The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

“Don’t be silly. It wouldn’t have made a particle of difference. We’d have come dashing out here, and then we’d have been the ones to have found the tank empty. He’d have managed to blame us for that somehow, for... Say, you don’t suppose the old buzzard’s going to get technical about that check, now that his goldfish have been stolen?”

Gridley said, “I don’t see any reason why he should. That formula is a safe and sure cure for gill disease. They’ve never had anything before that could come anywhere near touching it. Why, I can cure any case within forty-eight hours... well, make it seventy-two hours to be on the safe side, but the fish begin to get better almost as soon as I put the first panel in the tank. Then I change it at the end of twelve hours and put in a little stronger solution. After that...”

“Never mind, dear,” Sally Madison said, as though cautioning him to silence. “These people aren’t particularly interested in goldfish.”

Paul Drake caught Mason’s eye, closed his own eye in a slow wink.

Mrs. Faulkner and Della Street returned from the kitchen with glasses, ice cubes, Scotch and soda. Mrs. Faulkner poured drinks, Della Street served them. Then Mrs. Faulkner seated herself across the room from Mason. She crossed well-curved legs and saw that the sweep of her skirt was just right across the knee. “I have,” she said to Perry Mason with an artificial smile, “heard a lot about you. I hoped that someday I’d meet you. I’ve read about all your cases — followed them with a great deal of interest.”

“Thank you,” Mason said, and had just started to say something else when the front door was pushed open and Harrington Faulkner, white with rage, said in a voice indignation had made harsh and rasping, “Do you know what they told me? They told me that there’s no law against kidnapping fish! They said that if I could prove outside thieves got into the place it would be burglary, but since Elmer Carson owns a half interest in the place and has the right to come and go as he pleases, that if he wanted to enter the place and take my goldfish, the only thing I could do would be to start a civil suit for damages. And then one of the officers had the temerity to tell me that the damages wouldn’t amount to much; that you could buy a whole flock of goldfish for half the amount I’d have to pay a lawyer to draw up the papers. The ignorance of the man is as annoying as it is unpardonable. A flock of fish! The ignoramus! You’d have thought he was talking about birds.”

“Did you,” Mason asked, “tell him that Elmer Carson was the one who had taken the fish?”

Faulkner’s eyes shifted away from Mason’s. “Well, of course I told him that I’d been having trouble with Carson and that Carson had a key. You see, whoever got in must have got in through the door.”

“The windows all locked?” Mason asked.

“The windows were all locked. Someone had taken a screw driver or a chisel and pried open the kitchen door, but it was a clumsy job. As the officers pointed out, it had been done from the inside, and furthermore, the door on the screen porch was hooked shut. Whoever did it made a very clumsy attempt to make it seem that burglars had forced an entrance through the back door. No one would have been fooled by it. I don’t know anything about burglary, but just as soon as I looked at the marks on the door even I could tell what had happened.”

Mason said, “I warned you not to make any charges against Carson. In the first place, you’re putting yourself in a dangerous position making accusations which you can’t substantiate, and in the second place, I felt certain that once the police got the idea that it was a feud between two business associates, they’d wash their hands of the entire affair.”

“Well, it’s been done now,” Faulkner said coldly, “and personally I don’t think the way you suggested that I handle it was the proper way to have handled it. When you come right down to it, Mr. Mason, my interest in the matter lies in recovering my fish before it is too late. Those fish are very valuable. They mean as much to me as my own family. The fish are in a very critical condition and I want them back so I can treat them and save their lives. You’re as bad as the police, with your damned don’t-do-this and don’t-do-that.”

Faulkner’s voice rose to a rasp of nervous tension. The man’s calm seemed so completely shattered that he might have been on the verge of hysteria. “Can’t any of you understand the importance of this? Don’t you realize that those fish represent the crowning achievement of something that has been my hobby for years? You all sit there doing nothing, making no constructive suggestions. Those fish are sick. They may be dying right now, and no one lifts a finger to do anything about it. Not a finger! You just sit here guzzling my whiskey while they die!”