The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

Mason jerked his thumb toward the telephone. “I’ve asked my question. If there’s any more questioning to be done, it’ll be done by the police.”

“I don’t fear the police. Suppose I should just call your bluff, Mr. Mason?”

“Go ahead.”

“I have nothing to conceal, and I have committed no crime. I’ve received you at this unusually late hour because I know who you are and have a certain respect for your professional standing, but I’m not going to be insulted, and I warn you, Mr. Mason, I’m not going to be browbeaten.”

“Who gave you the fish?” Mason asked.

“That’s a question I don’t care to answer.”

Mason took the cigarette from his mouth, casually moved his long legs, and walked over to the telephone, picked up the receiver, dialed Operator, and said, “Give me police headquarters, please.”

Staunton said rapidly, “Wait a minute, Mr. Mason! You’re going altogether too fast! If you make any accusation against me to the police you’ll regret it.”

Without looking around, still holding the receiver to his ear, Mason said over his shoulder, “Who gave you the fish, Staunton?”

“If you want to know,” Staunton almost shouted in exasperation, “it was Harrington Faulkner!”

“I thought it might have been,” Mason said, and dropped the receiver back into its cradle.

“So,” Staunton went on defiantly, “the fish belong to Harrington Faulkner. He gave them to me to keep for him. I write a lot of insurance for the Faulkner-Carson Realty Company. I was glad to do Mr. Faulkner a favor. There’s certainly no law against that, and I think you’ll now appreciate the danger of your position in insinuating the fish were stolen and that I am acting in collusion with the thief.”

Mason returned to his chair, crossed his long legs at the knees, grinned at the now indignant Staunton and said, “How were the fish brought to you — in the tank which is on the filing cases at the present time?”

“No. If Miss Madison is from the pet store, she’ll know that’s a treatment tank they furnished. It’s an oblong tank made to accommodate the medicated panels which are slid down into the water.”

“What sort of a tank were they in when you got them?” Mason asked.

Staunton hesitated, then said, “After all, Mr. Mason, I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“It might be considered significant.”

“I don’t think so.”

Mason said, “I’ll tell you this much. If Harrington Faulkner delivered those fish to you, he did so as part of a fraudulent scheme he was perpetrating, and as a part of that scheme he reported the theft of these fish to the police. Now the police aren’t going to like that. So, if you have any connection with what happened, you had better get in the clear right now.”

“I didn’t have any connection with any fraudulent scheme. All I know is that Mr. Faulkner asked me to take charge of these fish.”

“And brought them to you himself?”

“That’s right.”

“When?”

“Early Wednesday evening.”

“About what time Wednesday?”

“I don’t know exactly what time it was. It was rather early.”

“Before dinner?”

“I think it was.”

“And how were the fish brought to you? In what sort of a container?”

“That’s the thing which I told you before was none of your business.”

Mason once more got up, walked across to the telephone, picked up the receiver and started to dial Operator. There was a grim finality about his manner.

“In a bucket,” Staunton said hastily.

Mason slowly, almost reluctantly, put the receiver back into its cradle. “What sort of a bucket?”

“An ordinary galvanized iron pail.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“Told me to call the David Rawlins Pet Shop, tell them I had a couple of very valuable fish that were suffering from gill disease, for which I understood there was a new treatment furnished by the pet shop. I was to offer to pay them one hundred dollars for treatment of these fish. I did just that. That’s all I know about it, Mr. Mason. My skirts are entirely clean.”

“They aren’t as clean as you claim,” Mason said, still standing by the telephone, “and they don’t cover you as much as you’d like. You forget about what you told the man from the pet shop?”

“What do you mean?”

“About your wife being sick and that she wasn’t to be disturbed.”

“I didn’t want my wife to know anything about it.”

“Why?”

“Because it was a matter of business, and I don’t discuss business with her.”

“But you lied to the man from the pet shop?”

“I don’t like that word.”

“Describe it by any word you like,” Mason said, “but let’s remember that you made a false statement to the man from the pet shop. You did that to keep him from coming in so that he wouldn’t see the fish.”

“I don’t think that’s a fair statement, Mr. Mason.”

Mason grinned and said, “Think it over for awhile, Staunton. Think over how you’re going to feel on the witness stand in front of a jury when I start giving you a cross-examination. You and your clean skirts!”

Mason stepped over to the window, jerked back the heavy drapes which covered the glass and stood with his back turned to the people in the room, his hands pushed down into his trouser pockets.