Free The Case of the Singing Skirt by Erle Stanley Gardner

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