The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

Drake pushed back his chair and went out into the main part of the restaurant where there was a phone booth.

Mason said to Della Street, “You know, Della, if it weren’t for the time element in this case, we could bust it wide open.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way the district attorney follows every move Faulkner made up to the time of his death. They pick him up at five o’clock when he went to the bank, and carry him right on through from there. From the bank to the pet shop, from the pet shop to the consulting chemist, from the consulting chemist to his home, and leave him just time enough to get his coat and shirt off when the call to the man at the banquet place is put through, and then Faulkner is heard ordering Sally Madison out. At that time he’s in a hurry to get dressed and shaved, and go to that banquet. He’s evidently been in that house not over five or six minutes. He’s partially undressed, turned hot water in the bathtub, has lathered his face, shaved and put the razor on the shelf. Hang it, Della, if it weren’t for that fingerprint on the satchel. How I would like to prove that someone entered that house right after Sally Madison went out and pulled the trigger on that gun!”

Della Street asked abruptly, “Do you suppose Sally really got that bullet?”

“She must have. I had doped that out even before I talked with her in jail. I felt certain that she must have been the one who dredged that bullet out of the fish tank.”

“You don’t think she got it for Carson?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because Carson didn’t know that anyone had taken the bullet out of there.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because,” Mason said, “Carson must have been the one who made that final desperate attempt to recover the bullet by syphoning the water out of the tank and turning the tank upside down. And he must have done that on the night Faulkner was murdered. Hang it, Della, let’s go at this thing in an orderly way. Let’s quit letting ourselves be confused simply because we’re representing a client who is lying to us and who has got us into a jackpot. Let’s quit being exasperated and use our brains as reasoning machines.”

“No matter how you reason,” Della Street said, “you always come back to the same focal point in the case that no matter how much others may have been mixed up in it, Sally Madison was the one who opened that satchel and took out the money, the one who threw the empty satchel under the bed, the one who was found in possession of a part of the money.”

Mason started drumming with the tips of his fingers on the white tablecloth.

Paul Drake pushed open the door to enter the private dining room.

“Anything new, Paul?” Mason asked.

“This operative of mine is alone in the house, just as I thought. She’s been there all by herself ever since nine o’clock. Naturally, she’s been busy!”

“Prowling around?”

“That’s right. She’s stumbled across some interesting sidelights but nothing particularly startling.”

“What are the sidelights?”

“Apparently Faulkner had been financing Staunton in some sort of a mining activity.”

Mason nodded. “I had assumed all along that Faulkner must have had some hold on Staunton; otherwise he wouldn’t have taken the fish out there and told Staunton what to do — you know the fact that Staunton handled insurance business for the real estate corporation isn’t anything that would give Faulkner such a leverage. Of course, Staunton might have mentioned that when I was talking with him, but he probably thought it was none of my business and simply mentioned the insurance matter.”

Drake said, “One thing my operative told me has me stumped.”

“What?”

“Talking with Mrs. Staunton last night, she found out that on the night of the murder the telephone in the house had been out of order. Only the telephone in Staunton’s study was working.”

“Is she sure, Paul?”

“That’s what Mrs. Staunton told her. Mrs. Staunton said she had to go to the study that night when she wanted to telephone. She mentioned it because she doesn’t like the fish and didn’t like to go in the room where the fish were. She said they gave her the creeps, staring at her with those queer, protruding eyes. But that her telephone had been out of order all afternoon and that the company didn’t get it fixed until the next day; that the one in the study was a separate line and was working.”

Mason said, “Hang it, Paul, do you suppose Staunton was smart enough to know what I was doing when I casually walked over and pulled the drapes back and stood looking out of the window?”

“I don’t know,” Drake said. “How long did you watch outside of the house after you went out, Perry?”