The Case of the Singing Skirt (7 page)

"All right. What happened?" Mason asked. "Let's get down to brass tacks."

"I learned that my wife had made a scene down at The Big Barn. I learned that you had given her some legal authorities which would enable her to try to recover the money I had lost. I learned that she had gone to an attorney and retained him to file suit. So I told Nadine that we simply had to talk things out. We decided to go on a cruise on my yacht. We would be uninterrupted that way. We could sail out beyond the harbor and try to get the whole thing settled. We'd done that once or twice before during periods of crisis in our married life, and things had worked out all right."

"How long have you been married?" Mason asked.

"Seven years."

"All right, go on. What happened?"

"We left the house," Ellis said, "to go to the yacht. We told the neighbors that we would probably be out all night or perhaps two nights. We planned to sleep on the yacht. We planned to have dinner on the yacht. We stopped to buy some provisions.

"It seems that almost immediately after we left the house, Ellen showed up. She wanted to talk to my wife. The neighbor told her we were down on the yacht so Ellen went down there, rented a skiff and rowed out to where the yacht was moored. She rowed all around it and called out several times. Then she tied up the skiff and went aboard. When she didn't find anyone there, she took the skiff and rowed back to the place where she had rented the skiff.

"Now, that was the last straw that touched everything off. While Ellen was on the yacht, she apparently had dropped a handkerchief that had her name embroidered in the corner. We got aboard the yacht and went down to the cabin and… well, my wife found Ellen's handkerchief.

"That really started things going. My wife was frantic. She wouldn't listen to anything I had to say.

"Of course, at the time I had no way of knowing how Ellen's handkerchief got aboard the yacht. I thought somebody had planted it. I tried to tell my wife that it was simply a scheme by which someone was trying to discredit me, and perhaps it was something the gamblers had done to get her mind off the idea of recovering some of the money I had lost gambling."

"What happened?"

"Nadine was crazy. Mr. Mason, she just went temporarily insane. She took the gun-"

"What gun?" Mason asked.

"A revolver that we keep aboard the yacht for protection when we're at sea or when we're sleeping aboard the yacht while its moored in the harbor."

"You don't carry a gun?"

"No. We kept a gun there on the yacht. That was the only place I thought we ever might need one. I understand that sometimes there have been holdups on some of the yachts that were moored in the harbor-vicious young thugs who get aboard a yacht and commit all sorts of atrocities-tie up the men, submit the women to indignities, take money and all of that."

"What sort of a gun?" Mason asked.

"A revolver."

"Do you know the make?"

"Smith & Wesson."

"Where did you get it?"

"It was a present."

"Who gave it to you?"

"George."

"George Anclitas?"

"Yes."

"Do you know the number that was on the gun?"

"Heavens no!"

"How did George happen to give you the gun?"

"Well, George and I have been rather friendly over a period of several weeks. I like to play cards and well, we played with varying results. Sometimes I'd win, sometimes George would win, and we became friendly. I happened to see this gun when George and his partner were discussing firearms. They had made some sort of a bet about it. George explained that he kept several guns around the place so that in case of a holdup there would be more than one person who could get his hands on a gun. I told him I was thinking of getting a gun for the yacht because I'd read about a situation where a group of three thugs had boarded a yacht and tied the owner up and… well, he pressed the gun on me, told me to take it."

"Where is that gun now?"

"I told you. Nadine has it."

"All right, she took the gun," Mason said. "What happened after she took the gun?"

"She told me if I wanted to have a rendezvous aboard the yacht with my paramour, she wasn't going to stand for it. She told me that she was going to invoke the unwritten law and kill Ellen. It was a terrible scene. I have never seen her like that before. She was utterly insane."

"What did she do?"

"Got in the skiff and rowed away and left me marooned on the yacht."

"Didn't you object to that?"

"Of course I objected to it. If I could have got close enough, Mr. Mason, I'd have knocked her down and taken the gun away, but she was too smart for that. She made me keep my distance and she kept me covered. I believe she would have killed me. In fact, the idea in her mind at that time was to kill me aboard the yacht, then kill Ellen and then kill herself."

"But why leave you marooned aboard the yacht?"

"She was afraid I would try to warn Ellen."

"Go on," Mason said. "What happened?"

"That's about all I know. She rowed away in the skiff. I was marooned aboard the yacht until nearly ninethirty. Then I was able to attract the attention of a party of yachtsmen and got taken ashore."

"Couldn't you have started the engine on the yacht and gone into the pier?"

"No chance," Ellis said. "She took the keys to the starting switch with her. I had had a burglarproof lock put on there so that when the keys are out it's impossible to start the motor. I suppose an electrician could have shortcircuited the wires back of the locking mechanism but I didn't know how to do it and I'm not too certain it could have been done. I had the sort of lock installed that would keep people from stealing the yacht and taking it for a joy ride.

"It's not a particularly large yacht, Mr. Mason; only forty-two feet, but it's very expensive and perfectly appointed. I have spent a lot of money trying to make it very comfortable."

"All right," Mason said, "you got ashore about ninethirty. Then what?"

"So then I tried to find my wife and I couldn't find her. I went to talk with Ellen but I didn't want to alarm her. I just told her to be careful, that my wife was on the warpath. So then I went out looking for Nadine.

"Then this morning my wife showed up very briefly at the house. She made further threats. She said Ellen Robb had been meeting me secretly aboard the yacht, that she was going to prove that fact by having fingerprint experts develop her latent fingerprints.

"She also said she felt Ellen was waiting for me on the yacht right then and that if she was, she was going to kill her."

"What did you do then?"

"Nothing. Ellen had never met me aboard the yacht. I knew Nadine was barking up the wrong tree, so I let her go… But I want you to know that my wife is in a murderous rage so you can take steps to protect Ellen."

"Did you know that Ellen Robb and George Anclitas had had an altercation?"

"What about the altercation?"

"He fired her, and gave her a black eye to boot," Mason said.

"What!" Ellis exclaimed, half rising from the chair.

"Gave her a black eye," Mason said.

Ellis said, "I'll kill him for that. That… that boorish, arrogant, crooked..

Ellis quit talking, compressed his lips in a thin, straight line.

Mason said, "On behalf of Miss Robb I'm filing suit against George Anclitas and several John Does, who I think are partners in the business, for six thousand dollars exemplary damages and fifteen hundred dollars actual damages for pain and suffering."

Ellis said, "Mr. Mason, I am beginning to be satisfied that game was crooked. I think that… I think that Ellen could tell you something about that. I want to get even with George Anclitas. If he struck Ellen, I'm going to give him the beating of his life. I'll-"

"And how will that look when your wife files suit for divorce and names Ellen Robb as correspondent?" Mason asked.

Ellis' face showed dismay.

"There are some things you have to take into consideration," Mason said dryly.

"Look," Ellis said, "I'll do anything I can in this matter, Mason. I'll-I'd like to pay your fees for prosecuting that case against George."

"And how would that look in the divorce action?" Mason' asked.

Ellis hesitated, then said, "All right. I have lost around ten thousand dollars there in The Big Barn. I'm now satisfied the game was crooked. If you want to act as my attorney to recover that money, I'll pay you fifty per cent of the recovery and give you all the expense money you need to prosecute. You can hire detectives or do anything else you need to do."

"I may be disqualified on that action," Mason said. "I already advised your wife-gratuitously, of course-that she could probably recover the community funds that had been lost gambling, regardless of whether the game was straight or crooked."

"Mr. Mason, don't you understand what that would do to my reputation? I'd be the laughingstock of-"

"I don't think so," Mason interrupted. "I think if a few women would take action of this sort, it would give the big gamblers something to think about, particularly the ones where the games are crooked."

"On the contrary," Ellis said with some feeling. "It would have exactly the opposite effect, Mr. Mason. The ones who were running square games couldn't afford to stay in business. If they were faced with the prospect of having to give up their winnings when some woman filed suit claiming it was community property that the husband had lost, the ones who were running a straight game would find that the percentage was too much against them and they'd go out of business. On the other hand, the crooked gamblers would stay in business. Or I'll put it this way. The gamblers who stayed in business would be crooked."

"You have a point there," Mason said. "I don't know, of course, what's going to happen when the doctrine laid down in this decision is tested in the Supreme Court of this state or the Supreme Court of the United States. This, however, is at present a new angle on the law of community property. It's an interesting legal development, and I'm going to watch and see what happens."

"Well, I'll say one thing," Ellis said. "You certainly threw a monkey wrench into the City of Rowena. George would do almost anything to keep that information from being made public. I guess you know that my wife intended to have a meeting and retained an attorney by the name of Gowrie to address the meeting, and George promptly bought him off."

Mason raised his eyebrows. "Bought him off?"

"Sure he did. Oh, nothing crude. He didn't go to Gowrie and offer him money not to appear at the meeting, but Gowrie now has some new clients who brought him some rather important business and I think conveyed the idea to him that they would be very unhappy if he addressed a meeting of the Women's Club of Rowena on the subject of gambling."

"He told me," Mason said, "that he couldn't get hold of your wife."

"Sure, he was trying to reach her but he was trying to reach her to tell her that he'd have to postpone the meeting and that he didn't think he'd be available. I think he also was going to tell her that after thinking the matter over and looking up the law on the subject, he had decided that the point probably wasn't well taken."

"How do you know all this?"

"He talked with me on the telephone. He was feeling his way," Ellis said.

"All right," Mason told him. "I'll think over the information you've given me. If you get in touch with your wife, let me know at once."

"Tell me, Mason, is Ellen in a safe place? That's what I want to know. Can you guarantee protection?"

"I can't guarantee protection to anyone," Mason said.

"How about the police?"

"They can't either," Mason said. "If the police tried to put guards around every woman who is threatened with death at the hands of a jealous spouse, they wouldn't have enough officers left to direct traffic."

"But she's in actual danger."

"That may be," Mason said. "She is, however, fairly well concealed. I'm going to keep her under cover for the time being and I appreciate the information you've given me.