The Case of the Haunted Husband

Chapter 6

Paul Drake sprawled his tall figure crosswise in the big leather client’s chair. “That auto-smash case, Perry,” he said, pulling a notebook from his pocket.

“You mean the girl with the curves?”

“That’s the one.”

“Got anything on it?”

“Worked a couple of days and don’t know what to do next. Had a couple of good operatives on it here, and an associate in San Francisco.”

Mason said. “Okay, Paul, let us hear it.”

“To begin with, Perry, every time I get to fooling around with it, I smell something fishy. That Stephane Claire is a good egg. She had a fight with an uncle, took out for herself, and learned how to light on her feet. Incidentally, Perry, she is a raving beauty, the platinum blonde type.”

“What is wrong with Horty?” Mason asked.

Drake grinned. “If you would take about thirty pounds off of her, Perry, you’d...”

“Ruin her disposition,” Mason interrupted.

“There is something to that,” Drake admitted. “She certainly is comfortable, that girl. Feels comfortable herself, and makes you feel comfortable. Miss Claire tells me that the boyfriends who talk to Horty talk matrimony.”

“Bet she is a good cook.”

“I shall bet. Well, here is the dope on this thing, Perry. The D.A.’s office is showing lots of activity. That man who was injured died. That means they are going to put a manslaughter charge against the girl.”

“Are they investigating her story?”

“Not the D.A.’s office. They are sold on the idea she was driving the car. The way they put it together, the girl got a lift as far as Bakersfield all right, just as she says. But they think the man who gave her the ride had a bottle and that Stephane Claire wasn’t at all unwilling to help him empty it. By the time she got to Bakersfield, she was pretty high. She blundered into this car, which another thief had abandoned, saw that its home was Hollywood, climbed in, and started going places.”

“Sounds goofy,” Mason said.

“No more goofy than her story. Well, anyway, here is the point, Perry. The car belongs to Jules Carne Homan. He is a big-shot Hollywood producer. Probably about half as big as he thinks he is, which still makes him draw quite a bit of water.

“He had a fight with his insurance company a couple of years ago, and decided to carry his own car insurance. Now get this, Perry. If that car was being driven with his permission, expressed or implied, he is stuck for damages up to ten thousand dollars. If Stephane Claire was driving that car, he is going to claim he isn’t responsible for anything because the car wasn’t being operated with his implied permission. If the car was being used by an agent of his — someone who was working for him or doing something for him at his request — he is stuck for the whole hog. So you can see what it means to Homan. On one theory, it costs him nothing. On another theory, it costs him ten thousand. If the person who was driving the car was on business for him, it might cost him plenty — and then some.”

Mason narrowed his eyes. “Why do you talk about the car being driven by someone on business for him, Paul?”

“Because I think there is a darn good chance that is what happened.”

“Let us have it.”

“Well, I went out to see Homan. I didn’t get anywhere. He was nasty nice, in an insulting way. Something about Homan didn’t register. His story about how the car happened to be taken in the first place didn’t click. It was all right from his viewpoint, but when I put myself in the position of a car thief and looked at it from that angle, it sounded phony. If the car wasn’t stolen he must have known who the driver was. What is more, the car was stolen around the middle of the day. According to Claire, the driver was wearing a tuxedo. Car thieves don’t wear tuxedos when they walk out to swipe parked cars in the middle of the day.

“So I did a little detective work based on the theory that Homan might be lying. I had a man go down to the telephone office, say he was Homan’s butler, that there was something wrong with the long-distance bill, and Homan wasn’t going to pay some of the charges. I was looking for telephone calls from or to Bakersfield. Of course, the telephone office told him Homan was stuck if the calls had been placed from that phone. My man got in an argument and finally got to see the telephone bills.

“There was nothing to or from Bakersfield, but the day before the accident, Homan had been calling San Francisco, and San Francisco had been calling him, collect.”

“You got the numbers?” Mason asked.

“Sure.”

“What were they?”

“They all came from a cheap rooming house. The phone is listed in the name of L.C. Spinney — and there is lots of mystery about Spinney.”

Mason’s eyes showed interest. “Go ahead, Paul.”

“Spinney has a cheap room in a cheap house in a cheap district. He has a telephone. It is a single line with an unlisted number. Spinney shows up about once a month. He has a portable typewriter. He bats out letters and mails them. He puts in calls to numbers we haven’t been able to trace as yet, but other tenants in the building hear him talking. It sounds like a long-distance conversation. They hear him putting through long-distance calls, always station-to-station. They hear him tapping away on his typewriter. Spinney gets mail once or twice a month. He shows up to get that mail at irregular intervals. Sometimes the letters stay in his mailbox two or three weeks before they are taken out.

“But, get this, Perry — no one has ever seen Spinney!

“It is a fact. He rented the room one night by sending a taxi driver in with some money and hand baggage. He has a room with a private outside entrance. He comes at night and he goes at night. No one knows whether he will come in tonight and leave tomorrow before daylight, or come three weeks from now, stay a half hour while he bats out some stuff on his typewriter, and then vanish again.

“Of course, people have had glimpses of him, but not close enough to get stuff that would give me a description. He is a man. He is between twenty and fifty. He is not very thin and not very fat. He wears an overcoat and a felt hat and quite frequently he is seen wearing evening clothes. Got it? A man in a cheap rooming house wearing evening clothes?”

Mason’s eyes were partially closed in concentration.

“One of these letters is in his mailbox now,” Drake went on. “My operative was afraid to steam it open, but he held the envelope up in front of a powerful light. He was able to see there was a money order in it and a letter. We managed to photograph that letter without opening the envelope.”

“How?” Mason asked.

“Oh, it is a simple dodge. You put a piece of film in front of the envelope, clamp it firmly, turn on the light, and develop the film. Because the letter is folded, you get a scramble of slanting lines, but with a little care you can make out what’s in the letter. This one said: ‘I am sending fifteen dollars which is all I can possibly spare this month. I wish he could write to me. Tell him I carry on somehow, but if he would only write, it would make me so much happier.’”

“How was the letter signed?”

“Just Lois.”

“Who is the money order from?”

“Lois Warfield.”

“Check on her?” Mason asked.

“Sure. What do you think they are paying me for?”

“Darned if I know. Go ahead.”

“She was frightened to death when my New Orleans correspondent contacted heir. She wouldn’t talk. She is working in a cafeteria. One of the girls in the cafeteria gave my correspondent a little dope. Mrs. Warfield has only been in New Orleans a short time. Her husband left her a couple of years ago — some trouble over his thinking she was going to have a baby — and then she didn’t. They were estranged for over a year, then she told him she still loved him and was saving money to come out and join him. He was supposed to be in Hollywood. Next thing she got a letter from one of the husband’s friends saying something had happened, that Warfield was in a jam, couldn’t even communicate with her himself. Evidently he was dodging cops and was afraid they would watch her mail. She was in Ridgefield, Connecticut, then. She wrote this friend she was coming west to see if she could help, and started working her way across the country. When she hit New Orleans, she got a letter saying her husband was in jail. He had done something so reprehensible, he wanted her to forget him. But she stuck. So she keeps herself broke sending money to pay for a lawyer who is going to try to get the husband’s sentence shortened to ten years, or something like that. My operative had to get it second-hand. Mrs. Warfield wouldn’t talk.”

“How much does Homan make in salary?” Mason asked.

“Probably three or four thousand a week, perhaps more, perhaps less. You can’t tell. Those Hollywood salaries are one thing for the publicity releases, and another for the income tax.”

Mason pushed back his swivel chair, got up, and started pacing the floor.

“I hated to go as strong on it as I did,” Drake apologized. “This girl with the upholstery hasn’t got a lot of jack. Wires and that stuff cost money.”

“You can’t trace Spinney?”

“Not with anything I have been able to do so far. He comes and he goes. When he goes, he disappears. He got a wire a few days ago.”

“Can’t you get a copy of that wire?”

“It is illegal to...”

“Phooey! Are you arranging to get a copy?”

“If I can, yes.”

“Think you can?”

“I don’t know. It isn’t easy. Someone will have to go into the telegraph office, say he is Spinney, and...”

Della Street tapped on the door from the law library, opened it, said, “Hi, Paul. Hope I am not intruding. I have a message, just came from your office.”

She handed Drake a folded sheet of paper. Drake opened it, read it, passed it over to Mason. “Copy of the telegram,” he said.

Mason read, “HAVE LANDED JOB IN RIGLEy’s CAFETERIA LOS ANGELES WANT TO BE NEAR HIM WILL EXPLAIN WHEN I SEE YOU CAN HITCHHIKE ALL THE WAY — LOIS.”

Mason tore the paper into small pieces, dropped them into his wastebasket, looked up at Della Street, and said, “Get me the person in charge of employment at Rigley’s Cafeteria, Della. Tell him it is important.”

Della Street nodded, stepped into her own office to put through the call.

Drake said, “Taken by and large, Perry, I hate to see this girl railroaded on a manslaughter charge.”

Mason grinned. “You have sold me, Paul.”

“Going to handle her case?”

“I’m going to see she isn’t railroaded as the fall guy for some Hollywood producer.”

“Might be a good idea for you to run out and have a chat with her, Perry. She is pretty low, and she doesn’t look the sort who is accustomed to being down in the dumps.”

“They haven’t made a formal charge yet?”

“They are filing one today. She is being held in the hospital. The D.A.’s office is going at it hammer and tongs. I can’t understand their eagerness — unless something is behind it.”

Della Street said, “Here is your party on the line, a Mr. Kimball.”

Mason picked up the telephone, said suavely, “Mr. Kimball, this is Perry Mason, the lawyer. I am interested in getting some information about a girl you have promised a job to.”

Kimball became vocally cordial “Yes, indeed, Mr. Mason, I will be glad to give you anything I can. I heard you in court on that dog case. That was a masterly presentation. What can I do for you?”

“I want to find out about a Mrs. Warfield who is coming on from New Orleans,” Mason said.

“Oh.”

“What is the matter?”

Kimball laughed apologetically. “I am not certain I can help you much there, Mr. Mason. She has a friend working here. The friend tried to get her a job, and I — well, I said thought it would be all right.”

“When is she arriving in town?”

“She isn’t coming.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I — well, I changed my mind.”

“Can you tell me why?”

Kimball’s voice sounded strained and embarrassed. “I am sorry you asked me that, Mr. Mason. Almost anything else I could tell you, but this I don’t feel at liberty to discuss. I — well, the vacancy that I expected would occur didn’t materialize, and I had to tell her friend that it was no go. Would you mind telling me what your interest in the matter is?”

Mason laughed. “I am more embarrassed at your question than you are at mine. I can’t discuss the affairs of a client. Is that all you can tell me about it?”

“I am sorry, Mr. Mason. That’s all.”

“Something you found out about her that made you change your mind?”

“No... I think we will have to let it go at that, Mr. Mason. The vacancy didn’t materialize.”

“All right, thanks,” Mason said, and hung up.

“No go?” Drake asked.

“No. Something happened, and he decided to drop her like a hot potato.”

“Wonder,” Drake said, “if that something could have been a little whisper from Hollywood.”

Mason said, “You are either reading my mind or making a damn good stab at it.” He walked over to the closet, picked up his hat and coat. “Come on, Della,” he said. “Let us go out and take a look at Stephane Claire. I want to see how you react.”

“She is all wool,” Drake said, and then added after a moment, “and her friend is a yard wide.”

Della Street brushed aside Drake’s comment. “Don’t take him too seriously. She is a platinum blonde,” she said, “and you know Paul.”

Mason grinned.

Drake said, “Honestly, Della, she is a good kid.”

“I will take a look,” Della Street said laconically.

Mason said to Drake, “You’ve got an opening in your office, Paul, for a receptionist.”

“I have?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What are you talking about? My receptionist...”

“Needs an assistant,” Mason interrupted, “temporarily, at any rate. Have your New Orleans correspondent tell Lois Warfield to come on out to the Coast and he can get her a job. Advance her bus fare. I have enough hitch-hiking troubles on my hands for the present. I want to be sure she gets here in one piece.”

“You are taking over,” Drake asked, “— financially?”

“I am taking over,” Mason said, “and Hollywood is going to pay for it.”

“This Horty girl is about at the bottom of her war chest.”

“I am just at the top of mine,” Mason said. “With a setup like this, if I can’t make someone in Hollywood pay for it, I would better quit practicing law.”

Drake sighed. “I was hoping you would look at it that way,” he said, and jackknifed up out of the chair.

Mason, putting on his coat, said, “I think it would be a swell idea, Paul, to pick up a photograph of Jules Carne Homan.”

“So do I,” Drake said. “I have been trying to for the last twenty-four hours. It can’t be done.”

Mason stood by the door of the closet, staring at the detective. “You mean to say a Hollywood producer hasn’t pictures of himself draped all over Hollywood?”

“That’s right. Homan is one of the boys who is camera-shy.”

“Go out to Photoplay. They have got one of the best photographers in the business. There isn’t any such thing as hiding from his lens — not if he wants a picture badly enough, and he wants everyone who is anyone.”

“That’s an idea,” Drake said.

Mason nodded to Della Street. “Come on, Della. Let us go pat the bunny.”