The Case of the Curious Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

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."
    "Are you," inquired Moxley, "telling me?"
    "I intended to help Rhoda Montaine."
    "You told me that before."
    "About a week ago Rhoda Montaine was married to Carl W. Montaine."
    "That's no news to me."
    "Rhoda's name before she was married was Lorton."
    "Go on," Moxley said.
    "Her application for license to marry says that she was a widow. The first name of the former husband was Gregory."
    "Go on."
    "I was just wondering," Perry Mason said, his face utterly without expression, "if perhaps Rhoda might have been mistaken."
    "Mistaken about what?"
    "About being a widow. If, for instance, the man she married hadn't really died, but had only disappeared for the statutory period of seven years. That makes a presumption of death. It's only a presumption. If the man showed up, alive and well, he'd still be her husband."
    Moxley's eyes were glittering now with hostility.
    "You seem to know a lot," he said, "for a friend."
    Perry Mason's eyes were purposeful. "I'm learning more every minute," he commented.
    "You've got a lot to learn yet."
    "Such as?"
    "Such as not butting into things that don't concern you." A telephone began to ring with mechanical regularity, a steady insistence. Moxley wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, hesitated for several seconds, then walked warily around Mason to the telephone. He