Drake said, “Well, even if you could prove that Jane Faulkner had been in the house before, discovered the body, and then had gone out and sat in her automobile and waited for you to come, so that she could go through all the motions of being surprised and hysterical, I still don’t see that you’re going to get anywhere.”
Mason said, “If I get the opportunity to crucify her, I’m going to do it. You know as well as I do she’s lying about having spent the evening with Adele Fairbanks. She pulled the wool over Sergeant Dorset’s eyes there. She pretended to be ill and suffering so greatly from shock and she simply had to have a girl friend come down to stay with her. She summoned the girl friend whom she knew she could depend upon to back her up in anything she said. And while Dorset was chasing around to Staunton’s place with Sally Madison, Jane Faulkner and Adele Fairbanks were hatching up their cute little alibi about having been together and having gone to a movie. Lieutenant Tragg would certainly never have let Mrs. Faulkner slip one over on him like that.”
“I’ll say he wouldn’t,” Drake said. “That certainly was a raw deal.”
Mason said, “Of course, Paul, someone must have been in that room with that corpse at least two or three hours after the murder was committed.”
“On account of the one live goldfish?” Drake asked.
“On account of the one live goldfish,” Mason said.
“It might have been one that happened to light in a low place in the bathroom floor where the water would collect in a little puddle and give him an opportunity to get just a little oxygen out of the water — just enough to keep him alive.”
“It could have been,” Mason said, and then added, “I consider the chances of that about one thousand to one.”
“So do I.”
“You take the fact that someone must have been in that room, coupled with the fact that we know Jane Faulkner was waiting around the corner where she could see us drive up to the house, and there’s only one answer.”
“I don’t see what good it’s going to do if you could prove that she was lying about having been in the room with the body,” Drake said. “In any event, her husband must have been dead at that time.”
Mason said, “They’re pinning a murder on my client simply because she told a few fibs. I’d like to prove someone else was telling lies as well. It all gets back to Staunton and the fact that he must have telephoned Mrs. Faulkner we were coming.”
Drake said, “I’ve got someone working on that, Perry. I won’t burden you with details, but it occurred to me there was only one way to check Staunton’s phone call.”
“How was that?”
“Through his wife. And in doing that I found out a few incidental facts.”
“Go ahead,” Mason said. “What did you find and how did you do it?”
“There was only one way of going at it,” Drake said. “That was to plant some good operative in the house who would take the part of a servant and who could pump Mrs. Staunton. I’ve got an operative right there in the house who’s checking up on things. Mrs. Staunton is tickled to death. She thinks this girl is the best all around maid she ever had.” Drake grinned and went on, “What Mrs. Staunton doesn’t realize is that she’s getting maid service from a twelve-dollar-a-day detective and that the minute this girl gets the information she wants, she’ll dust out of there, leaving Mrs. Staunton with a sink full of dirty dishes.”
“Any reports on the phone call?” Mason asked.
“Nothing on that as yet,” Drake said.
“Keep after it,” Mason told him. “That’s an important angle in the case.”
Drake looked at his watch, said, “I think I’ll give her a ring right now, Perry. I’m supposed to be her boy friend. Naturally, Mrs. Staunton is so tickled with the service she’s getting, she makes no objection whatever when the maid’s boy friend rings up. Of course, this girl may not be able to talk with me, but I have an idea she may be there all alone today. Staunton is hanging around, waiting to be a witness in this case, and there’s a pretty good chance Mrs. Staunton is out. Let me give her a ring.”
Drake pushed back his chair and went out into the main part of the restaurant where there was a phone booth.
Mason said to Della Street, “You know, Della, if it weren’t for the time element in this case, we could bust it wide open.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way the district attorney follows every move Faulkner made up to the time of his death. They pick him up at five o’clock when he went to the bank, and carry him right on through from there. From the bank to the pet shop, from the pet shop to the consulting chemist, from the consulting chemist to his home, and leave him just time enough to get his coat and shirt off when the call to the man at the banquet place is put through, and then Faulkner is heard ordering Sally Madison out. At that time he’s in a hurry to get dressed and shaved, and go to that banquet. He’s evidently been in that house not over five or six minutes. He’s partially undressed, turned hot water in the bathtub, has lathered his face, shaved and put the razor on the shelf. Hang it, Della, if it weren’t for that fingerprint on the satchel. How I would like to prove that someone entered that house right after Sally Madison went out and pulled the trigger on that gun!”
Della Street asked abruptly, “Do you suppose Sally really got that bullet?”
“She must have. I had doped that out even before I talked with her in jail. I felt certain that she must have been the one who dredged that bullet out of the fish tank.”
“You don’t think she got it for Carson?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Carson didn’t know that anyone had taken the bullet out of there.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because,” Mason said, “Carson must have been the one who made that final desperate attempt to recover the bullet by syphoning the water out of the tank and turning the tank upside down. And he must have done that on the night Faulkner was murdered. Hang it, Della, let’s go at this thing in an orderly way. Let’s quit letting ourselves be confused simply because we’re representing a client who is lying to us and who has got us into a jackpot. Let’s quit being exasperated and use our brains as reasoning machines.”
“No matter how you reason,” Della Street said, “you always come back to the same focal point in the case that no matter how much others may have been mixed up in it, Sally Madison was the one who opened that satchel and took out the money, the one who threw the empty satchel under the bed, the one who was found in possession of a part of the money.”
Mason started drumming with the tips of his fingers on the white tablecloth.
Paul Drake pushed open the door to enter the private dining room.
“Anything new, Paul?” Mason asked.
“This operative of mine is alone in the house, just as I thought. She’s been there all by herself ever since nine o’clock. Naturally, she’s been busy!”
“Prowling around?”
“That’s right. She’s stumbled across some interesting sidelights but nothing particularly startling.”
“What are the sidelights?”
“Apparently Faulkner had been financing Staunton in some sort of a mining activity.”
Mason nodded. “I had assumed all along that Faulkner must have had some hold on Staunton; otherwise he wouldn’t have taken the fish out there and told Staunton what to do — you know the fact that Staunton handled insurance business for the real estate corporation isn’t anything that would give Faulkner such a leverage. Of course, Staunton might have mentioned that when I was talking with him, but he probably thought it was none of my business and simply mentioned the insurance matter.”