The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe

Chapter 19

Mason drove his car through the arched gateway which bore the sign: THE GABLES HOTEL. The rural hotel loomed as a huge dark pile against the sky, with, here and there, the lighted oblong of a window marking human tenancy. Mason parked his car, gave his bag and suitcase to a sleepy-eyed bellboy who emerged from the lighted interior of the lobby, crossed to the desk and said to the clerk, “My name’s Mason. I believe you have a room reserved for me, Mr. P. Mason?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Mason. Your room’s all ready. Do you wish to go up now?”

“Yes.”

Mason followed the bellboy up a wide flight of stairs, down a long corridor, and into a typical country hotel bedroom. He tipped the bellboy, removed his coat and vest, washed his hands and face, locked the corridor door, put on his coat and vest again, and, entering the bathroom, stood with his ear against the door which led to the connecting room. He could hear the sound of low, steady sobbing. Mason tapped on the door. After a moment, Della Street’s voice said, “Who is it?”

“Mason,” he told her. She opened the door.

Virginia Trent, her eyes red and swollen from crying, her hair looking like unbraided rope, looked up at him from the bed then grabbed at a kimono, which partially covered her. “Where did you come from?” she asked.

Mason crossed the room to sit down on the edge of the bed. “I came from court,” he said, “just as soon as I could get away.”

Virginia Trent pushed the damp, stringy hair back from her forehead, sat up on the bed, wadded a tear-soaked pillow into a ball and pushed it behind her. “I’m going back,” she said. Mason shook his head. “Yes, I am. I’m going back and face it. I tried to all day, and Della Street wouldn’t let me. Is that why you had her take me out here?” Mason nodded. “Well, I’m going back. I’m going to tell them...”

“Tell them what?” Mason asked.

“Tell them everything.”

Mason said, “Tell me first, Virgie.”

She said, “Aunt Sarah is covering up for me. She hasn’t lost her memory any more than I have. I don’t care what you say, Mr. Mason, I don’t care what she says. I know that Aunt Sarah is in danger. There’s a good chance the jury will convict her. The newspapers seem to think the case against her is dead open and shut, and...”

Mason said, gently, “The jury has just acquitted your aunt of murder, Virginia. They found her not guilty.”

“Not guilty?”

“Yes.”

“How... how did that happen?”

Mason said, “I think the jury got a pretty good idea of what actually happened.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Suppose,” Mason said, gently, “you tell me exactly what did happen, Virgie.”

In a voice which broke occasionally, under the hysterical reflex of sobs, she said, “I’m going to tell you the whole truth, Mr. Mason. Austin Cullens telephoned and asked me to get Aunt Sarah and be at a certain street corner at a designated time. He said he’d drive by and pick us up. He did. He said he thought we should make a determined effort to find Uncle George. He said the three of us could split up, and each of us could take a certain district and cover the gambling clubs in that district. He said he’d give us a list of the places where Uncle George went. He picked us up in his car, all right, and drove us out to his house, in order to get the list of the places we were to go to.”

“You had a gun with you?” Mason asked.

“Yes. I knew I was going to be in some questionable places, unescorted. I had a gun and a flashlight in my handbag.”

“Go ahead, what happened?”

“Mr. Cullens drove us out to his house. He put the car in the garage and started for the house. I saw a light flash in one of the windows, and he yelled out that someone was in the house. He had a gun in his hip pocket, He drew it and made a run for the door. I didn’t want to follow him in, but Aunt Sarah said, ‘Come along, Virgie,’ and started to follow. Naturally, I took the gun out of my purse. You know how it is when you’re good at something, you get to rely on it. I’d become a pretty good shot, and...”

“Yes, I know,” Mason interrupted. “Go ahead and tell me what happened.”

“There was some man in the front room of the house. I had just a confused glimpse of him. Mr. Cullens started to turn on the lights, and the fuse blew out and everything went dark. The man ran right past me and out of the back door.”

“Then what happened?” Mason asked.

“I took the flashlight out of my bag, and gave it to Mr. Cullens.”

“And you were still holding the gun in your hand?”

“Yes.”

“And then what happened?”

“Mr. Cullens said that he’d been robbed of a lot of jewels, and my aunt asked him why he kept jewels in the house that way, and all of a sudden he said to her, ‘By God, I believe that wasn’t a thief at all, but a detective you’ve had on my trail,’ and she said, ‘Why Aussie? Is it because you know those gems of yours had been stolen?’ and he said, ‘So that’s it, is it?’ and she said, ‘Aussie, I’ll promise you that if you’ll tell me where George is, and he’s safe, we won’t do anything at all but if you don’t I’ll tell the police that...’ That was as far as she got. Aussie screamed out something about not being taken alive and flung up his gun and shot right square at Auntie.”

“And what did you do?” Mason asked.

“Whatever I did,” she said, “was just an unconscious reflex. Honestly, I have no recollection of pulling the trigger. The first thing I knew, Mr. Cullens was lying on the floor, and my aunt was just as cool as a cucumber. She said, ‘Virgie, we have to keep our heads on this. I’m afraid something awful has happened to George, and we’re going to have to make Aussie talk.’ She said, ‘We’ll have to telephone for an ambulance and get him to the hospital, but before we do that I think he has some evidence on him we’re going to have to get,’ and she bent over him and opened his vest and shirt and found a chamois-skin belt with some gems in it. She took the gems out and picked up the gun which he’d dropped and put it in her bag, and said to me, ‘Find a telephone, Virgie, and telephone for the police,’ and then while I was still groping around trying to find a telephone, she called to me and said, ‘Wait a minute, Virgie, he’s dead.’ ”

“Then what happened?” Mason asked. Virginia Trent shook her head as though trying to dislodge a memory, and dove into the protection of the pillow. Mason put his hand on her shaking shoulder. “Now, wait a minute, Virgie, you’re all upset. Snap out of it. Tell me what happened.”

After a few moments, she turned her head so that her mouth was clear of the pillow, and said sobbingly, “Aunt Sarah said she thought the stones that he had on him were stolen. That if they were, we’d be all right. That if they weren’t, we were going to be in an awful jam; that no one knew anything about our having been there, and that evidently a burglar had been in the house, and the best thing for us to do was to clear out and say nothing to anyone. She told me to take the back door, and she’d take the front... And then... Well, you know the rest.”

“And you’d gone up to your uncle’s office and put the gun back in the drawer just before I came in, Virgie?”

“Yes.”

“And you had no idea your uncle’s body was up there?”

“Good Lord, no. Coming on top of everything else, it almost floored me. I thought I’d go crazy that night.”

“So then what?”

“Then,” she said, “you know just as much as I do. Aunt Sarah never would admit to me that she remembered anything that happened. She kept saying that her mind was a blank, and seemed perfectly cheerful about it, and said I wasn’t to worry, but was to leave everything to you. She wouldn’t even let me talk to her about anything that happened. She said her mind was a blank and she wanted it that way.”

“Perhaps her mind is a blank,” Mason said.

“I don’t think so. I think she’s just trying to protect me.”

“But you don’t know?”

“No.”

Mason glanced at Della Street. “Virgie,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something. I want you to remember it. If your Aunt Sarah’s mind is a blank, that’s one thing. If it isn’t a blank, and she’s trying to cover up for you, that’s something else. As far as you’re concerned, it doesn’t make a particle of difference. You shot in self-defense. There’s no question but Austin Cullens intended to kill both you and your aunt. He’d killed your Uncle George, when your uncle had found out that the Bedford diamonds were stolen gems. Probably your uncle sent for Cullens. Cullens came up to the office. They had a showdown. When he saw he was trapped, and your uncle started to call the police, Cullens jerked the gun out of his hip pocket and killed your uncle. He concealed the body in a packing case, removed all evidences of the crime, went home, reloaded his gun, and, because he knew of your uncle’s habits, mailed in the keys to the car.”

“Now then, I didn’t know what had happened, but I had my suspicions. I felt certain that Pete Chennery’s wife had confessed to her husband, everything which had taken place with Austin Cullens, and her husband, Pete Chennery, a gem thief, saw an opportunity to make a good haul so he had his wife continue to string Cullens along. He was engaged in going through the house when Cullens drove up.”

“Now, I felt certain that Cullens had killed your Uncle George. At first, I didn’t know how I could definitely prove it. I couldn’t tell whether your aunt really had lost her memory, or whether she was trying to protect someone. I felt that if she was trying to protect someone, that you would be that someone. I realized that circumstantial evidence pointed at Pete Chennery as the burglar who had entered Austin Cullens’ house. I thought perhaps I could use him as a red herring to drag across the trail, so that I could get your aunt acquitted, because I felt certain the evidence would show the bullets had been mixed up. Then when Sergeant Holcomb got on the witness stand and tried to cover up his mistake by testifying so positively in regard to the bullets, I realized that I had a perfect opportunity to let him unwittingly serve the real ends of justice.

“Frankly, Virgie, I don’t know just what would have happened if the Prosecution had sensed the truth and made a fair investigation. They’d have arrested you, charged you with murder, and you’d have had to plead self-defense. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t have sounded so good. When a man is killed in his own house, it’s rather difficult to establish self-defense.”

She sobbed and said, “I know it.”

“But,” Mason went on, “Sergeant Holcomb thought he must have made a mistake and handed the ballistics expert the wrong bullet. In many ways, you can’t blame him. It was a perfectly natural conclusion for him to reach, and a police officer could hardly be expected to be so conscientious that he’d allow a murderer to escape, simply because he’d inadvertently confused bullets which had been handed him by an autopsy surgeon.”

“But Sergeant Holcomb’s testimony on the witness stand was so belligerent, and so positive, that I saw my big opportunity to fix it so you could never be prosecuted.”

“Why can’t I be prosecuted?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, “the State can never prosecute you for the murder of Austin Cullens, unless they show that Cullens was killed with the gun which you must have placed in the desk drawer in your uncle’s office. The only way they can do that is to trace the bullets from the body of Cullens. And the only way they can do that is to put Sergeant Holcomb on the stand, and Sergeant Holcomb has testified so positively and so belligerently, that he can never back up on that testimony now — not without submitting himself to a prosecution for perjury, as well as a storm of public ridicule. They’ll never do that.”

“Then they won’t do anything with me?” she asked.

“Not if you keep your mouth shut,” he told her. “I don’t want you to ever tell anyone anything about what happened.”

“I didn’t want Auntie to stand up there and take it,” she said. “I wanted to come in and confess. I...”

“I knew you would,” Mason said, patting her shoulder, “but I thought your aunt was quite capable of carrying on. Now, buck up, Virgie, I want you to be as good a campaigner as she was. I’ve had you held virtually a prisoner out here. That’s all over with. You can go back now, telephone or...”

“How... how did she take it?” Virginia Trent asked.

Mason grinned. “Right in her stride. She shot her wheel chair out in front of the jury right after the verdict, thanked them, and then, as cool as a cucumber, reached up on the clerk’s desk, took the knitting out of her bag, and started right on knitting your sweater.”

Virginia Trent grinned wistfully. “She would,” she said. “And, if the verdict had been the other way, she’d have done the same thing.”

“Yes,” Mason observed, thoughtfully, “I believe she would.”

“Now then,” Mason announced, turning to Della Street, “I’m starved. I dashed out here just as soon as I could get away from the courtroom and ditch the people who were hanging around trying to interview me, shake my hand, and take photographs for the newspapers. The questions is, when do we eat, where do we eat, and what do we eat?”

Della Street said, “We eat in the little restaurant across the street, because the hotel dining room is closed. The probabilities are we’ll eat hamburger sandwiches, and we’re going to have them just as soon as Virginia Trent can take a shower, splash some cold water on her eyes, and realize that there’s nothing to cry about any longer.”

Virginia Trent said, “That would take me too long, I’m afraid... Anyway, I’m not hungry... You folks go ahead and eat... I–I want to telephone someone.”

Della Street said, “I’ve been wrestling with this disciple of black despair all afternoon, Chief. Give me fifteen minutes to freshen up. Can you do that?”

“Fine,” he told her, “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”