The Case of the Curious Bride (3 page)

"Probably, but I'm not sure. She's very queer, very secretive. There's something in her life that she's concealing. I don't know just what it is. She's never given me her full confidence."

"When she rings up," Mason said, "tell her that she must go back to the lawyer she called on to-day, that he has something of the greatest importance to tell her. Do you think you can remember that message?"

"Yes. How about the telegram?" she asked, her eyes on Mason's pocket. "It's addressed to Rhoda."

"It's the same telegram you delivered to her this morning," he said.

"I know that, but how did you get it?"

"That," Mason said, "is a professional secret."

"Who are you?"

Mason's smile was baffling. "I am the man who left you the message for Rhoda Montaine to go back to the attorney she called on earlier in the day." He walked through the corridor. She called some questions after him, but he banged the front door, moved rapidly down the steps, across the strip of cement sidewalk, and, as the cab driver pulled open the door of the cab, jumped inside. "Snappy!" he said. "Around the corner. Stop at the first place where there's a telephone." Nell Brinley came to the door and stood staring at the cab as it lurched into motion and swung around the corner.

The cab driver swung toward the curb in front of a candy store which exhibited a public telephone sign. "How will this do?" he asked.

"Fine," Mason said. The cab stopped. Mason strode into the candy store, dropped a coin into the telephone, held his mouth close to the transmitter and cupped his fingers over the hard rubber mouthpiece so as to muffle his voice. He gave the number of his office, and, when he heard Della Street's voice on the line, said, "Take a pencil and notebook, Della."

"Okay," she said.

"In about twenty minutes, ring up Nell Brinley at Drenton nine-four-two-six-eight. Tell her that when Rhoda Montaine comes in she is to call you at once. Give her a fake name. Tell her that it is a message from Gregory."

"Okay, chief, what do I do when she calls?"

"When she calls, tell her who you are. Tell her that she left her purse in my office. Tell her that I want to see her at once. Now, here's something else for you. Check over the marriage licenses. Find out if a marriage license was issued to a man by the name of Montaine, in which the name of the bride was Rhoda Lorton. Have Paul Drake send one of his men to the water, light and gas companies and see if they have made a service connection for a Montaine recently. When you get the right initials from the marriage license, check up with the telephone company and see if there's a telephone in his name. Have Drake put a man on addresses and see if he can run down the address of the bridegroom from the marriage license. Have him get in touch with the Colt arms people and see if he can trace the number on that gun. You've the number there in your notebook. Keep all of this stuff under cover. I want to get a line on that woman."

"Why," she asked, "has anything happened?"

"No," he told her, "but it's going to if I can't get in touch with her."

"You'll call me again to pick up what information I've received?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Okay, chief."

Mason hung up, returned to the cab.

"How much?" asked Perry Mason. The man's ink-smeared forefinger indicated a schedule of samples and prices. Mason took a bill from his pocket, indicated one of the cards. "I like this one," he said. "Make it 'R. L. Montaine, one twenty-eight East Pelton Avenue.' Down in the left-hand corner put 'Insurance and Investments.'"

"It'll take me just a minute or two to get the type ready," the printer said, handing Mason his change. "Would you like to wait here or come back?"

"I'll be back," Mason said. He crossed to a drug store, telephoned his office, learned that Della had received no message as yet from Rhoda Montaine. He sat at the counter, sipped a chocolate malted milk meditatively, and let minutes slip by unnoticed. At length he crossed the street to the printer, and received the stack of freshly printed cards. He returned to the drug store called his office again.

"Paul Drake has uncovered the marriage license," Della Street told him. "It's a Carl W. Montaine. The address was Chicago, Illinois; but there's a water and gas connection for a Carl W. Montaine at twenty-three hundred nine Hawthorne Avenue. It was made within the last week. The license said she was a widow – Rhoda Lorton. Drake wants to know how strong you want him to go on expenses."

"Tell him," Mason instructed, "to go as strong as he has to in order to get results. I've apparently accepted a retainer to represent a client. I'm going to represent her."

"Don't you think," Della Street asked, "that you've done enough, chief? After all, it wasn't your fault. You didn't know about the retainer."

"No," Mason told her, "I should have known about the retainer. Anyhow, I'm going to see this thing through."

"But she knows where to come to get you."

"She won't come back."

"Not even when she knows she left her purse?"

"No," Mason said. "She must have recollected where she left it by this time; she's afraid to come back because of the gun."

"It's after four," Della Street pointed out. "The offices will be closing. Drake's got about all the official information he can get for to-night."

"Has he heard about the gun yet?"

"Not yet. He expects to hear before five."

"Okay," Mason said, "you stick around, Della, until I give you another buzz. If this girl calls in, be sure to hold her. Tell her we know her real name and address. That will bring her in."

"By the way," Della Street remarked, "there's something I thought you should know."

"What is it?"

"The number of Nell Brinley, that you told me to call, is Drenton nine-four-two-six-eight. The number that Rhoda Montaine left for us to call when she was in the office is Drenton six-eight-nine-four-two. She just took the last two numbers off of Nell Brinley's telephone number and put them on the front part of the number. That must mean that she's pretty familiar with that telephone number, because she rattled it off when I asked her. She must have lived at that address and used that telephone before she was married."

Perry Mason chuckled. "Good girl," he said. "Stick around until you hear from me again."

He hung up the receiver, mopped perspiration from his forehead, and walked briskly around the corner to the main office of the telegraph company. Approaching the counter, Perry Mason pulled a telegraph blank toward him, took a pencil from his pocket, spread the purloined telegram flat on the counter and frowned. He looked up and caught the eye of an attendant. She came to him, and Mason pulled one of the freshly printed cards from his pocket. "I would like," he said, "a little special service."

The young woman picked up the card, nodded and smiled. "Very well, Mr. Montaine, what can we do for you?"

"I received this telegram on an important business deal and I've lost the address. I understand your company requires the senders to leave their addresses on file in connection with any wire sent. There's some key number on this telegram. I am wondering if you can find the address of the sender by taking this key number and running down your records?"

"I think so," the young woman said, taking both his card and the message and walking toward the back of the room.

Perry Mason scrawled a telegram, addressing it only to Gregory, leaving the address blank, "IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS NECESSITATE INDEFINITE POSTPONEMENT CALLING IN PERSON TO EXPLAIN." He signed the telegram "R. Montaine," and waited for the clerk to return.

She returned within less than five minutes with the name and address of the sender written on the message in a pencil notation. Mason studied the notation for a moment, nodded, and wrote the name "Moxley" after the word "Gregory," added below it "Colemont Apartments, 316 Norwalk Avenue."

"Thank you very much," he said. "Please send this telegram."

"And now," smiled the attendant, "I'll have to ask you to fill in your address."

"Oh, certainly," he said, and wrote, "R. Montaine, 128 East Pelton Avenue."

He paid for the telegram, left the telegraph office and summoned a cab. "Three sixteen Norwalk Avenue," he said. He leaned back in the cushions, lit a cigarette and watched the passing scenery with thought-slitted eyes. By the time the cigarette was consumed, the cab pulled in at the curb.

The Colemont Apartments was a huge two-story building that had at one time been a residence. As the small numbered blocks of Norwalk Avenue had become choice apartment sites, the owners had remodeled the huge residence into four apartments. Perry Mason noticed that three of the apartments, apparently, were vacant. The influx of more modern apartment houses on either side had spelled disaster for the made-over private residence. In a short time it would be torn down to make way, in turn, for a larger apartment. Mason pressed the button on Apartment B, opposite the pasteboard slip on which appeared the words "Gregory Moxley."

Almost immediately there was the sound of an electric buzzer releasing the door catch; the lawyer pushed open the door. A long flight of stairs loomed ahead of him. He climbed the stairs, heard the sound of motion in the corridor and then nodded to a man whose figure loomed at the head of the stairs. The man was some thirty-six years of age, with quick, watchful eyes, a ready smile, and a genial manner. Despite the heat of the day, his clothes were flawless and he wore them with distinction. He emanated an atmosphere of physical well-being and prosperity. "Good afternoon," he said. "I'm afraid I don't know you. I was expecting a visitor who had an appointment with me."

"You mean Rhoda?" asked Perry Mason.

For a swift instant the man stiffened as though bracing himself for a blow. Then the booming geniality was once more apparent in his voice. "Oh," he said, "then I was right after all. Come on up, come in and sit down. What's your name?"

"Mason."

"Glad to know you, Mr. Mason."

A hand shot out, gripped Perry Mason's hand in a firm, cordial clasp.

"You're Moxley?" Mason asked.

"Yes, Gregory Moxley. Come on in. Certainly is hot, isn't it?" He led the way to a library, indicated a chair.

The room was comfortably furnished, although the furniture was rather old-fashioned. The windows were open. Across fifteen feet of space loomed the side of a modern apartment house. Mason sat down, crossed his legs, reached mechanically for his cigarette case. "That other apartment house shuts out some of your ventilation, doesn't it?" he asked.

Moxley gave it a frowning glance of annoyance.

"It raises hell with both my privacy and my ventilation. On days like this it makes an oven out of my apartment."

Moxley grinned good-naturedly. It was the grin of one who has learned to take the world philosophically, accepting the bitter as well as the sweet.

"I presume," Mason said, "it won't be long before they tear this apartment down and put up one of those big apartments here."

"I suppose," Moxley agreed, his eyes studying Mason's face in thoughtful appraisal, "that it's inevitable. Personally, I don't like it. I like small apartment houses. I don't like these big places where there's a manager constantly snooping around, and an air of impersonal efficiency."

"You seem to be the only tenant in this place," the lawyer went on.

Moxley's laugh was quick and contagious. "Did you come here to discuss real estate?" he asked.

Mason joined in his laugh. "Hardly," he said.

"What did you come to discuss?"

Mason stared steadily at the man's watchful eyes.

"I came," he said, "as a friend of Rhoda."

Moxley nodded. "Yes," he said, "I presumed as much. I didn't suppose you had…"

The words were interrupted by the sound of a harshly strident bell which exploded the hot silence of the afternoon. Moxley frowned, looked at Perry Mason. "Was any one," he asked, "coming here to join you?" Mason shook his head.

Moxley seemed undecided. The smile faded from his face. The look of genial urbanity vanished. His eyes hardened into speculative appraisal. The lines of his face were grim. He got up from his chair without a word of excuse, walked on noiseless feet to the doorway, and stood where he could see both the corridor and Perry Mason.

The bell rang again. Moxley pressed a button, and stood waiting while an electric buzzer released the door catch. "Who is it?" he called in a voice that had entirely lost its booming cordiality.

"Telegram," said a man's voice. There were steps on the stairs, a rustle of paper, then steps going down the stairs and the slamming of the front door.

Moxley walked back to the room, tearing the envelope open. He unfolded the message, read it, then looked suspiciously at Perry Mason.

"This message," he said, "is from Rhoda."

"Uh huh," Perry Mason said, apparently without interest.

"She doesn't," said Moxley, "say anything about you."

"She wouldn't," Mason remarked casually.

"Why?"

"Because she didn't know I was coming."

Moxley had lost all of that veneer of quick friendliness. His eyes were hard and watchful. "Go on," he said, "tell me the rest of it."

"I'm a friend of hers," Mason said.

"You told me that before."

"I came here as a friend."

"That also is no news to me."

"I'm an attorney."

Moxley took a deep breath, walked with quick, purposeful steps across the room to a table, stood with his right hand resting on the knob of the drawer in that table.

"Now," he said, "you are telling me something."

"I thought I might be," Perry Mason said. "That's why I took pains to tell you that I came as a friend."

"I don't understand."

"I mean that I came here as a friend and not as a lawyer. Rhoda didn't retain me. Rhoda didn't know that I was coming."

"Then why did you come?"

"Simply as a matter of personal satisfaction."

"What do you want?"

"I want to know just what it is you're trying to get out of Rhoda."

"For a friend," Moxley said, his right hand remaining on the knob of the drawer, "you do a lot of talking."

"I'm ready to do a lot of listening," Mason told him.

Moxley's laugh was sneering. "What you're willing to do and what you're going to do," he remarked, "may not be the same." Moxley was no longer the genial host, no longer the hail-fellow-well-met. The ready friendliness of his manner had evaporated into a cold, watchful hostility.

"Suppose," Mason said, "I tell you my story?"

"Suppose you do."

"I'm an attorney. Something happened which caused me to interest myself in Rhoda. It doesn't make any difference what it was. Unfortunately, I can't get in touch with Rhoda. I knew you were in touch with her. Therefore, I decided to get in touch with you. I want you to tell me where I can find Rhoda."

"So you can help her?" asked Moxley.

"So I can help her."

Moxley's left hand drummed steadily on the top of the table. His right hand had left the knob of the drawer, but seemed to be held in poised readiness.

"For a lawyer," he said, "you talk like a damn fool."

Mason shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly I do."

After a moment, Moxley said, "So Rhoda spilled her guts to you, did she?"

"I have told you," Perry Mason said, "the exact truth."

"You're still not answering my question."

"I don't have to answer your question," Mason told him. "If you're not going to tell me anything then I'm going to tell you something."

"Go ahead and tell me," Moxley remarked.

"Rhoda Montaine," Mason said, "is a nice kid."