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The Case of the Haunted Husband
A Perry Mason Mystery
by Earl Stanley
Mrs. Greeley, garbed in black and carrying a light
suitcase, stood in the corridor.
"Come in," Mason invited, reaching out and
taking the suitcase; and when she had entered the office and he
had closed the door, he went on, "Sit down, Mrs. Greely. I'm
sorry we had to intrude on your dinner."
"Oh, it's all right. To be perfectly frank, Mr.
Mason, I don't suppose I should go out so soon, but I feel a lot
better doing that than I would sitting home and doing nothing.
It's a frightfully all-gone feeling."
"I understand."
"I guess people never realize how much they
take for granted in life," she said with a little laugh.
"Here it was only last week I was fussing because my husband
had to work so much at night, and now ... and now ... Oh, well,
I'll get to feeling sorry for myself if I keep on. Wish I could
get something to work on -- something to sink my teeth into.
"Death is so horribly final, Mr. Mason. I --
I've never been touched closely by death before. Somehow, it
shakes my faith in ... things ... . And no one's been able to say
anything that helps. Death is ... it's cruel, it's
terrible."
"It's no more terrible than birth," Mason
said. "We can't understand it any more than we can
understand life -- or the sky at night. If we only had the vision
to see the whole pattern of life, we'd see death as something
benign."
She stared up at him. "Please go on. If you can
only say something practical and sensible. I've heard so much
hypocritical 'all-for-the-best' business that I'm sick and tired
of it. How can it be for the best? Bosh!"
Mason said, "Suppose you couldn't remember
anything from one day to the next. You'd get up in the morning
without any recollection of yesterday. You'd feel full of energy.
Dew would be on the grass. The sun would be shining bright and
warm. Birds would be singing, and you'd feel that nature was a
wonderful thing. Then the sun would rise higher in the heavens.
You'd begin to get a little fatigued.
"Along about
"Then the clouds would drift away. The sun woud
come out again. The air would be pure and sparkling. You'd regain
your confidence. Then you'd notice that the shadows were
lenghthening. The sun would disappear. There'd be darkness. You'd
huddle around a light waiting to see what would happen next.
You'd feel weary, more than a little frightened. You'd think that
nature, which had started out to be so beautiful, had betrayed
you. You'd fight hard to keep your faith, and it would be a
losing battle.
"The love ones who were sitting around the fire
with you would show signs of fatigue. Their heads would nod
forward. They'd lie down. Their eyes would close, and suddenly
their personalities would be gone. Then you yourself would want
to lie down, and yet you'd feel that as soon as you did, this
awful unconsciousness would come over you...."
Mason broke off, smiled and said, "My words
don't carry conviction because you do know all of these symptoms
as a part of life. You know that this unconsciousness is only
sleep. You know that in the course of a few short hours, you'll
wake up completely refreshed, that the dawn will be breaking,
that the sun will be coming up,the birds singing. You know that
the awful visitation of noise and flashes was only a thunder
shower, part of nature's scheme to bring water from the ocean up
into the mountains, to feed the streams and the rivers, to make
the crops green. You'd realize that sleep is nature's means of
strengthening you for a new day, that it's profitless to try to
prolong the waking activities too far into the night, that nature
is co-operating with you. But suppose you didn't understand these
things? Suppose you could see only from day to day?"
She nodded slowly. After a moment, she heaved a deep
sigh.
Mason said, "Life is like that. We can only see
from birth to death. The rest of it is cut off from our
vision."
Drake stared up at Mason. "I'll be
doggoned," he said.
"What's the matter, Paul?"
"I never knew you were a mystic."
"I'm not a mystic," Mason said, smiling.
"It's simply the applications of what you might call legal
logic to the scheme of existence, and I don't ordinarily talk
that way. I'm doing it now because I think Mrs. Greeley needs
it."
Mrs. Greeley said with feeling, "Mr. Mason, I
can't begin to tell you how much better you have made me feel.
Your words carry conviction. I ... I guess I'm getting my faith
back."
Mason said, "I don't think you'd ever lost it,
Mrs. Greeley. Now this is going to be disagreeable. Do you want
to get it over with as quickly as possible?"
"I don't care," she said. "I ... Oh,
Mr. Mason, I can't tell you how much you've comforted me. After
all, death is only a sleep. It has to be. I'm ashamed of myself,
Mr. Mason. I was doubting the whole scheme of things. I was ...
Is this someone coming?"
"Should be Lieutenant Tragg," Mason said.
"You know him."
"Oh, yes."
Photo: Earl Stanley
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