The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

15

Mason’s face was as grim as that of a football player backed up against his team’s goal line, as he entered Paul Drake’s office.

“Hello, Perry,” Drake said. “Did that information on Staunton do you any good?”

“Some,” Mason said.

“It’s just about the only question Staunton will answer. The police have sewed him up on a written statement, and he isn’t giving out any information whatever upon matters that are contained in that statement. As far as anything that transpired the night of the murder is concerned, Staunton is an absolute clam. And the same holds true of all the details concerning the delivery of the fish.”

Mason nodded. “I rather expected that. Look here, Paul, I want you to do something for me.”

“Shoot.”

“I want you to find out whether or not Sally Madison saw the first Mrs. Faulkner yesterday night. I want you to find out whether Mrs. Faulkner made any substantial withdrawal from her bank in the form of cash. I particularly want to find out whether she or Wilfred Dixon withdrew any cash from a bank in the form of fifty-dollar bills.”

Drake nodded.

“That isn’t going to be easy,” Mason said, “and I don’t expect it to be easy. I’ll pay you any amount of money that you need to get that information, Paul. Damn it, I started playing verbal poker with Wilfred Dixon. I made a bluff and he called it so cold and so hard that I feel like a spanked kid. Damn him, I’m going to back that bird in a corner if I have to spend every cent I’ve got in order to do it.”

“Dixon was there when you got there?” Drake asked.

“Yes. Why? Had he been out?”

Drake nodded. “I’m having him shadowed, not that it will do any good, but I’m working on every angle of the case. My man picked him up about eight o’clock this morning as he was coming from breakfast.”

“Where did he eat, Paul?”

“At the corner drug store. He must be an early riser. He’d been there since seven o’clock.”

“That’s fine, Paul. Keep it up.”

“He walked down there for his breakfast, then came right back, arriving home at eight-ten. I’ve got men watching the house. It’s about all there is to do.”

Mason glanced at the detective.

“What’s the matter, Paul? You seem to be stalling around. What’s the trouble?”

Paul Drake picked up a pencil, twisted it in his fingers. “Perry,” he said quietly, “Sally Madison’s past reputation isn’t too good.”

Mason flushed. “That’s the second time today I’ve heard that. All right, so what?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “If Sally Madison told you she got that two thousand dollars from Genevieve Faulkner she’s lying.”

“I didn’t say she told me that, Paul.”

“You didn’t say so, no.”

“What makes you think she’d be lying if she had told me that?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “My men have just uncovered some new evidence. That is, they didn’t uncover it, they picked it up from a friendly newspaper reporter who, in turn, got it from the police.”

“What is it?”

“Yesterday afternoon Harrington Faulkner went to his bank and drew out twenty-five thousand dollars in cold, hard cash. He went to the bank personally. He insisted on having the money in the form of cash and from the way he acted, the bank teller thought that perhaps he was being blackmailed. He wanted the money in thousand-dollar bills and hundred-dollar bills and in fifty-dollar bills. The teller made an excuse that it would take him a little while to get the cash together in just that form, and kept Faulkner waiting for a few minutes while he and an assistant stepped back into the vault and hurriedly took down the numbers of the bills, just in case something should turn up later. The two thousand dollars that Sally Madison had in her purse is money that was given her by Harrington Faulkner, and by no one else. And there’s another twenty-three thousand dollars that she has cached away somewhere.”

Mason said, “You’re sure, Paul?”

“Not dead sure, Perry, but I have the information pretty straight and I’m passing it on to you just the way I got it. I think you’ll find that it checks.”

Mason’s mouth was hard.

“Now then,” Drake went on, “there’s some news on the credit side of the ledger. That gun is Tom Gridley’s gun, all right, but I guess there’s no question Gridley took it to the pet shop and Faulkner picked it up there. The police have pretty well reconstructed Faulkner’s day from the time he left the bank until the time he was murdered.”

“I already know about the gun. What time did he leave the bank, Paul?”

“It was well after banking hours. Pretty close to five o’clock. He’d telephoned and they’d let him in the side door. He put the money in a satchel. He left the bank and picked up a taxicab at the hotel right across the street from the place where he banks. He drove to the pet store, got hold of Rawlins and started taking an inventory. While he was taking the inventory he found Gridley’s gun and slipped it in his pocket. Rawlins told him that it belonged to Gridley, but Faulkner didn’t say anything. Of course, in the light of what we know now and knowing that Faulkner had twenty-five thousand dollars in cash in that satchel, it’s only reasonable to suppose that he might have been interested in having a gun for his own protection.”

Mason nodded.

“Anyway, he put the gun in his hip pocket. Then he went over and opened the safe. Remember, he had the combination from Rawlins.”

“And what happened then?”

“There was a can of paste in there, and Faulkner wanted to know what that was.”

“What was it, the fish remedy?”

“That’s right. It was some of that compound that Rawlins had talked Tom Gridley into mixing up, because Rawlins had some fish of his own that had gill disease and he wanted to treat them. He’d had some difficulty getting Tom to do it, but had finally persuaded Tom by promising him that he wouldn’t let anyone know about it.”

“Where was Tom that afternoon?”

“Tom was in bed at home. He was having a bad spell, running a fever and coughing, and Rawlins had told him to go home.”

“What did Rawlins do when Faulkner opened the safe?”

“Rawlins had a fit when he saw what Faulkner was up to. Faulkner took the can of paste, and right there in the store, telephoned to a consulting chemist whom he knew. It was after office hours — getting along toward seven-thirty by that time — and Faulkner telephoned this chemist at his home, told him he had something that he wanted analyzed; that he was coming right out with it.”

Mason said under his breath, “The dirty so-and-so.”

“I know it,” Drake said, “but what I’m giving you now, Perry, is evidence. This is the thing you’re going to have to fight in court. They’ll account for every minute of Faulkner’s time right from five o’clock in the afternoon to the time he was killed.”

“Go ahead,” Mason told him.

Drake said, “When Rawlins saw what was happening he had a fit. He almost took the can away from Faulkner by force. He told Faulkner that he had given Tom Gridley his own personal word that the can would only be used to treat some fish that were suffering from gill disease there in the pet shop’s own aquarium.”

“What did Faulkner do?”

“He told Rawlins that Rawlins was working for him, and that he didn’t want to hear any criticism. So Rawlins then proceeded to quit his job and tell Faulkner just what he thought of him.”

“What did Faulkner do?”

“He didn’t even get mad. He picked up the telephone and asked to have a taxicab sent around to the pet shop. Rawlins raved and sputtered, called Faulkner just about everything he could lay his tongue to, but Faulkner just waited until the taxicab came, then picked up his satchel, tucked the can of medicated paste under his arm and walked out, with the revolver still in his hip pocket.”

“I suppose police have located the cab driver?” Mason asked.

Drake nodded, said, “The cab driver took Faulkner to the residence of the consulting chemist. Faulkner told him to wait. He was in there about fifteen minutes, then Faulkner drove to his house. It was then just a little after eight o’clock. Apparently, Faulkner immediately started to undress, take a bath, shave and get ready to go to that meeting at eight-thirty.”

“No dinner?” Mason asked.

“That meeting of the fish experts was a dinner,” Drake said. “They were having a little banquet and some talks afterwards by some experts on fish breeding. That ties together, Perry. It ties right up to the time that someone entered the house, apparently without knocking, and the chap to whom Faulkner was telephoning heard Faulkner tell that party to get out. At first the police thought it was Tom Gridley, but Tom’s come pretty clean with them. He’s satisfied the police. The police know now that it was Sally Madison. No one will ever know exactly what happened there. Sally Madison entered, Faulkner tried to put her out, that much is certain. Sally admits it. Remember that Faulkner had a satchel containing twenty-five thousand dollars, which was probably in the bedroom. He also had Tom Gridley’s gun. It must have been lying on the bed or on the dresser. Faulkner’s coat, tie and shirt were spread over a chair where he had peeled out of them in a hurry. The gun had been in his hip pocket. Naturally, he took it out and put it somewhere.”

Mason nodded thoughtfully.

“Put yourself in Sally Madison’s place,” Drake went on. “Faulkner had robbed the man she loved. He had been guilty of despicable business practices. Sally was fighting mad and she was desperate. Faulkner was pushing her out when she saw the gun lying there. She grabbed it. Faulkner was frightened, he ran back to the bathroom and tried to close the door. Sally pulled the trigger — then probably, for the first time, she realized the enormity of what she had done. She looked around. She saw the satchel on the bed. She opened it. There was twenty-five thousand dollars in it. That meant a lot to her. It meant an opportunity to escape. It meant an opportunity to cure Tom Gridley of tuberculosis. She took two thousand dollars in fifties for get-by money. The big bills she hid somewhere because she was afraid to try to monkey with those big bills while the heat was on.”

“It’s a pretty theory,” Mason said, “but that’s all it is — a theory. Plausible, but just a theory.”

Drake shook his head. “I’m not telling you the worst of it, Perry. Not yet.”

“Well, get on,” Mason demanded irritably. “Tell me the worst of it!”

“I wanted you to get the sketch before I told you the one point that changes it from a theory to a fact.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Police found the empty satchel under the bed. The satchel which the bank teller identifies as the one that held the twenty-five thousand dollars. Of course, when the police first found it last night, they didn’t know that it had any particular significance, but they were grabbing fingerprints off of everything, and so they dusted the handle of that satchel. They found three latent prints on it. Two of them were prints of Harrington Faulkner’s right hand. The third one was the right middle finger of Sally Madison’s hand. That’s the story, Perry. That’s the story in a nutshell. I have a tip that the district attorney is going to give you a chance to let Sally Madison plead guilty to second-degree murder or perhaps manslaughter. He recognizes the fact that Faulkner had been a first-class heel and that there’d been a lot of provocation for the crime. Furthermore, now that he knows Faulkner was the one who took Tom Gridley’s gun from the pet shop, he knows that Sally must have seen the gun lying on the bed and acted on the spur of the moment. So there you are, Perry. There’s the thing in a nutshell. I’m no lawyer, but if you can cop a plea for manslaughter, you’d better jump at it.”

Mason said, “If Sally’s fingerprint was on that satchel, we’re licked — that is, if the satchel was under the bed.”

“Are you going to try and get a plea?” Drake asked anxiously.

“I don’t think so,” Mason said.

“Why not, Perry? It’s the best thing you can do for your client.”

Mason said, “It puts me in something of a spot, Paul. The minute she pleads guilty to manslaughter, or to second-degree murder, Della Street and I are hooked. We then automatically become accessories after the fact, and it doesn’t make a great deal of difference whether we’re accessories after the fact to manslaughter or to second-degree murder. We can’t afford to take the rap.”

“I hadn’t thought of that!” Drake exclaimed in consternation.

“On the other hand,” Mason told him, “I can’t let my personal feelings influence my duty to my client. If I think a jury might stick her with a verdict of first-degree murder, I’ll have to make a compromise if it looks as though I can serve her interests better by a compromise.”

“She isn’t worth it, Perry,” Drake said earnestly. “She’s two-timed you all the way along the line. I wouldn’t consider her interests for a minute.”

Mason said, “You can’t blame a client for lying, any more than you can blame a cat for catching canaries. When a person of a certain temperament finds himself or herself in a jam, the natural tendency is to try and lie out of it. The trouble with Sally Madison was she thought she could get away with it. If she had, I probably wouldn’t have condemned her too much.”

“What are you going to do, Perry?”

Mason said, “We’ll get all the facts we can, which probably won’t be many, because the police have all the witnesses sewed up tight. We’ll walk into court on the preliminary examination and turn everything wrongside out. We’ll look around and see if we can’t get a break.”

“And if you can’t?” Drake asked.

Mason said grimly, “If we can’t, we’ll do the best we can for our client.”

“You mean you’ll let her plead guilty to manslaughter?”

Mason nodded.

Drake said, “I hadn’t realized before where that would leave you, Perry. Please don’t do it. Think of Della, if you won’t think of yourself...”

Mason said, “I’m thinking of Della. I’m thinking of her to beat hell, Paul, but Della and I are playing this thing together. We’ve played things together for a good many years. We’ve taken the sweet, and we’ll take the bitter. She wouldn’t want me to throw over a client, and by God I’m not going to.”