The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse

“What I can’t figure out, though, is why Faulkner paid out twenty-five thousand in cash and trusted to Dixon’s good faith to go through with the deal.”

“He had no alternative,” Mason said. “Besides, he knew Dixon wanted to buy his interest in the company.”

“Well, anyway, Faulkner dropped everything to rush out there. When he got out there, they raised the point about Tom Gridley. They weren’t buying any lawsuits. So Dixon called up Tom Gridley, and reached a deal with him over the phone by which Faulkner was to mail him a check for a thousand dollars. But how did Dixon and Genevieve Faulkner know all about that bullet business? I neglected to get that cleared up.”

Mason said, “How did they know everything else that went on in the company? There’s only one answer. Alberta Stanley, the secretary for the company, was in Dixon’s employ. When she told him about the bullet, he deduced what must have happened — just as I did when I heard of it.”

Tragg nodded. “Of course. The Stanley girl is the answer to lots of things.”

“What became of the check?” Mason asked.

Tragg grinned. “Just as you deduced, that was the one weak spot in Dixon’s armor. The postman was talked and bribed into giving the letter back to Dixon when the mail was collected. But I’m still a long way from pinning the murder on Wilfred Dixon.”

“Pinning the murder on him!” Mason exclaimed.

“Why, yes.”

“You can’t pin it on him,” Mason told the officer.

“Why not?”

“Use your head,” Mason said. “The person who killed Faulkner went to Faulkner’s house. He found Faulkner treating a goldfish for tad rot. He got Faulkner to stop his treatment of the goldfish and go get his fountain pen so that he could write some document, or sign some document. And then, after that document had been signed, and while Faulkner still had his fountain pen in his hand, Faulkner remembered about that check to Gridley and decided he’d make a stub that would cover the amount of the check. So he tore the check out of the book, started making out the stub, and was shot in cold blood by a man who had started to leave the house, but who saw Gridley’s gun lying on the bed, and couldn’t resist the temptation to put a bullet through Faulkner’s black heart.

“Faulkner fell down dead. When he fell, he upset the bowl of goldfish that was on the table in the bathroom. The bowl broke. One segment of the bowl contained a little water. One of the fish lived in there until he had exhausted the oxygen in the water, and then in his struggles, flopped out onto the floor. Taking the evidence of that goldfish, I’d say that the crime must have been committed somewhere around nine-thirty, and you’ll remember Faulkner said that he had an appointment at around that time.

“Wilfred Dixon and Genevieve Faulkner weren’t above rigging their books so that they had a twenty-five thousand dollar profit that wouldn’t show on their income tax. They weren’t above throwing the hooks into Faulkner and forcing him to sell out. They weren’t above getting the bullet Carson had tossed into the fish tank, proving that Carson must have put it there, and blackmailing Carson into letting go of his own holdings for a fraction of their value; but they weren’t the type that deliberately kill a man without any motive. Once they’d got Faulkner’s twenty-five thousand dollars, they certainly had no interest in bumping him off. They didn’t realize that keeping silent would doom Sally Madison — not at first. By the time they did, they were in so deep they had to carry on. Dixon couldn’t tell the truth without implicating himself and Genevieve Faulkner in a fraudulent transaction. So they decided to keep quiet. But they certainly weren’t the ones who followed Faulkner home and murdered him.”

“Then who the devil did?” Tragg asked.

“Use your head,” Mason told him. “Remember there’s a blot on the magazine, an ink smear. What makes an ink smear? A fountain pen that’s almost empty. And James L. Staunton had a written release from Faulkner which he showed you when you started crowding him, but which he didn’t show to me when I questioned him. Why didn’t he produce it sooner? Why didn’t he show it to me? Because the ink was hardly dry on it, and probably because a portion of the blot that had fallen from the almost empty fountain pen when Faulkner took it out of his pocket had stained one edge of the document.”

Tragg abruptly got up and reached for his hat. “Thanks, Mason.”

“Did that written statement have a blot on it?” Mason asked.

“Yes, on one edge. And like a damn fool I didn’t have the ink analyzed. I could have done it when I first saw the statement, and it would have shown that it had been written the night before, instead of at the time Faulkner brought the goldfish. I’m afraid, Mason, I’ve been so hypnotized by the fact that I was dealing with a girl who happened to have the murder gun in her purse, that I closed my eyes to everything else.”