“Oh, but I think there are. I think that lots of people collect them as a hobby.”
“But do you think there’s enough gill disease to enable Mr. Faulkner to break even on an investment of that size?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I’m interested in is seeing that Tom gets a chance to go out into the country, some place where there’s sunshine and fresh air. He’s got to go where he can take life easy for a while. If he does, they tell me he can be cured absolutely. If he doesn’t, things will go from bad to worse until finally it will be too late. I’m giving Mr. Faulkner an opportunity to cure those prize fish of his and to have a remedy that will enable him to build up his strain without danger of future infection, and that’s worth a lot to him. When you consider what he’s spent on them, I’m letting him off cheap.”
Mason smiled. “But you’re boosting the ante on him one thousand dollars a day?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Why?”
“He’s trying to blackmail me. He says Tom worked out his invention while he was working for Rawlins and that, therefore, the invention belongs to Rawlins and unless Tom cures his fish, then Mr. Faulkner will buy an interest in Rawlins’ store and sue Tom for his invention. Mr. Faulkner is a hard man, and I’m dealing with him in the only way he’ll understand — the hard way.”
“And just what is Tom Gridley to you?” Mason asked.
She met his eyes steadily. “My boy friend.”
Mason chuckled. “Well,” he said, “it’s no wonder Faulkner thinks you’re a golddigger. I thought from the way he talked that he’d been making passes at you and that you were holding him up.”
Her eyes flickered somewhat scornfully over to where Harrington Faulkner was sitting, stiffly uncomfortable, at the table. “Mr. Faulkner,” she announced with cold finality, “never made passes at anyone,” and then, after a moment, qualified by adding, “except a goldfish.”
Mason smiled. “The man’s married?”
“That’s what I mean. A goldfish.”
“His wife?”
“Yes.”
The waiter appeared with food on a tray. “Shall I serve you at this table?” he inquired of Mason.
Mason looked over to where Harrington Faulkner had turned to regard proceedings at the other table, apparently with anxiety. “If you don’t mind,” he said to Sally Madison, “I’ll return to my table, and send Mr. Faulkner back to join you. I don’t think I’ll take his case.”
“You don’t need to send him back,” Sally Madison said. “Tell him to send over his check for five thousand bucks, and tell him from me that I’m going to wait here until I get it, or until his damn black goldfish turn belly up.”
“I’ll tell him,” Mason promised, and, excusing himself, returned to his own table.
Faulkner glanced at him questioningly.
Mason nodded. “I don’t know just what you want,” he said, “but I’ll at least look into the matter — after I’ve had something to eat.”
“We could talk right here,” Faulkner said.
Mason’s nod indicated Sally Madison sitting alone at the other table. “After I’ve had something to eat,” he repeated, “and I take it you didn’t want me to try and work out any terms with Miss Madison, because, if you did, I’m not interested.”
Faulkner said, “Sally Madison’s proposition amounts to blackmail.”
“I dare say it does,” Mason agreed calmly. “There’s a lot of blackmail in the world.”
Faulkner said bitterly, “I suppose she’s played upon your sympathies. After all, her face and her figure are her biggest asset, and how well she knows it!” And then he added somewhat bitterly, “Personally, I don’t see what people can see in that type.”
Mason merely grinned. “Personally,” he announced, “I have never collected goldfish.”
3
A thick pea-soup fog had settled down upon the streets of the city until it seemed that Mason’s automobile was swimming slowly through a sea of watered milk. The windshield wipers were busily beating a monotonous rhythm of cold protest against the clammy surface of the windshield. Some fifty feet ahead, the red taillight of Harrington Faulkner’s automobile served as a guiding beacon.
“He’s a slow driver,” Della Street said.
“An advantage in weather of this kind,” Mason agreed.
Drake laughed. “Bet the guy never took a chance in his life. He’s a cold-blooded, meticulous bird with an ice water personality. I almost died when I saw him kick through over there at the table with that golddigger. How much did she nick him for, Perry?”
“I don’t know.”
“Judging from the expression on his face when he took out his checkbook,” Della said, “it must have been just about what the girl asked for. She certainly didn’t waste any time once she got her hands on the check. She didn’t even wait to finish her dinner.”
“No,” Mason said, “she didn’t make any bones about it. Her interest in Harrington Faulkner was purely financial.”
“And when we get out to his house, just what are we supposed to do?” Drake wanted to know.
Mason grinned. “I’ll bite, Paul, but he feels that he has to show us the location of the goldfish tank before we can understand his problem. It seems that’s an important phase of the case as far as he’s concerned, and when he gets an idea, he gets it all the way. As I gather it, Faulkner and his wife live in a large duplex house. One side is their living quarters and the other is where Faulkner and his partner, Elmer Carson, have their office. Apparently, Faulkner has various goldfish tanks scattered around the place and this particular pair of Veiltail Moors that is the cause of all the excitement is in part of the building that was used as an office. For some reason, Faulkner wants us to see the tank and the fish, and he has to have things done just so or not at all. It’s just the way he’s made.”
Drake said, “Faulkner’s a self-contained little cuss. You’d think it would take more than an ordinary jolt to send him running to a lawyer, all steamed up. What I mean is, he’s the sort you’d expect to find making an appointment two days in advance and keeping that appointment to the exact second.”
Mason said, “He evidently thinks more of that pair of Veiltail Moors than he does of his right eye. However, we’ll get the details when we get out to his house. My own idea is there’s something on his mind other than these fish and the affair with his partner, but I’m not going to stick my neck out until I see what’s in the offing.”
The taillight of the car ahead veered abruptly to the right. Mason piloted his car around the corner. They drove down a side street, pulled to a stop in front of a house which showed in misty outlines through the fog. Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake jumped out of the automobile, watched Harrington Faulkner carefully lock the ignition of his car, then lock the car door, following which he walked completely around the automobile, trying each of the doors to make sure it was locked. He even tried the trunk to make sure that it too was firmly bolted. Then he moved over to join them, a precise, gray-headed little man with calm, unhurried demeanor and studied precision in every move he made.
Having joined them, he took a leather key container from his pocket, carefully slid the zipper around the edges, took out a key and said in the precise tones of a lecturer explaining something to an audience in which he had only an impersonal interest, “Now, Mr. Mason, you will notice that there are two outer doors to this house, the one on the left bears the sign ‘FAULKNER AND CARSON, INCORPORATED, REALTORS.’ The door on the right is the door to my house.”
“Where does Elmer Carson live?” Mason asked.