The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

11

Perry Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake sat in Mason’s office, grouped around Mason’s big desk. Mason finished his account of the events of the past few hours, and said, “So you see, Paul, we’re in a jam.”

Drake whistled softly. “I’ll say you’re in a jam. Why didn’t you toss the jane overboard as soon as you saw that rod and call the cops?”

“Because I was afraid they wouldn’t have believed us in the first place, and, in the second place I hated to throw her to the wolves without knowing what it was all about. I wanted to hear her side of the story first. And, if you want to know, I thought we could sneak out of it and get away with it.”

Drake nodded, said, “Yes, it was a good gamble all right, only you seem to have lost with every throw of the dice.”

“We did indeed,” Mason said.

“Just where does that leave you now?”

Mason said, “If they can pin some part in the murder on Sally Madison, it leaves us right out on the end of the limb. If they can’t, we’ll probably squeeze out. What have you found out about the facts of the murder, Paul?”

Drake said, “They’re putting an official hush-hush on the thing, but I can tell you this much — the medical examiner made a bad slip. The young deputy coroner who went out there was green, and Sergeant Dorset was helping to ball things up. The police have fixed the time of death within a very short time, but, as I understand it, the autopsy surgeon neglected to do the one thing that would have given the cops a perfect case.”

Mason said, “That’s good.”

“I can tell you something else, Perry, that doesn’t look so good.”

“What?”

“This chap that works in the pet shop, Tom Gridley, seems to have been out there and got a check for one thousand dollars, and that check may have been about the last thing that Faulkner ever wrote.”

“How do they figure that out, Paul?”

“There was a checkbook lying on the floor. The last stub in it had been partially filled out. It was a check for one thousand dollars, and Faulkner had been writing on that stub when all of a sudden his pen simply quit writing, but he had written ‘Tom’ and then the letters ‘G-r-i.’ Quite evidently he’d been intending to write ‘Tom Gridley.’ There was a fountain pen found on the floor.”

Mason thought that over for a moment, said, “What did Tom Gridley say about it, Paul?”

“No one knows. The police swooped down on him as soon as they found that stub in the checkbook, and Gridley has been out of circulation ever since.”

“When do the police think the murder was committed?”

“Right around eight-fifteen. Say between eight-fifteen and eight-thirty. Faulkner was to have attended a meeting of goldfish experts. He was to have been there at eight-thirty. About ten minutes past eight he telephoned and said that he’d been delayed by a business matter which had detained him longer than he’d expected; that he was just shaving and was going to jump in a hot bath, that as soon as he’d finished he’d be right over, but that he would be perhaps a few minutes late. He also said he’d have to leave probably at nine-thirty, as he had a business appointment for that hour. And then, right in the middle of the conversation, he said to someone who had evidently entered the room while he was telephoning, ‘How did you get in here? I don’t want to see you, and if and when I do want to see you, I’ll send for you.’ The person at the other end of the line could hear the mumble of some voices, and then Faulkner said, apparently very irritated, ‘Well, I’m not going to discuss it tonight. Damn it, either get out or I’ll throw you out. All right, if you want it that way, here it is,’ and then abruptly he slammed the telephone receiver into place right in the middle of the conversation.

“These people who were having the meeting wanted to be sure to have Faulkner there. They wanted to get some money out of him. They called him back at eight-twenty-five and no one answered the telephone, so they concluded Faulkner was on his way. They waited another five or ten minutes, then when he hadn’t shown up, tried to get him again. Then they went ahead with the meeting. Now, obviously, Faulkner had been dressing and getting ready to go to that meeting. There was a razor on the glass shelf in the bathroom with lather and whiskers still adhering to the blade, and Faulkner was freshly shaved when the body was discovered. Putting all that together, the police are absolutely positive that while Faulkner was telephoning, some visitor walked in unexpectedly, some visitor who hadn’t rung a doorbell, but had simply walked in. Faulkner resented his coming, and decided to throw him out physically. That’s when he slammed up the telephone and started toward the intruder. The police think that’s just about when the shot was fired.”

“And the autopsy surgeon?” Mason asked.

“Apparently the autopsy surgeon was asleep at the switch. When the cops got there, it didn’t appear to be particularly important to fix the time of death right down to a minute, and there was more work done in connection with photographing the position of the body, getting fingerprints and trying to reconstruct the physical evidence than in getting to work with body temperatures and all that sort of stuff. The detectives think it was a blunder on the part of the medical department and there’s some feeling about it. Taking the body’s temperature right at the time the police first arrived would have given them some fine corroborations. As it is, they have to rely on deductions.”

Mason said, “Yes, I can see where that would make for considerable complications. It looks as though the police might be right. What’s their theory about the overturned goldfish bowl?”

“Well,” Drake said, “the goldfish could have been in a bowl on that overturned table, and Faulkner could have upset the whole works when the shot was fired and he fell down dead.”

Mason nodded.

“Or,” Drake went on, “someone could have been in the room some time after the murder was committed and upset the goldfish bowl either accidentally or on purpose.”

“Any theories about that someone?”

“It could have been Mrs. Faulkner, who didn’t like the looks of the thing, upset the goldfish bowl, either accidentally or on purpose, then got in her car and went around the corner to wait for you to show up.”

“But how could she have known that I was coming?”

“As nearly as I can tell,” Drake said, “it’s the way you doped it out last night, Perry. Staunton must have given her a ring.”

“In other words, she was in the house. She had already discovered the body. She had upset the goldfish bowl. Staunton rang up on the telephone. He wanted to talk with Faulkner. She told him Faulkner couldn’t be reached at the present moment; was there any message she could take, and Staunton told her that Sally Madison and I were on our way out there.”

Mason got up from behind his desk, started pacing the floor restlessly. “That, of course, presupposes the fact, Paul, that there was some inducement used to make Staunton keep his mouth shut. I mean about that telephone conversation. If Faulkner died at around eight-fifteen or eight-thirty, Staunton must have learned by this time from the police or the papers that Mrs. Faulkner was there in the house with her dead husband... Hang it, Paul, what are we sticking around here talking for? Why don’t we get in touch with Staunton and see what he has to say when we really start pouring it on him.”

Drake didn’t move from his chair. “Don’t be silly, Perry.”

“You mean the police have sewed him up?”

“Tighter than a drum. He won’t get back into circulation until after he’s made a complete written statement and sworn to it. By that time, he’ll have sewed himself up in a sack. He won’t dare to make any statement under any circumstances that would change the statement he gave the police.”

Once more, Mason resumed his pacing of the floor, then he said, “Put men out to watch Staunton’s house. As soon as the police let him get back into circulation, ask him one question.”

“What question?” Drake wanted to know.

Mason said, “Last Wednesday Faulkner took these fish out to him and told him to telephone the pet store and ask for treatment. Find out what time the pet store sent out the treatment tank.”

Drake showed surprise. “That’s all?”

“That’s all. There are other questions I’d like to ask him, but by the time the police get done with him, he won’t answer. So just ask him that one question. Today’s Saturday, and everything closes at noon. They’ll probably keep Gridley and Staunton sewed up until it’s too late to get any court orders. And the way things are now I don’t dare to ask for a habeas corpus on Tom Gridley.”

The telephone rang.

Della Street answered it, said, “It’s for you, Paul,” and handed the instrument over to Drake.

Drake said, “Hello... Okay, spill it... Right... You sure?... All right, give me everything you’ve got.”

Drake listened for nearly two minutes while the receiver continued to give forth a continuous rattle of crackling, metallic sounds.

At the end of that time, Drake said, “Okay, I guess there’s nothing much to do except keep a line on what’s happening and let me know.”

He hung up and turned to Perry Mason.

Mason took one look at the detective’s face and asked, “Is it that bad, Paul?”

Drake nodded.

“What is it?” Della Street asked.

“You lose,” Drake said.

“What?”

Drake said, “This is confidential, Perry. The police don’t want it to leak out, but I’ve got it straight from one who knows. They took Sally Madison into custody. They found the gun and the roll of bills in her purse. They fingerprinted the gun and got some excellent latents. There were two fingerprints on top of the barrel, not complete fingerprints, but nevertheless enough to enable the police to make an identification. Tragg is nobody’s fool. He closed up the room in the Kellinger Hotel, went to work on the bathroom mirrors and the doorknobs, got fingerprints of both Della Street and Sally Madison. Then he checked the prints on the gun. He found he had half a dozen fingerprints of Sally Madison, and two of Della Street. Then, after they’d photographed the gun, they turned it over to the ballistics department and fired a test bullet and compared that with the bullet they found in Faulkner’s body. There’s no question but what the gun they took from Sally Madison’s purse was the weapon with which the murder was committed. And there’s also no question but what that weapon belonged to Tom Gridley. It was a thirty-eight caliber revolver he’d purchased six years before when he was acting as messenger for a bank. The gun is registered with the police.”

Della Street looked up at Perry Mason. There was dismay in her eyes.

Mason said grimly, “All right, Paul. Put as many men on the job as are necessary to give it complete coverage. Find out where they’ve got Sally Madison held for inquiry if you can. Della, get out some blanks and fill out a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Sally Madison.”

Drake said, “It won’t do you any good, Perry. They’ll have wrung her dry by this time. There’s no use trying to lock the stable after the horse has been stolen.”

“To hell with the stable,” Mason said. “There’s no time for that now. I’m going after the horse!”