The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

“I looked there at first,” Drake said, “but didn’t find anything, so I swung around the corner and found there’s a place on the side street where you can look across a vacant lot and see the front of the Faulkner house, and also the driveway to the garage. Just about as far up the driveway as the point where Mrs. Faulkner parked the car. You’re looking across a vacant lot and between two houses but you can see the place all right. And that’s where I found a pile of cigarette stubs and some burnt matches.”

“What brand of cigarettes, Paul?”

“Three or four. Some with lipstick, some without. Different kinds of matches, some paper matches, some wooden ones.”

“Any identifying marks on the paper matches?”

“To tell you the truth, Perry, I didn’t stay there long enough to look. As soon as I found the place, I beat it back to tip you off. I thought perhaps you’d like to look at it. You were just pulling away from the curb, so I blinked my lights and tagged along behind. I was afraid to pull up alongside because I didn’t want the cop in charge to think I’d discovered something important within four or five minutes after I’d driven away from the place. Not that I think the idea would have registered with him, but it might have, you never can tell. Want me to go back and make a more detailed examination?”

Mason tilted back the brim of his hat, moved the tips of his fingers through the wavy hair on his temple. “Hang it, Paul, if you can see the house from the place where the ash tray was emptied, then anyone standing in the front of the house or on the driveway can look back and see the place where we would be looking the stuff over. Your flashlight would be something they couldn’t overlook.”

“I thought of that,” Drake said.

“Tell you what you do, Paul. Go back and mark the place some way so you can identify it. After that, get a dustpan and brush, sweep up the whole outfit and drop it in a paper bag.”

“You don’t suppose Dorset will think that’s concealing evidence, do you?”

“It’s preserving evidence,” Mason pointed out. “It’s what the police would do if they happened to think of it.”

“But suppose they happen to think of it and the stuff is gone?”

Mason said, “Let’s look at it from the other angle, Paul. Suppose they don’t happen to think of it, and a street-washing outfit comes along and sluices the stuff down into the sewer. Then what?”

“Well,” Drake said dubiously. “Of course, we could tell Sergeant Dorset.”

“Dorset has taken Sally Madison out to Staunton’s place. Don’t be so damned conscientious, Paul. Get busy and get that stuff in a paper bag.”

Drake hesitated. “Why should Mrs. Faulkner have been waiting there for you to drive up, and then come scorching around the corner as soon as she saw your car stop?”

Mason said, “It might mean she knew the body was in there on the floor and didn’t want to be the one to discover it, all by herself. It must also mean that she knew Sally Madison and I were going to call at the house, and that in turn means that Staunton must have reached her on the telephone, almost immediately after we left his place.”

“Where would he have telephoned her?”

“Probably at her house. She may have been there with the body on her hands and when she knew we were coming, she saw a chance to give herself a sort of alibi. You know, that she’d been absent all evening and arrived just about the same time we did. That brings us back to what must have happened out at Staunton’s house. I pulled back the drapes on the window of Staunton’s study so I could have a clear view of the telephone from outside the window. I thought he’d be certain to rush to the telephone and call the person who had given him the fish. All he did was switch out the lights in the study. That must mean there’s another telephone in the house. Maybe an extension, maybe even a second line because he seems to do business from the house. I’m going to get a telephone book and look that up. If Staunton has two phones at the same address, I’ll know I’ve been played for a sucker. I also want to look up the address of Faulkner’s partner, Elmer Carson, and see if I can get there before the police do. You beat it up to your office, Paul, get a dustpan and a bag and sweep up that stuff from the ash tray. I’ll drive up to the boulevard and cruise around until I find a restaurant or an all-night drugstore where I can get a telephone directory. Carson lives right around here somewhere. I remember Faulkner saying that while he leased one side of the duplex house from the corporation, Carson had a private residence a few blocks away.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “It’ll take me fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the office, pick up the stuff and get back.”

“That’s okay. Dorset won’t get back for half an hour, anyway; and the boys he’s left in charge certainly won’t think of scouting around the block and connecting up an empty ash tray in Genevieve Faulkner’s car with a pile of cigarette stubs at the curb on a side street.”