The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

“A rather attractive young woman,” Mason said. “She seems to be devoted to her present boy friend who works in a pet store. Doubtless she has had other boy friends to whom she has been devoted, but I think that her present affair with Tom Gridley is, perhaps, more apt to result in matrimony.”

“Something of a golddigger, I understand,” Tragg observed.

Mason’s face showed surprise. “Who told you that?”

“Oh, I get around. Is she a client of yours?”

“Now there again,” Mason said smiling, “you are asking a difficult question. That is, the question is easy; it’s the answer that’s difficult.”

“You might try answering it either yes or no,” Tragg said.

“It isn’t that easy. She hasn’t as yet definitely retained me to represent her interests. But on the other hand, I think she desires to do so, and I am investigating the facts.”

“Think you’ll represent her?”

“I’m sure I can’t say. The case she presents is far from being an easy one.”

“So I would gather.”

“You see,” Mason went on, “as the agent of her boy friend, Tom Gridley, she may or may not have reached a contract with Harrington Faulkner. A contract involves a meeting of the minds, and a meeting of the minds in turn depends upon...”

Tragg held up his hand. “Please,” he begged.

Mason raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise.

Tragg said, “You’re unusually loquacious this morning, Counselor. And a man who can deliver such an extemporaneous dissertation upon the art of frying eggs could doubtless talk almost indefinitely on the law of contracts. And so, if you’ll pardon me, I think I’ll talk to your charming secretary for a while.”

Tragg turned to Della Street and asked, “Where did you spend the night last night, Miss Street?”

Della smiled sweetly: “That question, of course, Lieutenant, involved an assumption that the night is, or was, an indivisible unit. Now, as a matter of fact, a night is really divided into two periods. First, the period before midnight, which I believe was legally yesterday, and the period after midnight, which is today.”

Tragg grinned, said to Perry Mason, “She’s an apt pupil, Counselor. I doubt if you could have stalled for time any better if you had stepped in and answered the question for her.”

“I doubt if I could have done as well,” Mason admitted cheerfully.

“Now,” Tragg said, suddenly losing his smile and becoming grimly official in his manner, “suppose we quit talking about fried eggs and contracts and the legal subdivision of the period of darkness, and suppose, Miss Street, you tell me exactly where you were from ten o’clock last night until the present time, omitting nothing — and that’s an official question.”

“Is there any reason why she should have to answer that question?” Mason asked. “Even conceding that it is a legal question.”

Tragg’s face was as hard as granite. “Yes. In the event I get the run-around it will be an important factor in determining whether any connection Miss Street may have had with what transpired was accidental or deliberate.”

Della Street said brightly, “Well, of course...”

“Take it easy, Della,” Mason warned.

She glanced at him and at what she saw in his eyes the expression of animation fled from her features.

“I’m still waiting for an answer to my question,” Lieutenant Tragg said harshly.

“Don’t you think you should be fair with Miss Street?” Mason asked.

Tragg didn’t take his eyes from Della’s face. He said, “Your interruptions all go on the debit side of the ledger as far as I’m concerned, Mason. Miss Street, where did you spend the night?”

Mason interposed suavely, “Of course, Lieutenant, you’re not a mind reader. The fact that you came to this restaurant means that you knew we were in the neighborhood. There are logically only two sources from which you could have acquired that information. One of them is that you received over the radio a report from a patrol car stating that it had been called to the Kellinger Hotel, where a complaint had been made that two young women were receiving a male guest as a visitor in violation of the rules of the hotel, and the police had been called to eject the tenants. You thereupon acted upon the assumption that you would, perhaps, find the parties who had been ejected in a near-by all-night restaurant, and by the simple process of cruising around, located us here.”

Tragg started to say something, but Mason, slightly raising his voice, kept the conversational lead. “The other assumption is that you picked up Sally Madison on the street a few moments ago and questioned her. In which event you learned from her that we were in the vicinity. And if you questioned her, you doubtless made a rather complete job of it.”

Mason’s warning glance at Della Street conveyed the impression to her that in such event Lieutenant Tragg had doubtless examined the purse and by this time was fully familiar with its contents.

Tragg was still looking at Della Street. “Now that you’ve been properly coached, Miss Street, where did you spend the night?”