12
Paul Drake was back in Perry Mason’s office within five minutes after he had left. He encountered the lawyer just leaving from the exit door of his private office.
“Where to?” Drake asked.
“Wilfred Dixon,” Mason told him. “I’m going to check up on Dixon and on the affairs of the first Mrs. Faulkner. He is her lawyer. What’s new? Anything important?”
Drake put his hand on Mason’s arm, drew Mason back into the inner office and closed the door. “Sometime during the night,” he said, “an attempt was made to get that goldfish tank out of the office. It sure looks as though you called the turn on that business, Perry.”
“Just when was the attempt made?”
“Police don’t know. For some reason or other, they never looked into the other side of the duplex house, but confined their investigations to Faulkner’s residence. Then, this morning, when Alberta Stanley, the secretary, opened up the real estate office, she found the place something of a wreck. There was a long rubber hose which had evidently been used to syphon the water out of the empty goldfish tank. That is, it was empty of goldfish.”
Mason nodded.
“After the water was syphoned out, the goldfish tank had been tipped over on its side and all of the mud and gravel in the bottom had been scooped out and left in a pile on the floor.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed. “Has it occurred to the police as yet that someone was looking for that bullet Faulkner carried into the office?”
“You can’t tell, Perry. It hasn’t occurred to Sergeant Dorset, but you never know what Lieutenant Tragg is working on. Dorset shoots off his mouth to the newspaper boys and tries to get publicity. Tragg is smooth as velvet. He kids the boys along and prefers results to publicity.”
“Anything else?” Mason asked.
Drake said, “I hate to do this, Perry.”
“Do what?”
“Be hanging crepe all over things, but it’s one of those cases where every bit of information you get is the kind you don’t want.”
“Shoot,” Mason told him.
“You remember Faulkner had a reputation of being a man who would skin the other fellow in a business deal. He kept within his own standards of honesty but he was completely ruthless.”
Mason nodded.
“Well, it seems that Faulkner was really anxious to get hold of that formula that Tom Gridley had developed for the treatment of gill disease. You remember he bought out Rawlins’ pet shop? — That was the first move in his campaign. Then, it turns out that Tom Gridley had mixed up a batch of his paste which was to be painted on plastic panels that were to be introduced into fish tanks. The trouble with Gridley is that he gets so interested in what he’s doing and... well, he’s just like a doctor. He wants to effect cures and doesn’t care too much about the financial end of things.”
“Go ahead,” Mason said.
“Well, it seems that yesterday evening, Faulkner, who had, of course, got the combination of the safe from Rawlins, went down to the pet store, opened the safe, took out the can of paste that Gridley had mixed up and sent it to a chemist to be analyzed. Rawlins was there and tried to stop him but it was no soap.”
“Faulkner certainly was a heel,” Mason said.
“According to the police, it furnishes a swell motivation for a murder.”
Mason thought the matter over and nodded his head. “Academically it’s bad. Practically it isn’t so bad.”
“You mean the way a jury will look at it?”
“Yes. It’s one of those things that you can play up strong to a jury. While technically it’s a motivation for murder, it’s such a flagrant example of oppression by a man who has money and power, who’s picking on a chap in his employ... No, Paul, that isn’t at all bad. I presume the theory of the police is that when Gridley found out about it he became terribly angry, took his gun and went up to kill Faulkner.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Mason smiled and said, “I don’t think Tragg will hold to that theory very long.”
“Why not?”
“Because the evidence is against it.”
“What do you mean? It’s Gridley’s gun, there’s no question of that.”
“Sure, it’s Gridley’s gun,” Mason said. “But mind you this: If the circumstantial evidence means what the police think it means, Tom Gridley effected a settlement with Faulkner. He may have gone up there intending to kill him, but Faulkner gave him a check for a thousand dollars. Faulkner wouldn’t have done that unless he had reached some sort of a settlement with Gridley. Gridley certainly couldn’t have killed him before the check was made out, and would have had no reason to have killed him afterwards.”
“That’s right,” Drake said.
“The minute Faulkner died, that check, and also the five thousand dollar check that Sally Madison has, weren’t worth the paper they were written on. You can’t cash a check after a man dies. I have an idea, Paul, that you’ll find Lieutenant Tragg begins to think this motive isn’t as simple as it appears to be on the surface. Hang it, if it weren’t for the evidence against Sally Madison and the fact that Della Street’s fingerprints are on that gun, we’d sit tight and tell the police to go jump in the lake. As it is, I’ve got to find out all the facts and be the first one to get the correct interpretation.”
“Suppose Sally Madison bumped him off?”
“Then,” Mason said, “the police have a perfect case against Della Street and me as being accessories after the fact.”
“Think they’ll press it?”
“You know damn well they’ll press it,” Mason said. “They’d like nothing better.”
“Well, of course,” Drake pointed out, “you can’t blame them. You certainly do skate on thin ice, Perry. You’ve been a thorn in the flesh of the police for a long time.”
Mason nodded, “I’ve had it coming to me once or twice,” he admitted, “but what makes me sore is to think that they’d really hang it on me in a case where we were absolutely innocent and only trying to help a young fellow who had T.B. get enough money to take treatments that would cure him. What have you found out about Dixon, anything?”
Drake said, “Dixon is really a deep one. Don’t make any mistake about him, Perry.”
“Have the police been after him?”
“Apparently the police don’t consider he has sufficient connection with things to bother very much about him. But my men have looked him up. He’s apparently just a common ordinary businessman, with a pretty good judgment when it comes to investments, but he’s the best poker player at his club and they say he never loses, regardless of how the cards happen to run.”
“You mean he cheats?”
“No, he bluffs, and when he’s bluffing, the other players think he has them bigger than a house. When he has them, they think he’s bluffing. Fellows who have played with him for years still get fooled. What do you want to see him for, Perry? What do you think he can tell you?”
“Damned if I know,” Mason said, “but I’m going to round up every angle of this case. Hang it, Paul, I’ve got to do it. I’m really in a mess this time, and they’ve got Della roped into it. That’s what comes of trusting a golddigger. Oh well, there’s no use conducting post mortems. By the time the police let me get in touch with Sally Madison she’ll have been bled white. I’m getting out a writ of habeas corpus and that of course will force their hand. They’ll have to put a charge against her. But by the time they do that, they’ll have really put her through a clothes wringer. Keep working, Paul, and if you get anything new, let Della Street know. Work on this case as you’ve never worked on anything else in your life. We’re working against time and we’ve got to find out not only the evidence, but we’ve got to interpret that evidence.”