveway much faster than he had entered. “Do we call on Ellen Cushing?”

“I don’t think we do,” Mason said. “I think that’s a job for the police.”

“And how do we go about getting the police on the job?”

“We first try to get more evidence. If we can get it we’re okay. If we can’t, we’ve got to take a chance.”

“How do we get this evidence?”

Mason said, “That’s where your operatives come in, Paul.”

“I don’t get it. What do you think happened?”

“Drive around the corner,” Mason said, “and we’ll park the car. Your operatives are on the way?”

“They should be here almost any minute now.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “Drive around where we can see the front of the apartment house and park the car.”

Drake drove around the corner, backed up in a driveway, turned the car, came back to place it against the curb, and switched off the motor.

Mason said, “I’ll give it to you in a nutshell, Paul. You can figure what must have happened. In the first place, Scott Shelby had everything all planned, down to the smallest detail. But he didn’t dare to sneak any of his clothes out of the house so he’d have a dry change.”

“Why?”

“Because the insurance company is going to make an investigation.”

“Even if they pin it on Marion Shelby?”

“No matter what they do, the insurance company is going to look into the thing. The murder story is improbable as hell, unless you look at it on the theory the wife bumped him off in order to get the insurance. It will be duck soup for the insurance company. They’ll start an investigation to try to get out of paying the policy.”

“Naturally.”

“All right. If in their investigation they should find anything that looks like collusion, then the fat will really be in the fire.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s this way,” Mason said. “As far as the police are concerned, they’re perfectly willing to make a murder out of it, pin the thing on the wife and get a conviction. But an insurance company is always afraid of a collusion between husband and wife, by which at the last minute the wife would pull something that would get her acquitted.”

“Okay. So what?”

“So the first thing the insurance company does is to start looking around for collusion. That’s their routine. Naturally they’re good at it.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“So they’ll start checking on every suit of clothes, every pair of shoes the guy had.”

Drake nodded.

“And if they find any of his clothing missing, they’ll want to know where that clothing is. They’ll then be off on the theory that maybe Shelby isn’t dead after all.”

“And Shelby didn’t want that?” Drake said.

“That was one thing he couldn’t afford to have happen. That was where he was most vulnerable. So he decided he’d get along with his wet clothes. So you see what happened. He went overboard. He fixed everything up so that he had framed a murder case on his wife. Then he climbed into a boat that was rowed by Ellen Cushing. She put him in her automobile. And she had taken along one or perhaps two blankets. She bundled him up in those blankets and drove just as fast as she could to get him to her apartment. They dumped one blanket in the corner of the garage, perhaps had another blanket around the outside where it didn’t get as wet. That’s why the seat cushion was only a little damp.”

“And how about the shoes?”

“I haven’t figured out the shoes. Probably she had been able to pick up a pair of slippers for him and he had his feet in the slippers. It wouldn’t be so bad sitting in wet clothes if he had himself all bundled up with blankets. But there was no reason to stay in wet shoes. My guess is she’ll be out to get the shoes within an hour or two, take them in and dry them out.”

“Why didn’t she take them in with her when she went in with him?”

“Darned if I know. Probably because she forgot ’em.”

“So what do we do?”

Mason said, “We do two things. We put operatives on the job where they can watch the front entrance to the apartment house. We find out which apartment 16B is, and we stake out men with binoculars to watch those windows.”

“For what?”

“For a man. We watch the front entrance of the apartment house to make certain no one goes in who presses the bell of apartment 16B. And we watch the windows of that apartment. Pretty soon someone will be stirring around. Then if we see a man in there... Well, then we start moving in. Get it?”

Drake nodded. “It’s taking a chance, Perry. It’s sort of making two and two add up to six.”

“Hell’s bells!” Mason exclaimed. “This is no time to be conservative. The guy disappears under circumstances that fairly shout a frame-up. The little blonde cutie has a half interest in the oil lease and has been carrying something wet in her car, all wrapped up in a blanket — and there are a man’s wet shoes... What more do you want, Paul?”

A car swung around the corner, hesitated a moment, then veered sharply and swung into the curb behind Drake’s automobile.

Drake said, “Here’s a car with three of my operatives now. What do we do first?”

“Put them out the way I said, so they can watch the apartment, the garage, and the windows.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“Then,” Della Street interposed with firm determination, “we get a cup of hot coffee and if there’s any brandy in the car, we spike it with brandy. My chattering teeth are chipping all the enamel off.”

“That,” Mason agreed, “is an idea.”