The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

“No, I’ve told no one. I got out of the house and went to your office and tried to get the night janitor to tell me where I could get in touch with you. He wouldn’t do it — said he didn’t know and then I was almost frantic. I remembered your secretary’s name was Della Street, but I couldn’t find her listed in the telephone book. Then I remembered you’d said Mr. Drake was the head of the Drake Detective Agency, so I looked him up in the book and found the number of his office. I called there and the night operator told me Mr. Drake was out but that he usually looked in at the office before he went home at night and that if he came in within the next hour they’d have him call me if I’d leave my number. I left my number but I also kept calling because I was afraid they might forget to give him the message.”

“And you haven’t told anyone about this?”

“No. I didn’t even tell Mr. Drake. I decided I wouldn’t tell him unless I had to in order to reach you.”

“You didn’t tell Tom Gridley?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because Tom’s been terribly upset. He’s started running a high temperature every afternoon. You see, Mr. Faulkner has been exerting lots of pressure.”

“Did he stop payment on his check?”

“Not that exactly. He put it up to me in another way. He told me that the minute I cashed that check he’d have me arrested for obtaining money under false pretenses. He claims Tom developed the invention on Rawlins’ time and that the whole secret of the thing is a part of the business that he’s bought.”

“He really bought the business?”

“Oh yes. He paid Rawlins two thousand for the business, the stock and the good will, and made Rawlins agree to stay on and run it for a small salary. Rawlins hates him. I think everyone hates him, Mr. Mason. And yet the man is so self-righteous according to his own code. He thinks the law is the law, and business is business. I presume he really thinks that Tom is holding out on him, and that I was trying to hold him up — and I guess I was.”

“Has he made any offer by way of settlement?”

“Oh yes.”

“What?”

“Tom is to turn over his formula. I’m to surrender the five thousand dollar check. Tom is to agree to keep on working in the pet store for a year at his present salary and to turn over all subsequent treatments or inventions he may work out. In return for all that, Mr. Faulkner will pay Tom seven hundred and fifty dollars and keep paying him the same salary.”

“Generous, isn’t he?” Mason said. “No provision for Tom to take a lay-off for treatment?”

“No. That’s what makes me so angry. Another year in that pet store and Tom would be past all cure.”

“Doesn’t Faulkner take that into consideration?”

“Apparently not. He says Tom can get out in the sunshine on weekends, and that if Tom is too sick to work now, he doesn’t need to accept the proposition. He says Tom’s at liberty to quit work any time he wants to, that Tom’s health is Tom’s own personal problem and that it’s nothing to Faulkner. Faulkner says that if he went through life worrying about the health of his employees, he wouldn’t have any time left to devote to his own business. Oh, Mr. Mason, it’s men like that who make the world such a hard place for other men to live and work in!”

“So you didn’t tell Faulkner about finding his fish?”

“No.”

“And you don’t want to?”

She met Mason’s eyes. “I’m afraid he’d accuse us of having stolen them or something. I want you to handle this, Mr. Mason. And I feel that somehow you might — well, might turn some of Mr. Faulkner’s weapons against him — perhaps do something for Tom.”

Mason grinned, reached for his hat. “It took you long enough to say so,” he observed. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“You don’t think it’s too late — to do something tonight?”

“It’s never too late to learn,” the lawyer said. “And we’re at least going to learn something.”

5

The night was cold and clear. Mason drove rapidly through the late after-theater traffic.

Sally Madison ventured a suggestion. “Wouldn’t it perhaps be better to just start some detectives watching Staunton’s house so as to make sure he didn’t move the fish? And then wait until tomorrow?”

Mason shook his head. “Let’s find out where we stand. The thing really has me interested now.”

Thereafter they drove in silence until Mason slowed down as he came in sight of a rather pretentious stucco house with a red tile roof and wide windows. “This should be the number,” he said.

“This is the place,” Sally Madison declared. “They’re still up. You can see there’s a light in that side window.”

Mason slid the car in to the curb, switched off the ignition, and walked up the cement walk to the three stairs which led to a tiled porch.

“What are you going to say?” Sally Madison asked, excitement raising her voice to a higher pitch than usual.

“I don’t know,” Mason told her. “It’ll depend on what happens. I always like to plan my campaign after I’ve sized up my man.” He pressed a bell button at the side of the door, and a moment later the door was opened by a tall, rather distinguished looking gentleman in the middle fifties.