Erle Gardner - The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe

Sampson said disgustedly, “Come on, we’re not getting anywhere with this. We’re just playing into Mason’s hands now.”

Holcomb said, “Well, there’s a lot about this that needs to be explained.”

“Not here,” Sampson told him.

Sergeant Holcomb stood staring at the woman on the bed, as though the sheer impact of his eyes would stir her to life. Dr. Gifford said, “You gentlemen might just as well do your brawling elsewhere. My patient is now completely oblivious to everything which is taking place.”

Holcomb turned to the doctor and said, “You’ll hear more about this.”

“Yes, there’ll be a lot more heard about it,” Dr. Gifford said grimly. “If there are any resulting complications, I am going to hold you personally responsible.”

Mason said, “I think, Doctor, we can get a court order restraining the officers from asking any further questions until after you have decided that such questions won’t jeopardize her health.”

“That interval,” Dr. Gifford said with dignity, “will, of necessity, be somewhat prolonged because of the mental strain to which she has just been subjected. Gentlemen, I am going to ask you to clear the room.” As they hesitated, Dr. Gifford said, “In the event you don’t go now, I am going to ask the hospital office to send up sufficient orderlies to see that the room is cleared.”

Sampson said, “Come on, Holcomb. We can’t do anything here.”

Holcomb said, “Well, I’m not going to leave Mason behind to tip her off what to say.”

Mason started toward the door. In abrupt contrast to the vociferous recriminations which had taken place in that room, he made an elaborate show of tiptoeing so that he would not disturb the sleeper. “I,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “see nothing gained by trying to disturb the slumbers of a drugged woman.”

Dr. Gifford nodded. Despite himself Sampson suppressed a smile. Sergeant Holcomb, seeming about to choke with indignation, started to say something, but Sampson touched him on the shoulder and said, “That’s all of it, Sergeant.”

Mason stopped in the telephone booth at the hospital to call Paul Drake. “Listen, Paul,” he said, “things are happening fast up at this end. Give me the low-down on Virginia Trent.”

“They’re keeping her in the custody of a police nurse,” Drake said. “They took her to headquarters last night, and gave her the works until she had hysterics good and plenty. Then they had a doctor give her a big sedative and a police nurse took her home. The nurse is standing guard.”

“Any formal charge?” Mason asked.

“None at present. They’re probably holding her as a material witness if it comes to a showdown, but they’re not too certain about her. The uncle was killed with one bullet fired from a thirty-eight caliber revolver found in the upper right-hand drawer of the desk. You were there when Sergeant Holcomb found the gun.”

“So what?” Mason said. “She came in there just a few minutes before I did. The body had been there for some time.”

“I know, but they’re wondering whether she didn’t go in there to do something about disposing of the body or trying to get something out of the pockets or...”

“All that’s absurd,” Mason said.

“Well, I’m not arguing with you,” Drake told him philosophically, “I’m telling you what the authorities claim. They’ve claimed absurdities before and they’ll probably do so again. What’s happened up there, Perry? You seem to have your fighting clothes on.”

“Oh, they tried to get rough with Mrs. Breel,” Mason said.

“Did they get anywhere?”

“Nowhere at all,” Mason reported, and chuckled at the thought.

“How about Lone Bedford?”

“She’s still in the Milpas Apartments.”

“Has Pete Chennery come in yet?”

“Not according to latest reports.”

“All right, then,” Mason said, “we’ll take the gambling-house angle. I’m out at the Dearborn Memorial Hospital. You’d better come out and pick me up. I came out in a cab.”

Drake said, “I’ll be out there in ten minutes.”

Mason hung up the telephone, strolled down the linoleum-floored corridor to the big marble steps in front of the hospital, where he enjoyed the sunlight and concentrated over a cigarette until Paul Drake slid his car in close to the curb. Mason ran down the steps, jumped into the car and said, “Let’s tackle that banker on the gambling angle, Paul.”

“Okay,” Drake said, spinning the wheel. “Why is the gambling-house angle so important?”

Mason said, “Because the books don’t balance, Paul.”

“What do you mean?”

Mason said, “Notice that, according to the reports Cullens gave Lone Bedford over the telephone, George Trent had been up to The Golden Platter on Saturday night and had hocked the stones for six thousand dollars. Cullens was going to get them for three.”

“Well?” Drake asked.

“George Trent’s body,” Mason said, “was found in his office. According to all the reports I get, when he goes out on a drunk he doesn’t shave, bathe or change his clothes. He gets pretty disreputable. Now then, he was neatly dressed, and there wasn’t any stubble on his face when his body was found. He must have been killed in his own office. If he went to the gambling house and pawned those stones for six thousand dollars, he must have returned to his office some time that night and was killed there.”

“Well,” Drake said, “why couldn’t that have happened?”

“It just doesn’t fit into the picture. In the first place, he’d mailed in the keys to his car. He’d gone out to get drunk. It’s a moot question whether he’d have taken the Bedford diamonds with him. Now then, if he did, it’s hard to believe he’d have hocked diamonds which didn’t belong to him — at least that early in the game. After he’d been on a bat for two or three days and his sense of perspective had become pickled in alcohol, it might have been different.”

“What are you getting at?” Drake asked.

“Simply this: If Trent didn’t leave those stones at The Golden Platter in return for six thousand dollars, why did Cullens tell Lone Bedford that he did? If Trent didn’t leave the stones there, and Cullens thought he did, and went up and started to get rough with those gamblers, they might have been responsible for what happened to Cullens. Apparently, a copper penny had been inserted ‘in the socket of one of the lights out at Cullens’ house so that when anyone came in and turned on the light switch, it’d blow the fuse. That doesn’t sound like an amateur to me. Moreover, if those were the Bedford diamonds in Mrs. Breel’s bag, and if it was Mrs. Breel’s bag, there’s no definite proof that the diamonds actually came from that chamois-skin belt which Cullens was wearing. Now then, you add to that the fact that Lone Bedford swears they weren’t her diamonds, and we get into some complicating factors.”

“I’ll say we do,” Drake said. “It’s all tangled up like a cat in flypaper, and the more you move it around, the worse it gets.”

“Therefore,” Mason said, “it’s important to go back to first principles. I want to find out whether those stones actually were pawned with The Golden Platter.”

“I don’t see how the witness we’re going to interview now can help you on that,” Drake said.

“He can help us to this extent,” Mason told him. “Suppose Cullens was playing some kind of a game and simple stringing Lone Bedford along? Suppose he didn’t have any actual tip that the stones had been hocked at The Golden Platter...? Or, suppose he didn’t go to The Golden Platter, but was standing in cahoots in some way with Bill Golding?”