The Case of the Curious Bride Read Free

ordered.
    Paul Drake spoke in a husky, expressionless voice. He might have been a radio announcer droning through a list of stock exchange quotations, utterly insensible to the fact that his words spelled financial independence or economic disaster to his listeners.
    "I'm coming out of my office on the floor below yours," he said, "when I hear a man's feet coming down the stairs from this floor. He's running fast, until he hits my floor, and then he forgets he's in a hurry. He saunters over to the elevator, lights a cigarette, and keeps his eye on the indicator. When the indicator shows that a cage has stopped at your floor, he pushes the down bell. Naturally, the same cage stops for him. There's only one passenger in it – a woman about twenty-six or seven, wearing a brown suit. She's got a trim figure, a full-lipped mouth and snapping black eyes. Her complexion isn't anything to write home about. She's nervous, and her nostrils are expanded a bit, as though she's been running. She looks frightened."
    "You must have had binoculars and an X-ray machine," Mason interrupted.
    "Oh, I didn't get all this in the first glance," the detective told him. "When I heard this guy tearing down the stairs, and then saw him start to saunter as he hit the corridor, I figured it would be a good plan to ride down on the same elevator with him. I thought I might be drumming up a job for myself."
    Mason's eyes were hard. Smoke seeped through his nostrils. "Go on," he said.
    "The way I figure it," the detective drawled, "was that this guy was a tail. He'd followed the jane to your office and was waiting in the corridor for her to come out. He was probably parked at the head of the stairs, keeping out of sight. When he heard your door open and the jane go out, he gave a quick glance to make sure it was the party he wanted. Then he ran down the stairs to the lower corridor and sauntered along to the elevator, so he could catch the same cage down."
    Mason made an impatient gesture. "You don't have to draw me a diagram. Give me the dope."
    "I wasn't sure she'd come from your office, Perry," the detective went on. "If I had been, I'd have given it more of a play. The way the thing stacked up, I thought I'd see what it was all about. So when they got to the street, I trailed along for a ways. The guy was tailing her all right. Somehow, I don't figure him for a professional shadow. In the first place, he was too nervous. You know, a good tail trains himself never to show surprise. No matter what happens, he never gets nervous and ducks for cover. Well, about half a block from the building, this woman suddenly turns around. The man that was back of her went into a panic and ducked for a doorway. I kept on walking toward her."
    "You think she'd spotted one or the other of you?" Mason asked, his growing interest apparent in his voice.
    "No, she didn't know we were living. She'd either thought of something she'd forgotten to ask you, or else she'd changed her mind about something. She didn't even look at me as she went by. She turned around and started back toward me. She didn't even see the chap who was standing in the doorway, trying to make himself look inconspicuous, and making such hard work of it that he stuck out like a sore thumb."
    "Then what?" Mason inquired.
    "She walked fifteen or twenty steps and then stopped. I figured that she'd acted on impulse when she turned around and started back. While she was walking back, she got to arguing with herself. She acted as though she was afraid of something. She wanted to come back, but she didn't dare to come back, or perhaps it was her pride. I don't know what had happened, but…"
    "That's all right," Mason said, "I know all about that. I expected she'd turn and come back before she got to the elevator. But she didn't. I guess she couldn't take it."
    Drake nodded. "Well," he remarked, "she fidgeted around for a minute and then she turned around again and started down the street once more. Her shoulders