The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

Abruptly, Tragg said, “All right, you two have sparred around here trying to find out how much I know. The very fact that you’ve been sparring for time convinces me that you do know the thing I wanted to find out. As Perry Mason so aptly pointed out, you could gamble with either one of two alternatives. One was that I’d received a report from the officers who answered the call to the Kellinger Hotel, and had cruised the neighborhood simply on the off Chance of picking you up. The other was that I had first picked up Sally Madison and questioned her. You stalled for time, hoping that the first alternative was the correct one. You’re wrong. I’d picked up the report from the officers when it came in as a routine radio report. I’d been up all night, waiting for a break in the case. That radio report looked like the break I’d been waiting for. I dashed out and picked up Sally Madison on the street. In her purse she had two thousand dollars in cash, the possession of which she couldn’t explain. She also had a thirty-eight caliber, double-action revolver which had recently been fired, and which bears every evidence of having been the weapon with which Harrington Faulkner was murdered. Now then, Perry Mason and Della Street, if I can prove that either one of you knew of the contents of that purse, I’m going to stick you as being accessories after the fact. I gave you every opportunity to report to me and to communicate any significant information connected with the murder of Harrington Faulkner. You chose not to do so. And, so help me, Mason, if I can prove that you knew that gun was in Sally Madison’s purse, I’m going to nail you to the cross.”

Abruptly, Lieutenant Tragg pushed back his chair, said to the puzzled waiter, “Never mind the ham and eggs. I’ll pay the check now.”

And Tragg slammed money down on the counter and walked out.

Della Street’s eyes, sick with dismay, caught those of Perry Mason. “Oh, Chief,” she said, “I should have told him! I’m sick all over.”

The lines of Mason’s face could have been carved from stone. He said, “It’s okay, kid. There were two possible alternatives. We took a chance and we lost. Now we’ll carry on from there. It seems to be our unlucky day. We’re in it together, and it’s a sweet mess.”

11

Perry Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake sat in Mason’s office, grouped around Mason’s big desk. Mason finished his account of the events of the past few hours, and said, “So you see, Paul, we’re in a jam.”

Drake whistled softly. “I’ll say you’re in a jam. Why didn’t you toss the jane overboard as soon as you saw that rod and call the cops?”

“Because I was afraid they wouldn’t have believed us in the first place, and, in the second place I hated to throw her to the wolves without knowing what it was all about. I wanted to hear her side of the story first. And, if you want to know, I thought we could sneak out of it and get away with it.”

Drake nodded, said, “Yes, it was a good gamble all right, only you seem to have lost with every throw of the dice.”

“We did indeed,” Mason said.

“Just where does that leave you now?”

Mason said, “If they can pin some part in the murder on Sally Madison, it leaves us right out on the end of the limb. If they can’t, we’ll probably squeeze out. What have you found out about the facts of the murder, Paul?”

Drake said, “They’re putting an official hush-hush on the thing, but I can tell you this much — the medical examiner made a bad slip. The young deputy coroner who went out there was green, and Sergeant Dorset was helping to ball things up. The police have fixed the time of death within a very short time, but, as I understand it, the autopsy surgeon neglected to do the one thing that would have given the cops a perfect case.”

Mason said, “That’s good.”

“I can tell you something else, Perry, that doesn’t look so good.”

“What?”

“This chap that works in the pet shop, Tom Gridley, seems to have been out there and got a check for one thousand dollars, and that check may have been about the last thing that Faulkner ever wrote.”

“How do they figure that out, Paul?”

“There was a checkbook lying on the floor. The last stub in it had been partially filled out. It was a check for one thousand dollars, and Faulkner had been writing on that stub when all of a sudden his pen simply quit writing, but he had written ‘Tom’ and then the letters ‘G-r-i.’ Quite evidently he’d been intending to write ‘Tom Gridley.’ There was a fountain pen found on the floor.”

Mason thought that over for a moment, said, “What did Tom Gridley say about it, Paul?”

“No one knows. The police swooped down on him as soon as they found that stub in the checkbook, and Gridley has been out of circulation ever since.”

“When do the police think the murder was committed?”