“You think Greeley was Spinney?”
“Yes.”
“Then who was her husband?”
“Greeley.”
“I don’t get you.
“Greeley created Spinney out of thin air to give himself a go-between.”
“Go ahead,” Tragg said.
“Now Greeley takes Mrs. Warfield down to his room. Naturally, he takes her baggage along. Remember he is her husband, and she is crazy about him.”
“You think he was waiting for her when she got back from the lobby?”
“Sure. Otherwise she would have at least washed up and used the soap and a towel. All right, now we have got Mrs. Warfield in Greeley’s room. He makes the mistake of trying to confess and ask her forgiveness. In place of that, he gets a bullet in his brain. Mrs. Warfield has been through too much to do any forgiving. She has been working to the limit of her endurance, and sending every cent she could possibly spare to a man whom she loved. When she finds out he has been deliberately milking her of money so she wouldn’t have enough carfare to come to the Coast and investigate...”
“All right, she shot him,” Tragg interrupted. “Then what?”
“She goes back to her room, prepares to make an escape. That’s when the woman found her.”
“Who was the woman?”
“Mrs. Greeley.”
“What?”
“Yes. It must have been.”
“And what did Mrs. Greeley want?”
“Mrs. Greeley was suspicious. She didn’t have proof — not then. She wanted to pump Mrs. Warfield.”
“What happened?”
“Mrs. Warfield recognized a marvelous opportunity to escape. She strung Mrs. Greeley along, stayed with her that night, and calmly walked out in the morning.”
“That’s a pretty fancy story.”
“It checks with the evidence. Mrs. Greeley is in love with Jules Homan. In Hollywood, they handle those things very nicely. The husband steps aside. There is a quiet divorce, and the parties marry. But Greeley wasn’t of the Hollywood crowd. He became suspicious and wanted to hook Homan for big damages for alienation of affections. Homan couldn’t stand that. It would hurt his business career.”
“How do you get all this?” Tragg asked.
Mason said, “Homan must have been driving that car Tuesday. Mrs. Greeley must have been with him on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. That’s the only way you can put the evidence together so it fits. They left Beverly Hills Tuesday, went to a mountain cabin which Homan owns in the mountains back of Fresno. You will probably find the third key on that ring fits the lock on that cabin. Those were Homan’s keys, an extra set he kept for his expeditions with Mrs. Greeley when he could get away — sometimes on the yacht, sometimes up to this mountain cabin.”
Tragg said, “I think it is cuckoo, but I shall hear the rest of it.”
“Tanner, the chauffeur, had been bribed by Greeley to act as his spy. Greeley was in San Francisco taking the identity of Spinney for the purpose of keeping Mrs. Warfield where he wanted her. He knew, of course, that it must be during his trips to San Francisco that Homan was taking advantage of his absence. Tanner telephoned Greeley in San Francisco twice. The first time, he told Greeley that Homan had taken the car and left. The second time that Homan hadn’t gone to the yacht, and, therefore, must be in the cabin back of Fresno. And at least once Greeley telephoned Tanner at Homan’s residence.”
“The calls charged to Homan’s phone?” Tragg asked.
Mason smiled. “That’s poetic justice.”
“Go ahead.”
“It was sometime late Tuesday night when Tanner definitely found out they were at Homan’s mountain cabin. Greeley took a plane to Fresno, hired a car, investigated, found Homan and his wife were there. He couldn’t steal Homan’s car without leaving his hired car for them to get away in. So he drove back, hired a car with a driver, got out on the highway somewhere within a mile or so of Homan’s mountain hide-out, took Homan’s car, so as to leave the lovers abandoned in their love nest.”
“Why didn’t he bust in on them and call for a showdown,” Tragg asked.
“For one reason, he wasn’t ready for a showdown. For another, they weren’t there.”
“I don’t get you.”
“They were back in town Wednesday afternoon. There is only one answer. They must have spotted him snooping around on his first visit, telephoned for a plane, and rushed back here. It is less than two hundred miles in an air line. I don’t know, mind you, but I shall bet twenty to one that there is some sort of landing field near that cabin. There has to be.”
“Why the hell didn’t they take Homan’s car? Why leave it and take a plane?”
“Time, for one thing. Then they knew Greeley had actually seen the car. The best way to establish an alibi was to rush back by plane, and report the car as stolen.”
“Why wasn’t Greeley ready for a showdown?”
“Because of Mrs. Warfield. He already had a wife. It would be rather embarrassing for him to sue for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and then have some smart lawyer bring Mrs. Warfield into court. This way, he steals the car and thinks he is leaving them marooned in the mountains. Back in Los Angeles, he will abandon Homan’s car and go home. His wife won’t be there. She will show up after a while, very much alarmed, and with some plausible lie that he will certainly be able to disprove when the time comes. But as it turned out, it was he who did the hitchhiking.”
“He wanted Mrs. Warfield to get a divorce?” Tragg asked.
“At first,” Mason said. “Later on, I think he decided to kill her.”
Tragg snorted. “Next thing I know you will be trying to prove self-defense.”
“Well... let us say she beat him to the punch, if that is what you mean. Understand, Tragg, I am not a mind reader. I am only giving you a solution which fits the evidence. If you can punch any holes in it, go ahead.”
Tragg scratched his head and thought things over. Then he said suddenly, “But Mrs. Greeley talked with her husband in San Francisco.”
“No. After Greeley died, she said she did.”
“She talked with someone.”
“Sure. Part of her alibi. She telephones some friend from a pay station and arranges for the second station-to-station call. That way, she establishes the fact, by the telephone company records, she was in Los Angeles, and doesn’t have to drag her friend’s name into it.”
“How do you know all this?” Tragg asked.
Mason said, “I don’t, but it’s the only way the evidence fits together.”
Tragg pushed his hands down deep into his pockets, stood staring down at the tips of his shoes. “Anything else?”
“A lot of minor corroborating facts,” Mason said. “Greeley, of course, was having detectives keep an eye on Mrs. Warfield. When they reported she was coming to Los Angeles to take a job with a Mr. Drake, Greeley was waiting for her at the bus depot — keeping out of sight of course.”
“And he followed you folks to the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“And how about Mrs. Greeley?”
“She must have followed Greeley. Maybe she even saw the wire reporting Mrs. Warfield’s arrival. Remember, she was watching her husband like a hawk on those days because she suspected he knew of her affair.”
“How about that stained shirt?”
Mason smiled. “Now comes the touch of real comedy. You will remember, Homan and Mrs. Greeley rushed off to their love nest at night after Mrs. Greeley found her husband was going to be detained in San Francisco. Homan didn’t stop to change his dinner jacket, but just threw some other clothes in a bag. Now, when they were getting out of the cabin, they must have been in a panic, grabbing things right and left. In the confusion of packing, Homan’s stiff shirt got put in Mrs. Greeley’s bag. When Mrs. Greeley found that shirt, the logical place to hide it was in her husband’s laundry bag. She dropped it in there, intending to dispose of it later.