The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

“Well, tonight I was down at the store. Tom had been home sick, and I was helping Mr. Rawlins. You see, Mr. Faulkner really did buy out the store and Rawlins was taking inventory, and because Tom was sick today he needed someone to help him. Mr. Faulkner had been there from a little after five o’clock until around seven-thirty, making a lot of trouble. He’d even done something terrible that Mr. Rawlins wouldn’t tell me about. It had upset Mr. Rawlins so that he’d quarreled — Rawlins said he’d tell me tomorrow — he’d taken something of Tom’s. Well, all of this is just to explain why I promised to take out that treatment. You see, Mr. Rawlins was planning to go out to Staunton’s house to put that last panel in the tank when Rawlins’ wife called up and said there was a movie she wanted to see and wanted him to take her. When Mrs. Rawlins wants anything like that she doesn’t want to be put off, and so Mr. Rawlins said he’d have to go and I told him I’d finish up, lock up the store and use my own car to take the panel out.”

“And you did?” Mason asked.

“That’s right. Mr. Rawlins was so nervous he was almost crazy. I finished the inventory and then just a short time ago took the panel out there. Mr. Staunton wasn’t home, but his wife was there and I told her I was from the pet store and that I had a new panel to insert in the fish tank, that it would only take a minute or two to put it in. She was very gracious and told me to come right on in. She said her husband had the fish tank in his study. That he was out and wouldn’t be back for awhile and that it would probably be better if I put the panel in, as she didn’t want to take the responsibility.”

“So you went on in with the panel?” Mason asked.

“That’s right, and when I got in the study I found the tank contained a pair of Veiltail Moor Telescopes!”

“What did you do?”

“For a moment I was too flabbergasted to do anything.”

“Where was Mrs. Staunton?”

“Standing right beside me. She’d shown me into the study and was waiting for me to change the panel.”

“What did you do?”

“After a minute I just walked over to the tank, took the old panel out and slipped in the new one that was coated with Tom’s remedy. Then I tried to start talking about the fish. You know, saying they were very beautiful, asking whether Mr. Staunton had any other fish or not, and how long he’d had these.”

“What did his wife say?”

“She thought the fish were ugly, and said so. She told me that her husband picked them up somewhere, that he’d never dabbled around with fish before and didn’t know anything about them. She said that some friend had given him these two and that they hadn’t been well when he got them. That the friend was giving him specific instructions, telling him just what to do. She said that personally she’d have liked it a lot better if her husband had started out with just a couple of plain goldfish. That these were supposed to be extra fancy — that they gave her the creeps with their long, sweeping black fins and tails, their swivel eyes and the funereal color. She said that somehow they seemed symbolic of death. Well, of course, that wasn’t anything new because the fish have long been called ‘The Fish of Death,’ due to some ancient superstition and the peculiar appearance they have.”

“Then what?” Mason asked.

“Well, I hung around and talked with her for a minute and lied to her a little. I told her I’d been sick and that there’d been a lot of sickness at the store. I talked along those lines for a minute and then she told me that she had been sick last year but that she hadn’t even had so much as a headache since then — that she had taken some cold shots a year ago and started taking vitamins steadily, and that the combination seemed to have done wonders for her.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Then I realized what I was up against, and suddenly became afraid Mr. Staunton would come back and I’d run right slap into him. So I got out just as fast as I could. I’ve been terribly afraid that if he came home his wife would tell him what we were talking about, and about the questions I’d asked, and then he’d get rid of the fish, or do something.”

“What makes you think they were Faulkner’s fish?”

“Oh, I’m certain they were. They’re the same size and description and they were suffering from gill disease, although they’re pretty well cured now and, of course, Veiltail Moors, particularly Telescopes, are very rare and it’s inconceivable a man would start out with two fish like that, particularly if they were sick. And then, of course, there’s all those lies he told about his wife being sick. All the things he did to keep Mr. Rawlins from getting a look at the fish.”

“You’ve told Tom about this?” Mason asked.