The Case of the Haunted Husband

Chapter 7

The big transcontinental bus rumbled into the terminal. Travel-weary passengers came out through the door and walked into the depot to await the distribution of baggage.

Drake, with the skill of a professional detective, carefully scrutinized each face without seeming to pay the slightest attention to any of them.

“Okay, Perry,” he said out of the side of his mouth, “this will be the one we want, the one with the tan coat and the brown hat.”

Mason studied the woman as she walked toward him. She was, he saw, around thirty years old. She was very slender, not with a skinny angularity of figure, but small-boned and light-muscled. Her cheekbones were a little too prominent. The skin across her forehead seemed stretched tight, and her eyes were tired. Her hair was a dark chestnut, and evidently it had been some time since it had received the services of a professional hairdresser. It seemed stringy and thick with travel dust as it curled out from the sides of a small hat.

“What is the move?” Drake asked, looking at the cigar stand.

“Cold turkey,” Mason said.

“Okay, you want me in on it?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Warfield was looking around her now, as though rather expecting someone to meet her.

Drake said, “She would be a good-looking gal if she had the glad rags and a couple of hours in a beauty shop.”

Mason said, “She wouldn’t be bad looking right now if she would get her shoulders back. She is pretty tired. Okay, Paul, here we go. She is looking at us.”

Mason walked forward, ostentatiously studying every person in the bus terminal. He let his eyes rest on Lois Warfield, turned away, then suddenly stopped, turned back, looked dubious, and after a moment tentatively raised his hat.

She smiled.

Mason moved toward her. “Are you Mrs. Warfield?” he asked.

She nodded, her tired, bluish-gray eyes showing a quick sparkle of animation.

“Are you the man who was — who has the job for me?”

“Perhaps.”

There was swift disappointment on her face. “Why, I thought it was thoroughly understood.”

Mason’s smile was reassuring. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Warfield. I think it is all right. If it isn’t, I shall pay your expenses back on the bus.”

“But I don’t want to go back. I gave up my job there to come out here. I need the work. I can’t afford to stop working for a minute. I have obligations.”

Mason said, “I want you to meet Mr. Drake... Oh, Paul! Here she is.”

Drake turned toward them, raised his hat, bowed, and muttered an acknowledgment of the introduction.

“Had dinner?” Mason asked abruptly.

“I... er...”

Mason laughed. “Come on. We can eat and talk at the same time.”

She hesitated for a moment, then smiled and said, “Very well. There is a counter in here.”

Mason grinned across at Paul Drake. “We long-legged men need more room than that. I can’t enjoy food when my knees are pressing up against the side of a lunch counter. Know some place around here, Paul?”

“Yes. There’s one in the block.”

“You don’t mind walking a block?”

She laughed. “Good heavens, I am on my feet all day. I shall bet I walk miles.”

They walked down to the restaurant. When they were seated in a curtained booth, Mason said, “I am the one who suggested the job to Mr. Drake.”

“What sort of a job is it? I understand I was to be a receptionist in an office.”

“That’s right.”

Her face lighted. “And the salary was eighty dollars?” she asked eagerly.

Mason slowly shook his head. “No. I am afraid you misunderstood that.”

There was a flash of anger in her eyes, then bitter disappointment. “I see,” she said wearily in the voice of one who is accustomed to being imposed upon. “However, I distinctly understood — well, never mind. Just tell me what you are willing to pay.”

“The salary,” Mason said, watching her, “is a hundred dollars. Drake wants his receptionist to dress well. She couldn’t do it on a salary of eighty dollars.”

Mrs. Warfield was staring at him.

“We would have to know something about your background,” Mason went on.

“But I thought you understood all that.”

“Only that you were attractive, willing, and wanted a job on the Coast. You are married, of course?”

“Yes.”

“Husband living?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes.”

“You are divorced?”

“No.”

“Just separated?”

“Well, were not together — temporarily.”

Mason looked at Drake. Drake pursed his lips and said, “That is not so good. I thought you were either a widow or divorced. Husbands sometimes make trouble.”

“My husband won’t make any trouble.”

“Well, you know how it is,” Mason said. “Suppose you have to work late at night, and...”

“Anything that the job calls for, I will do,” she interrupted.

Mason said, “You would have to get a bond, of course, and the bonding company would want to know something about your husband.”

“What would he have to do with my bond?”

Mason’s laugh was cheery. “Darned if I know, but they certainly do stick their noses into your private business.”

Drake said, “When you come right down to it, Perry, they do have a crust. What difference does it make where the woman’s husband is or what he does?”

Mason said, “Well, I suppose it would make a difference under certain circumstances. You know, he might have a criminal record somewhere. Where is your husband, Mrs. Warfield?”

The waitress came to take their orders.

“Cocktail?” Mason asked Mrs. Warfield.

She hesitated.

“I think she wants one,” Mason said. “Three dry martinis, and put lots of authority in them.”

The waitress nodded and left.

“Well?” Mason asked.

“Oh, my husband?”

“That’s right.”

“He... he is... Look here, I don’t think he would care to have it known where he was.”

Mason’s face showed disappointment and certain reproach. “We are taking you pretty much on trust,” he said. “Our friend in New Orleans seemed anxious to get the job for you and recommended you so highly we decided to...”

“Oh, I am sorry,” she interrupted. “I–I can’t very well explain.”

Mason’s voice was cold. “Well, of course, if you wish to adopt that attitude, Mrs. Warfield.”

“Oh, but I don’t. Can’t you understand? It is... it is something that I can’t very well tell you.”

“Just as you please,” Mason said with formal politeness, lighting a cigarette. “Would you care for one, Mrs. Warfield?”

She blinked back sudden tears, shook her head. “No, thank you.”

Drake’s eyes were sympathetic. Mason frowned at him.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then Mrs. Warfield said, “And I suppose that costs me the job?”

Mason glanced at Paul Drake, made a little motion with his shoulders, and went on smoking.

“All right,” she said suddenly with feeling in her voice, “have it your own way. I am sick and tired to death of the whole lousy business. Every time I work for anyone, I give him value received, but any time I try to get a job, the person acts as though it is charity or something. It isn’t charity. It is a business transaction. I w-w-work for a man, and I draw a s-s-salary, and the man makes a p-p-profit on what I do. All right. Keep your job!”

She pushed back her chair.

The waitress came in with the cocktails.

Mason said, “No reason why we can’t buy you a dinner, Mrs. Warfield. Have a cocktail. It will make you feel better.”

“No, thanks.”

“Better wait,” Mason said. “I am very sorry this happened. And there is the matter of your return transportation, you know.”

The waitress looked from one to the other, then quietly placed the cocktails on the table. Mrs. Warfield hesitated, reached for hers, and gulped it down, not pausing to taste it.

Mason said, “I am sorry it has to be that way. I think I could have worked you into something out here.”

She turned toward him, blinking back indignant tears. “All right, my husband is a convict. He is in a penitentiary. I don’t even know which penitentiary. He won’t let me know. He wants me to get a divorce, says he is unworthy of me. He won’t have any communication with me except through a friend. That’s why I couldn’t tell you. You can see what a fat chance I would have of getting a bond if I told that to the bonding company.”

“That’s the truth?” Mason asked.

She nodded.

Mason exchanged glances with Paul Drake, gave his head an almost imperceptible nod. Drake promptly pulled a billfold from his pocket. “Well, Mrs. Warfield, that makes the situation entirely different. I am certain you can’t be held responsible for something your husband has done, and I think your efforts to carry on are very commendable.”

She started at him, too incredulous for words.

Drake took two hundred dollars from his wallet. “The vacancy I want you to fill hasn’t developed yet, but I think it will within a week. I am putting you on a salary. Here is two weeks’ wages.”

Mason said abruptly, “Say, I bet your husband was the Warfield who was sent up for kiting cheques in San Francisco.”

“I don’t know what he was sent up for,” she said. “He would never tell me, just a letter from him saying that he was in trouble and that he couldn’t have any direct communication with me for a long while, that I would have to keep in touch with him through a friend. He gave me the address of a friend in San Francisco — a Mr. Spinney.”

Mason said, “Why, of course, that must have been the Warfield that was sent up on that cheque-kiting charge. Personally, I always felt they convicted him on a frame-up. Did he say anything about that to you?”

“He never even mentioned what it was.” She took a compact from her purse, surveyed her eyes, put powder on her nose.

Mason reached into his brief case. “As it happens,” he said, “I am doing some work on that very case. I am a lawyer, Mrs. Warfield. I wouldn’t doubt if your husband was out of the penitentiary within another thirty days... if my facts are right. Tell me, is this your husband?”

Mason whipped out a photograph of Jules Carne Homan. The photograph had originally included some of the more notable movie stars, and had borne the caption, “Producer and cast discuss new play over champagne at Hollywood night spot.”

Mason had cut out the center of the photograph so that the caption was eliminated, and all that remained was Homan’s likeness smiling up at the camera.

Mrs. Warfield said, “Oh, I am so glad you are working to help him. I always knew...” She stopped in mid-sentence.

“What is it?” Mason asked.

She said, “I never saw this man in my life.”

Mason studied her intently. There was no evidence of acting on her face, merely the numbed expression of one who has received a bitter disappointment. But she held the photograph in her right hand, the compact in her left for several seconds, then she passed the picture back to Mason.

“Perhaps,” Mason said, “this is Spinney’s picture.”

“I have never seen Mr. Spinney.”

“Your husband wrote you about him?”

“Yes. Mervin said not to try to write direct, that I could trust Spinney with my life. I can’t understand,” she went on wistfully, “why Mervin won’t let me know where he is. Can’t a person in the penitentiary receive letters, Mr. Mason?”

“Yes, subject to certain rules. Perhaps your husband didn’t want you to know he was actually in the penitentiary.”

“No. He had this friend write me that he was in trouble, and I wrote the friend and demanded particulars, and he finally told me that Mervin had been sent to the penitentiary. I thought it was somewhere in California. I wrote him at both Folsom and San Quentin, but the letters came back.”

“Why did you think it was in California?” Mason asked.

“Because the friend... I am sorry, but I think I should better quit talking about it.”

“Might be a good idea at that,” Mason said. “It will spoil your appetite, and here comes your seafood cocktail.”

During the dinner, Mrs. Warfield tried to find out something about her duties and where she would work. Drake parried her questions. His receptionist, he explained, was getting married. She had intended to be married on the twentieth of the month, but circumstances had made it necessary for her to postpone it a few days. She wanted to work until the very last minute.

Mason suggested that Mrs. Warfield should go to the Gateview Hotel, stay there overnight, and in the morning look for a place to live. He suggested she might find someone who would like to share expenses, and by living together, the two could get a better apartment at a lower rental. After dinner the two men drove her to the Gateview Hotel, registered her, and secured a comfortable room.

“And how will I let you know where I am?”

Drake said, “Better not communicate with the office, because my receptionist would probably quit right now if she thought I had someone on a salary ready to take the job. She doesn’t want to quit until she has to, but she has been with me for years, and I want her to stay on as long as she can. Tell you what you do. As soon as you have found a place to live, leave a message here for me. Just write a note to ‘Paul Drake’, put it in an envelope and leave it with the clerk. I shall pick it up and let you know just as soon as the job is open.”

She gave him her hand. “You have been very, very kind to me, Mr. Drake.”

“Forget it,” Paul said, avoiding her eyes.

They wished her good night, and walked out to the car.

“I feel like a heel,” Drake said.

“Doing it for her own good,” Mason pointed out.

“But how about that job?”

“Stall her along. Pay her salary, and let her rest. The rest will do her good. She looks worn out. Tell her to go down to the beach and lie around in the sun for a while, take sort of a vacation.”

“How long are you going to keep shelling out expenses for her?”

“Why, until we get her a job,” Mason said.

Drake’s face showed his relief. “Well, that’s damn white.”

Mason ignored the comment. “Do you think she was lying about that picture, Paul?”

“No. I am darned if I do, Perry. She acted too disappointed.”

Mason said, “I wish we had had Della Street there. I am not certain but what she knew what was coming the moment I reached in my brief case.”

“You think she was lying?”

Mason said, “Everything points to Homan. Look at the way this case is being handled. Look at the way that cafeteria suddenly decided to drop her like a hot brick. I tell you, Paul, there is influence back of this thing, and influence in this town that can make the district attorney’s office jump through a hoop and then go down into a cafeteria and dictate who shall be employed, can come only from one source.”

“Hollywood?” Drake asked.

“Hollywood.”

Drake said, “Of course, Perry, if her husband had been convicted here in California, we could run down the records and...”

Mason said, “Remember she has already tried San Quentin and Folsom. Don’t kid yourself, Paul. Let us say that Warfield came out to the Coast. He got a job — probably in pictures. He began to draw good money. He had a chance to meet beautiful women. To get anywhere in the picture business, even in the clerical jobs, a woman has to have a personality that makes her alive and vital. You don’t find any women who hang around the movie offices who are washed-out automatons going through life making motions. They are right up on their toes. Well, naturally, Warfield fell in love. He probably played around a while first, and then he found his big moment. He wanted to get married. He wanted to have his wife divorce him. He didn’t dare try to divorce her because she was too much in love with him to let him go. If she had ever found out where he was, she would have joined him. He was a big shot now — and he was haunted by a past he didn’t dare disclose to anyone.

“He tried to solve the problem by pretending he had got in a jam and had gone to the pen. He told his wife not to come out to California because she couldn’t see him. Moreover, to make certain she didn’t try, he got her to send him every spare cent of money she could scrape up.”

“You think he was heel enough to do that?” Paul Drake asked.

“Sure, he was,” Mason said. “That is the reason he had her sending money to Spinney.”

“Well, how do we know the husband is Homan?”

Mason said, “Spinney is an intermediary. He is someone the husband can trust. He goes to San Francisco. Naturally, he gets mail there, and if anything happens, he is supposed to communicate with the husband in Los Angeles.”

“That is reasonable.”

“All right, Spinney is communicating with Homan.”

“Darn it,” Drake said. “When you look at it that way, it is mathematical. Homan has to be Warfield. Of course, there is Homan’s younger brother who is living in the house with him — but he was away the day of the accident and also the day before.”

“We would better check a little more on him,” Mason said. “Tell me about him.”

“His name is Horace. He is seven or eight years younger than Jules. He is an enthusiastic fisherman and golfer. Quite a playboy.”

“How does he work?”

“How does everybody in Hollywood work?” Drake asked. “By fits and starts. Jules gets him jobs here and there as a writer. He is trying to build the brother up. Jules has a small yacht, a saddle horse, a golf club membership, and all the things that go with Hollywood prosperity. Horace works for a while on a job, then puts in his time using his brother’s plaything, going fishing, playing golf, and...”

“Wait a minute,” Mason interrupted. “Horace wasn’t in Hollywood the day of the accident?”

“No. He was out on the yacht on a fishing trip.”

Mason said, “He might be Spinney.”

“He might at that.”

“Or Horace might be the husband, and Jules could be protecting him.”

Drake frowned. “I would never thought of that. But Jules is the one who has the big-time job. The brother is just a hanger-on. He could write her a letter and say, ‘Look, babe, I am out in Hollywood, but I am not doing so good. I am getting by because my brother is standing back of me, but he is going to chuck me out on my ear if he finds out I have a wife. What say we call it off? I will send you a little dough, and you ran get back into circulation.’”

Mason thought over Paul Drake’s observation. “I can’t get over the casual way she acted when I showed her Homan’s picture. You are sure it is his photo, Paul?”

“Yes. I have talked with him. It is his photo all right, and a good one.”

“We will sleep on it,” Mason announced. I am seeing Stephane Claire again tonight. I told her I thought I would have good news for her. I hate to tell her it was a flop.”

“Can’t you stall her off?”

Mason said, “Not that girl. Think I shall have a go at Homan, Paul.”

“He will be hard to see at this time of night.”

“He will be just as hard to see during the daytime, won’t he?” Mason asked.

“I suppose so.”

“Where does he live?”

“A castle out in Beverly Hills.”

“His phone is unlisted?”

“Oh, sure.”

“But you must have had the number when you made the kick to the telephone company.”

Drake nodded, fished in his pocket, pulled out a notebook and passed it across to Mason. The lawyer copied the telephone number.

“It is queer this man Spinney, living in a cheap San Francisco rooming house, would have the unlisted number of a movie magnate,” Mason said.

“He ain’t a magnate, Perry, just a poor three-thousand-a-week wage slave... has to pay social security ‘n’ everything.”

Mason grinned. “Well, I am going to talk with him.”

“You won’t find out much,” Drake warned. “He plays them close to his chest.”

“Unless I am badly mistaken, Paul, he is haunted by the ghost of a former life. That is going to make him jittery — and I am not going to do his nerves any good.”