“Yes.”
“And what time did you get there?”
“Around — somewhere between eight and half-past eight. I don’t know exactly when.”
“And you found the door open and walked in?”
“Yes.”
Mason said, “You’re trying to cover up for Tom, and it won’t work.”
“No, I’m telling you the truth, Mr. Mason.”
Mason said, “Look here, Sally, your story just doesn’t sound probable. Now you’ve got to face the facts. I’m talking to you not only for your own good, but for Tom’s. If you don’t do exactly as I tell you, you’re going to get Tom into a mess. He’ll be held in jail for months. He may be tried for murder. He might be convicted. But even if he’s just held in jail, you know what that will do to Tom’s health.”
She nodded.
“Now then,” Mason said in a low voice, “you’ve got to do one thing. You’ve got to tell me the truth.”
She met his eyes steadily. “I’ve told you the truth, Mr. Mason.”
Mason sat for some thirty seconds, his face a mask of concentration, his fingertips drumming on the table. Behind the heavy wire screen, the girl regarded him thoughtfully.
Abruptly, Mason pushed back his chair. “You sit right there,” he said, and, catching the eye of the matron, he explained, “I want to make a telephone call, then I’m coming back.”
Mason crossed over to the telephone booth in a corner of the visitor’s room and dialed Paul Drake’s office. A few seconds later, he had the detective on the line.
“Perry Mason, Paul,” the lawyer said. “Anything new on Staunton?”
“Where are you now, Perry?”
“I’m up at the visitors’ room in the jail.”
“Gosh, yes. I called Della a few minutes ago. She didn’t know where to get in touch with you. The police have got a statement out of Staunton and have put him back into circulation. He won’t talk about anything that’s in the statement, but one of my operatives got hold of him and asked him the question you wanted to know, and he answered that.”
“What was the answer?”
“On Wednesday night, after Faulkner had taken those fish out to Staunton’s place, and Staunton had telephoned the pet shop, he said it was quite late before the pet shop came out with the treatment.”
“Not early?”
“No. He said it was quite late. He doesn’t remember the exact time, but it was quite late.”
Mason heaved a sigh, said, “That’s a break. Sit right where you are, Paul,” and hung up the telephone.
The lawyer’s eyes were glinting as he returned to face Sally Madison across the visitor’s table. “All right, Sally,” he said in a low voice, “now we’ll talk turkey.”
Her eyes regarded him with studied innocence. “But, Mr. Mason, I have been telling you the exact truth.”
Mason said, “We’ll think back to Wednesday night, Sally, when I first met you, when I came over and sat down at the table with you in the restaurant. Remember?”
She nodded.
Mason said, “Now, at that time, you reached an agreement with Harrington Faulkner. You’d been holding him up, but you’d been exerting sufficient pressure on him to make him pay the piper. His fish were dying and he knew it, and he would have paid a good deal to have saved their lives. He also knew that this treatment for gill disease Tom had worked out was valuable, and he was willing to pay something for that.”
Again she nodded.
Mason said, “Faulkner gave you a check and a key to the office and told you to go out and treat the fish, didn’t he?”
Again she nodded.
“Now then, where did you go?”
She said, “I went directly to the store to get Tom, but Tom was fixing up some treatment for some other fish that Mr. Rawlins had consented to treat. Rawlins was fixing up a treatment tank and he wanted Tom to finish getting some panels ready.”
“That was the tank he took to Staunton’s place?”
“Yes.”
Mason said, “You’ve overlooked one thing, Sally. You didn’t think anyone would ever bother to check up on that time element with Staunton. You’re lying. Tom didn’t fix up that tank for Rawlins to take to Staunton’s until after he’d gone to Faulkner’s place. You intended to rush right back to the pet store and fix up that other tank. But the fact that Faulkner’s fish were gone and that he called the police delayed you materially. You didn’t get back until quite late. And Rawlins, therefore, didn’t deliver Staunton’s tank until quite late. Staunton is positive about that.”
“He’s mistaken.”
“Oh no, he isn’t,” Mason said. “When Faulkner gave you the key to that office, it was the opportunity you’d been waiting for. You went out there with a homemade extension dipper consisting of a silver soup ladle to which had been tied a section of broomstick. You dredged something out of the bottom of that fish tank. Then you had to leave in a hurry because Tom tipped you off someone was coming. So you ran out, jumped in Tom’s car, drove around the block, and then came driving up to the office again as though you’d just arrived from the pet store.”
She shook her head in sullen, defiant negation.
Mason said, “All right, I’m telling you what’s happened. You lie to me and you’re sending Tom to his death. Do you still stick with your story?”
She nodded.
Mason pushed back his chair. “That settles it,” he said. “When Tom dies, remember that you’re responsible.”
She let him take two steps before she called him back. Then she leaned forward so that her face was all but pressed against the heavy mesh. “It’s true, Mr. Mason — everything you said.”
Mason said, “That’s better. Now suppose you tell me the truth. How did you know that bullet was in the tank?”
“How did you know it was a bullet?”
“Never mind,” Mason said, “I’m asking you. How did you know it was in the tank?”
“Mr. Faulkner told me.”
“Oh, oh!” Mason said. “Now we’re getting some place. Go ahead.”
“Mrs. Faulkner told me that she was satisfied I’d find a .38 caliber bullet somewhere in the bottom of that fish tank; that she knew Tom was going to be called on to treat those fish; that she wanted to have that bullet recovered, and she also wanted to be absolutely certain that she could prove where the bullet came from. She said that I must arrange it so that both Tom and I were present when the bullet was recovered. Well, that’s about all there was to it, Mr. Mason. When Mr. Faulkner gave me the key, I got hold of Tom, and we intended to recover the bullet first and then come back after Mr. Faulkner had arrived, and treat the fish. But when we got there and let ourselves into the office, the fish weren’t there. For a minute or two, I didn’t know what to do. But then I went ahead just as we’d planned. I took the dipper and we got the bullet out and just then we heard a car coming.”
“You didn’t leave Tom out in the car to watch?”
“No. We both had to go in there. That was the agreement. But we felt certain we had plenty of time. The house next door was dark and I knew that Mr. Faulkner would be at the café for some little time — at least I thought he would. But we heard this car coming and it frightened us and we dashed out in such a hurry that we didn’t dare to take the ladle with us.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Then we drove around the corner and waited until we saw you and Mr. Faulkner drive up. And then we came around there and acted as innocent as possible, pretending that we’d just come from the pet store.”
“And then what did you do with the bullet?”
“I gave it to Mrs. Faulkner.”
“When?”
“Not until last night”
“Why not until last night?”
“I telephoned her and told her I had it, and she said that it would be all right; that I could have the money all right but that I’d have to wait until the coast was all clear.”