The Case of the Golddigger's Purse by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner [Gardner, Erle Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Della Street Press
Published: 2014-03-01T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 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 siphon the water out of the empty goldfish tank. That is, it was empty of goldfish.”

Mason nodded.

“After the water was siphoned 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,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.