The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

8

Mason had started his car motor and was just pulling away from the curb when he saw headlights behind him. The headlights blinked significantly, once, twice, three times. Then the car slowed almost to a crawl.

Mason drove rapidly for a block and a half, watching the headlights in his rearview mirror, then he pulled in to the curb and the car behind him promptly swung in to a position just behind Mason’s automobile and stopped. Paul Drake slid out from behind the steering wheel and walked across to Mason’s car, where he stood with one foot on the running board.

“Think I’ve found something, Perry.”

“What?”

“The place where Mrs. Faulkner was parked, waiting for you to show up.”

“Let’s take a look,” Mason said.

“Of course,” Drake added apologetically, “I haven’t a lot to go on. When a car is parked on a paved roadway it doesn’t leave many distinctive traces, particularly when you take into consideration the fact that hundreds of automobiles are parked every day.”

“What did you find?” Mason interrupted.

“Well,” Drake said, “when I gave that car the once-over I did everything I could in the short time I had available. I noticed the choke was out, almost as soon as I got in; and then I lit the match to light my cigarette, turned on the ignition, and that gave me a chance to look at the gasoline gauge and the temperature gauge. The gasoline gauge didn’t tell me anything. The tank was half full of gas and that of course just doesn’t mean a darn thing. The temperature gauge showed the motor was barely warmed up and that was all I could find from the gauges, but I thought I’d better take a look in the ash tray, so I pulled it out and the darn thing was empty. At the time, it didn’t register with me. I just saw the ash tray was empty and let it go at that.”

“You mean there wasn’t a single thing in it?” Mason asked.

“Not so much as a burnt match.”

“I don’t get it,” Mason said.

“I didn’t get it at first, myself. It wasn’t until I had driven away from Faulkner’s house that the thing began to register with me. Ever sit in a parked automobile waiting for something to happen and being a little nervous — not knowing what to do with yourself?”

“I don’t believe I have,” Mason said. “Why?”

“Well, I have,” Drake told him, “lots of times. It usually happens on a shadowing job when the man you’re tailing goes into a house somewhere and you just have to stick around and wait, with nothing in particular to do. You begin to get fidgety, and after a while, you begin to play around with the dashboard. You don’t care to turn on the radio because a parked car with a radio blaring out noise is too noticeable, so you just sit there and fiddle around.”

“And empty the ash tray?” Mason asked, his voice showing keen interest.

“That’s right. You’ll do it nine times out of ten, if you sit there long enough. You start thinking of all the little chores there are around a car and the ash tray is one of the first things you think of. You take it out and dump it out of the window on the left-hand side of the car, being sure you’ve got it all clean.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“So,” Drake told him, “after I drove away from Faulkner’s place, I started looking for some place where you could park an automobile and still see the entrance to the Faulkner house.”

“Some place straight down the street?” Mason asked.

“I looked there at first,” Drake said, “but didn’t find anything, so I swung around the corner and found there’s a place on the side street where you can look across a vacant lot and see the front of the Faulkner house, and also the driveway to the garage. Just about as far up the driveway as the point where Mrs. Faulkner parked the car. You’re looking across a vacant lot and between two houses but you can see the place all right. And that’s where I found a pile of cigarette stubs and some burnt matches.”

“What brand of cigarettes, Paul?”

“Three or four. Some with lipstick, some without. Different kinds of matches, some paper matches, some wooden ones.”

“Any identifying marks on the paper matches?”

“To tell you the truth, Perry, I didn’t stay there long enough to look. As soon as I found the place, I beat it back to tip you off. I thought perhaps you’d like to look at it. You were just pulling away from the curb, so I blinked my lights and tagged along behind. I was afraid to pull up alongside because I didn’t want the cop in charge to think I’d discovered something important within four or five minutes after I’d driven away from the place. Not that I think the idea would have registered with him, but it might have, you never can tell. Want me to go back and make a more detailed examination?”

Mason tilted back the brim of his hat, moved the tips of his fingers through the wavy hair on his temple. “Hang it, Paul, if you can see the house from the place where the ash tray was emptied, then anyone standing in the front of the house or on the driveway can look back and see the place where we would be looking the stuff over. Your flashlight would be something they couldn’t overlook.”

“I thought of that,” Drake said.

“Tell you what you do, Paul. Go back and mark the place some way so you can identify it. After that, get a dustpan and brush, sweep up the whole outfit and drop it in a paper bag.”

“You don’t suppose Dorset will think that’s concealing evidence, do you?”

“It’s preserving evidence,” Mason pointed out. “It’s what the police would do if they happened to think of it.”

“But suppose they happen to think of it and the stuff is gone?”

Mason said, “Let’s look at it from the other angle, Paul. Suppose they don’t happen to think of it, and a street-washing outfit comes along and sluices the stuff down into the sewer. Then what?”

“Well,” Drake said dubiously. “Of course, we could tell Sergeant Dorset.”

“Dorset has taken Sally Madison out to Staunton’s place. Don’t be so damned conscientious, Paul. Get busy and get that stuff in a paper bag.”

Drake hesitated. “Why should Mrs. Faulkner have been waiting there for you to drive up, and then come scorching around the corner as soon as she saw your car stop?”

Mason said, “It might mean she knew the body was in there on the floor and didn’t want to be the one to discover it, all by herself. It must also mean that she knew Sally Madison and I were going to call at the house, and that in turn means that Staunton must have reached her on the telephone, almost immediately after we left his place.”

“Where would he have telephoned her?”

“Probably at her house. She may have been there with the body on her hands and when she knew we were coming, she saw a chance to give herself a sort of alibi. You know, that she’d been absent all evening and arrived just about the same time we did. That brings us back to what must have happened out at Staunton’s house. I pulled back the drapes on the window of Staunton’s study so I could have a clear view of the telephone from outside the window. I thought he’d be certain to rush to the telephone and call the person who had given him the fish. All he did was switch out the lights in the study. That must mean there’s another telephone in the house. Maybe an extension, maybe even a second line because he seems to do business from the house. I’m going to get a telephone book and look that up. If Staunton has two phones at the same address, I’ll know I’ve been played for a sucker. I also want to look up the address of Faulkner’s partner, Elmer Carson, and see if I can get there before the police do. You beat it up to your office, Paul, get a dustpan and a bag and sweep up that stuff from the ash tray. I’ll drive up to the boulevard and cruise around until I find a restaurant or an all-night drugstore where I can get a telephone directory. Carson lives right around here somewhere. I remember Faulkner saying that while he leased one side of the duplex house from the corporation, Carson had a private residence a few blocks away.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “It’ll take me fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the office, pick up the stuff and get back.”

“That’s okay. Dorset won’t get back for half an hour, anyway; and the boys he’s left in charge certainly won’t think of scouting around the block and connecting up an empty ash tray in Genevieve Faulkner’s car with a pile of cigarette stubs at the curb on a side street.”

Drake said, “On my way,” and walked back to his car.

Mason drove rapidly to the main boulevard, cruised along until he found an all-night lunch counter. He entered the place, had a cup of coffee, consulted the telephone directory and, to his chagrin, found that James L. Staunton had two telephones listed, one in his insurance office, one in his residence. Both at the same street address.

Mason then thumbed through the directory to find the residence of Elmer Carson and noted the address. It was exactly four blocks from Faulkner’s residence.

Mason debated for a moment whether to call Carson on the telephone, then decided against it. He paid for his coffee, got in his automobile and drove to Carson’s house. It was dark.

Mason parked his car, climbed to the porch and was ringing the bell for the third time when lights showed in the hallway. A man in pajamas, dressing gown and slippers was outlined for a moment against lights from an inner room. Then he closed the door, switched off lights in the hallway and, walking along the darkened passageway, reached a point where he could switch on the porch light.

Mason stood outlined in the brilliant illumination of the porch light, trying in vain to see through the curtained glass of the doorway into the darkened corridor.

From the inner darkness, a voice called out through the door, “What do you want?”

“I want to see Mr. Elmer Carson.”

“This is a hell of a time to come punching doorbells.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s important.”

“What’s it about?”

Mason, conscious of the fact that his raised voice was audible for some distance, glanced somewhat apprehensively at the adjoining houses, and said, “Open the door and I’ll tell you.”

The man on the inside said, “Tell me and I’ll open the door,” and then added, “maybe.”

“It’s about Harrington Faulkner.”

“What about him?”

“He’s dead.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Mason — Perry Mason.”

“The lawyer?”

“That’s right.”

The porch light clicked off. A light was switched on in the corridor. Mason heard the sound of a lock clicking back, then the door opened, and for the first time Mason had a good look at the man who was standing in the corridor. He was, Mason judged, around forty-two or three, a rather chunky individual inclined to baldness at the top and at the back. Such hair as he had had been left long so that it could be trained to cover the bald areas. Now that the man had been aroused from slumber, the long strands of hair hung incongruously down over the left ear almost even with the man’s jawbone. It gave his face a peculiar one-sided appearance which was hardly conducive to the dignity which he tried to assume. His mouth was firm and straight. A close-clipped moustache was just beginning to turn gray. He was a man who wouldn’t quit easily and wouldn’t frighten at all.

Carson raised rather prominent blue eyes to Mason, said curtly, “Come in and sit down.”

“You’re Elmer Carson?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

Carson moved around to close the front door, then ushered Mason into a well kept living room, scrupulously clean, save for a tray containing cigarette stubs, a champagne cork and two empty champagne glasses.

“Sit down,” Carson invited, gathering the bathrobe around him. “When did Faulkner die?”

“Frankly, I don’t know,” Mason said. “Sometime this evening.”

“How did he die?”

“That also I don’t know. But rather a hurried inspection of the body leads me to believe that he was shot.”

“Suicide?”

“I don’t believe the police think so.”

“You mean murder?”

“Apparently so.”

“Well,” Carson said, “there were certainly enough people who hated his guts.”

“Including you?” Mason asked.

The blue eyes met Mason’s without flinching. “Including me,” Carson said calmly.

“Why did you hate him?”

“Lots of reasons. I don’t see any necessity to go into them. What did you want with me?”

Mason said, “I thought perhaps you could help me ascertain the time of death.”

“How?”

“How long,” Mason asked, “would a goldfish live out of water?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I’m sick and tired to death of hearing about goldfish or seeing goldfish.”

Mason said, “Yet apparently you spent some money on a lawsuit trying to keep a couple of goldfish in your office.”

Carson grinned. “When you start fighting a man, you hit his most vulnerable spot.”

“And his goldfish hobby was Faulkner’s most vulnerable spot?”

“It was the only one he had.”

“Why were you hitting at him?”

“Various reasons. What’s the length of time goldfish could live out of water got to do with the time Harrington Faulkner was bumped off?”

Mason said, “When I looked at the body, there were some goldfish on the floor, one of them gave a feeble flick of its tail. I picked it up and put it in the bathtub. It started to turn belly up, but I understand a few minutes later it had come to life and was swimming around.”

“When you looked at the body?” Carson asked.

“I wasn’t the first to discover it,” Mason told him.

“Who was the first?”

“His wife.”

“How long ago?”

“Perhaps half an hour, perhaps a little longer.”

“You were with his wife?”

“When we entered the house, yes.”

The blue eyes blinked a couple of times rapidly. Carson started to say something, then apparently either changed his mind or hesitated while he searched his thoughts for some suitable phraseology. Abruptly he added, “Where had his wife been?”

“I don’t know.”

Carson said, “Someone tried to kill him last week. Did you know that?”

“I’d heard of it.”

“Who told you?”

“Harrington Faulkner.”

“His wife say anything about that to you?”

“No.”

Carson said, “There’s something strange about that whole affair. According to Faulkner’s story, he was driving along in his automobile and someone took a shot at him. He claims he heard the report of the gun and that a bullet went whizzing past him and embedded itself in the upholstery of the automobile. That’s the story he told the police, but at the time he never said a word to me or to Miss Stanley.”

“Who’s Miss Stanley?” Mason asked.

“The stenographer in our office.”

“Suppose you tell me just what happened.”

“Well, he came driving up to the office and parked his car out in front of the place. I noticed him take out his knife and start digging at the upholstery in the back of the front seat, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

“Then what happened?”

“I saw him go into his house — you know, the other side of the duplex. He was in there for about five minutes. He must have telephoned the police from there. Then he came over to the office and, except for the fact that he was unusually nervous and irritable, you wouldn’t have known anything had happened. There was some mail on his desk. He picked it up and read it, took the letters over to Miss Stanley’s desk and stood beside her while he dictated some replies directly to the typewriter. She noticed that his hand was shaking, but aside from that, he seemed perfectly normal.”

“Then what happened?” Mason asked.

Carson said, “As it turned out, Faulkner put the bullet down on Miss Stanley’s desk when he signed one of the letters she’d written for him, and then she’d placed the carbon copy of the letter over the bullet. But she didn’t notice it at the time and neither did Faulkner.”

“You mean that Faulkner couldn’t find the bullet when the police arrived?” Mason asked, his voice showing his keen interest.

“Exactly.”

“What happened?”

“Well, there was quite a scene. The first thing that we knew about any shooting was a good twenty minutes after Faulkner came in. Then a car pulled up outside, and a couple of officers came pushing into the office and Faulkner spilled this story about having been driving along the road, hearing a shot, and then hearing something smack into the seat cushion within an inch or two of his body. He said he’d dug out the bullet, and the police asked where the bullet was. Then the fireworks started. Faulkner looked around for the bullet and couldn’t find it. He said he’d left it on the top of his desk and finally as good as accused me of having stolen it.”

“And what did you do?”

“As it happened,” Carson said, “I hadn’t moved from my desk from the time Faulkner came in until the police arrived, and Miss Stanley could vouch for that. However, as soon as I saw what Faulkner was driving at, I insisted the police search me, and search my desk.”

“Did they?”

“I’ll say they did. They took me into the bathroom, took off all my clothes and made a thorough search. They didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it, but I insisted they make a thorough job of it. I think by that time they had Faulkner pretty well sized up as an irascible old crank. And Miss Stanley was hopping mad. She wanted them to bring out a matron to search her. The police didn’t take it that seriously. Miss Stanley was so angry she darn near took off her clothes right there in the office. She was white-faced with rage.”

“But the bullet was on her desk?” Mason asked.

“That’s right. She found it there late that afternoon when she was cleaning up her desk, getting ready to go home. She has a habit of piling carbon copies of stuff on the back of her desk during the day, and then doing all her filing at four-thirty. It was about quarter of five when she found the bullet. Faulkner called the police back again, and when they came, they told Faulkner quite a few things.”

“Such as what?”

“They told him that the next time anybody shot at him, he should stop at the first telephone he came to and notify the police at once, not wait until he got to his home and not go digging out any bullets. They said that if the bullet had been left in the car the police could have dug it out and used it as evidence. Then they might have been able to identify the gun from which it had been fired. They told him that the minute he dug that bullet out, it ceased to be evidence.”

“How did Faulkner take it?”

“He was pretty much chagrined over finding the bullet right where he’d left it, after making all that fuss and excitement.”

Mason studied Carson for several thoughtful seconds. “All right, Carson,” he said, “now I’ll ask you the question you’ve been hoping I wouldn’t ask.”

“What’s that?” Carson asked, avoiding his eyes.

Mason said, “Why did Faulkner drive to his house before he notified the police?”

Carson said, “I suppose he was frightened and afraid to stop.”

Mason grinned.

“Oh, well,” Carson said impatiently, “your guess is as good as mine, but I suppose he wanted to see if his wife was home.”

“Was she?”

“I understand she was. She’d been quite nervous the night before and hadn’t been able to sleep. About three o’clock in the morning she’d taken a big dose of sleeping medicine, and she was still asleep when the officers went in to look the place over.”

“The officers went over there?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Faulkner didn’t make too good an impression with the officers. I think they thought he might have fired the shot himself.”

“Why?”

“Heaven knows. Faulkner was a deep one. Understand, Mason, I’m not making any accusations or any insinuations. All I know is that after a while the officers wanted to know if Faulkner had a gun, and when he said he did have one, the officers told him they’d go over and take a look at it.”

“He showed it to them?”

“I presume so. I didn’t go over with them. They were gone ten or fifteen minutes.”

“When was this?”

“A week ago.”

“What time?”

“Around ten o’clock in the morning.”

“What caliber is Faulkner’s gun?”

“A thirty-eight, I believe. I think that’s what he told the police.”

“And what caliber was the bullet that Faulkner dug out of the upholstery?”

“A forty-five.”

“How did Faulkner and his wife get along?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Could you make a guess?”

“I couldn’t even do that. I’ve heard him talk to her over the phone and use about the same tone he’d use to a disobedient dog, but Mrs. Faulkner kept her feelings to herself.”

“There had been bad blood between you and Faulkner before this?”

“Not bad blood, exactly — a little difference of opinion here and there, and some friction, but we were getting along with some outward semblance of harmony.”

“And after this?”

“After this I blew up. I told him either to buy or sell.”

“You going to sell out to him... to his estate, I mean?”

“I may. I don’t know. I’d never have sold out to that old buzzard at the price he wanted to pay. If you want to know something about him in a business deal, ask Wilfred Dixon.”

“Who’s he?”

“He looks after the interests of the first Mrs. Faulkner — Genevieve Faulkner.”

“What interests?”

“Her share in the realty company.”

“How much?”

“One-third. That was her settlement when the divorce went through. At that time Faulkner owned two thirds of the stock and I owned a third. He got dragged into divorce court and the judge nicked him for a half of the stock he owned and gave it to the wife. Faulkner’s been scared to death of divorces ever since that experience.”

Mason said, “If you hated him that much, why didn’t you and the first Mrs. Faulkner get together and pool your stock and freeze him out? I’m asking just as a matter of curiosity.”

Carson said frankly, “Because I couldn’t. The stock was all pooled. That was a part of the divorce business. The judge worked out a pooling agreement by which the management was left equally in the hands of Faulkner and myself. Mrs. Faulkner — that is Genevieve Faulkner, the first wife — couldn’t have any say in the management of the company unless she first appealed to the court. And neither Faulkner nor I could increase the expenses of the company past a certain point, and we couldn’t raise salaries. The judge also pointed out that any time the dividends on the stock fell below a certain point he’d reopen the alimony end of it and take another bite if he had to. He certainly had Faulkner scared white.”

“The stock’s been profitable?” Mason asked.

“I’ll say it has. You see, we didn’t handle things on a commission basis alone. We had some deals by which we took title in our own name and built houses and sold them. We’ve done some pretty big things in our day.”

“Faulkner’s ideas or yours?”

“Both. When it came to making money, old Harrington Faulkner had the nose of a buzzard. He could smell a potential profit a mile away. He had the courage to back up his judgment with cold hard cash and he had plenty of operating capital. He should have. Lord knows he never gave his wife anything, and he never spent anything himself, except on those damned goldfish of his. He’d really loosen up the purse strings on those, but when it came to parting with money for anything else he was like the bark on a log.”

“And Dixon?” Mason asked. “Was he appointed by the court?”

“No. Genevieve Faulkner hired him.”

“Faulkner was wealthy?” Mason asked.

“He had quite a bit of money, yes.”

“You wouldn’t know it from looking around his house,” Mason said.

Carson nodded. “He’d spend money for his goldfish and that was all. As far as the duplex was concerned, I think Mrs. Faulkner liked it that way. After all, there were just the two of them and she could keep up this small duplex by having a maid come in a couple of days a week, but Faulkner certainly counted every penny he spent. In some ways he was a damned old miser. Honestly, Mr. Mason, the man would lie awake nights trying to work out some scheme by which he could trim you in a business deal. By that, I mean that in case you owned something Faulkner wanted to buy, he’d manage to get you in some kind of a jackpot where you’d lose your eyeteeth. He...”

The doorbell rang a strident summons, followed almost immediately by heavy pounding of knuckles and a rat-ding of the doorknob.

Mason said, “That sounds like the police.”

“Excuse me,” Carson said, and started for the door.

“It’s okay,” Mason told him. “I’m leaving. There’s nothing more I can do here.”

Mason was a step behind Carson when the latter opened the door. Lieutenant Tragg, backed by two plainclothes officers, said to Mason, “I thought that was your car out front. You certainly do get around.”

Mason stretched, yawned, and said, “Believe it or not, Lieutenant, my only interest in the case is over a couple of goldfish that really aren’t goldfish at all.”

Lieutenant Tragg was as tall as Mason. He had the forehead of a thinker, a well-shaped nose and a mouth which held plenty of determination but had a tendency to curve upward at the corners, as though the man could smile easily.

“Quite all right, Counselor. Quite all right,” he said, and then added, “your interest in goldfish seems to be somewhat urgent.”

“Frankly,” Mason told him, “I would like to chisel some money out of Harrington Faulkner’s estate. In case you don’t know it, at the time of his death a young woman named Sally Madison was holding his check for five thousand dollars.”

Tragg’s eyes studied Mason with keen appraisal. “We know all about it. A check dated last Wednesday for five thousand dollars, payable to Thomas Gridley. And have you perhaps talked with Thomas Gridley lately?”

Mason shook his head.

There was a hint of a sardonic smile playing around the corners of Tragg’s mouth. “Well, as you’ve remarked, Counselor, it’s late, and I take it you’re going home and go to bed. I don’t suppose there’s anything in connection with your interest in the case that will cause you to lose any sleep.”

“Not a thing,” Mason assured him cheerfully. “Good-night, Lieutenant.”

“And good-by,” Tragg said, entering Carson’s house, followed by the two officers, who promptly kicked the door shut behind them.