The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

Mason glanced at the detective.

“What’s the matter, Paul? You seem to be stalling around. What’s the trouble?”

Paul Drake picked up a pencil, twisted it in his fingers. “Perry,” he said quietly, “Sally Madison’s past reputation isn’t too good.”

Mason flushed. “That’s the second time today I’ve heard that. All right, so what?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “If Sally Madison told you she got that two thousand dollars from Genevieve Faulkner she’s lying.”

“I didn’t say she told me that, Paul.”

“You didn’t say so, no.”

“What makes you think she’d be lying if she had told me that?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “My men have just uncovered some new evidence. That is, they didn’t uncover it, they picked it up from a friendly newspaper reporter who, in turn, got it from the police.”

“What is it?”

“Yesterday afternoon Harrington Faulkner went to his bank and drew out twenty-five thousand dollars in cold, hard cash. He went to the bank personally. He insisted on having the money in the form of cash and from the way he acted, the bank teller thought that perhaps he was being blackmailed. He wanted the money in thousand-dollar bills and hundred-dollar bills and in fifty-dollar bills. The teller made an excuse that it would take him a little while to get the cash together in just that form, and kept Faulkner waiting for a few minutes while he and an assistant stepped back into the vault and hurriedly took down the numbers of the bills, just in case something should turn up later. The two thousand dollars that Sally Madison had in her purse is money that was given her by Harrington Faulkner, and by no one else. And there’s another twenty-three thousand dollars that she has cached away somewhere.”

Mason said, “You’re sure, Paul?”

“Not dead sure, Perry, but I have the information pretty straight and I’m passing it on to you just the way I got it. I think you’ll find that it checks.”

Mason’s mouth was hard.

“Now then,” Drake went on, “there’s some news on the credit side of the ledger. That gun is Tom Gridley’s gun, all right, but I guess there’s no question Gridley took it to the pet shop and Faulkner picked it up there. The police have pretty well reconstructed Faulkner’s day from the time he left the bank until the time he was murdered.”

“I already know about the gun. What time did he leave the bank, Paul?”

“It was well after banking hours. Pretty close to five o’clock. He’d telephoned and they’d let him in the side door. He put the money in a satchel. He left the bank and picked up a taxicab at the hotel right across the street from the place where he banks. He drove to the pet store, got hold of Rawlins and started taking an inventory. While he was taking the inventory he found Gridley’s gun and slipped it in his pocket. Rawlins told him that it belonged to Gridley, but Faulkner didn’t say anything. Of course, in the light of what we know now and knowing that Faulkner had twenty-five thousand dollars in cash in that satchel, it’s only reasonable to suppose that he might have been interested in having a gun for his own protection.”

Mason nodded.

“Anyway, he put the gun in his hip pocket. Then he went over and opened the safe. Remember, he had the combination from Rawlins.”

“And what happened then?”

“There was a can of paste in there, and Faulkner wanted to know what that was.”

“What was it, the fish remedy?”

“That’s right. It was some of that compound that Rawlins had talked Tom Gridley into mixing up, because Rawlins had some fish of his own that had gill disease and he wanted to treat them. He’d had some difficulty getting Tom to do it, but had finally persuaded Tom by promising him that he wouldn’t let anyone know about it.”

“Where was Tom that afternoon?”

“Tom was in bed at home. He was having a bad spell, running a fever and coughing, and Rawlins had told him to go home.”

“What did Rawlins do when Faulkner opened the safe?”

“Rawlins had a fit when he saw what Faulkner was up to. Faulkner took the can of paste, and right there in the store, telephoned to a consulting chemist whom he knew. It was after office hours — getting along toward seven-thirty by that time — and Faulkner telephoned this chemist at his home, told him he had something that he wanted analyzed; that he was coming right out with it.”

Mason said under his breath, “The dirty so-and-so.”

“I know it,” Drake said, “but what I’m giving you now, Perry, is evidence. This is the thing you’re going to have to fight in court. They’ll account for every minute of Faulkner’s time right from five o’clock in the afternoon to the time he was killed.”

“Go ahead,” Mason told him.

Drake said, “When Rawlins saw what was happening he had a fit. He almost took the can away from Faulkner by force. He told Faulkner that he had given Tom Gridley his own personal word that the can would only be used to treat some fish that were suffering from gill disease there in the pet shop’s own aquarium.”

“What did Faulkner do?”