Erle Gardner - The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe

“How long have you been here?”

“Five months three days today.”

“Do you remember Saturday night?”

“Very well, sir.”

“What time did you have dinner?”

“Thirty minutes behind seven o’clock.”

“You mean six-thirty?”

The man grinned. “Yes, sir.”

“Who was here at dinner?”

“Miss Virginia and Mrs. Sarah Breel. Mr. George Trent not come.”

“You knew he was not coming?”

“No, sir.”

“You set a place for him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know what time Miss Trent came in Saturday afternoon?”

“About twenty minutes before dinner time. I look at clock to see about cooking meat.”

“What kind of meat?”

“Steak, please.”

“How long were they at dinner?”

“You mean how long take to eat dinner?”

“Yes.”

“I have Saturday night off,” Itsumo said. “I have appointment with friend to study enlargement of films at camera school. Class is eight o’clock. I hurry very quickly, get finished with dishes thirty minutes behind eight o’clock. I telephone my friend and take street car twenty minutes behind eight o’clock. I get to class just short time before class starts. I think perhaps one minute.”

“And were Mrs. Breel and Miss Trent here when you left?”

“Miss Virginia leave before I did, perhaps five minutes. Mrs. Sarah Breel is here, please.”

Sergeant Holcomb turned to Virginia Trent. “Did you,” he asked, “clean the gun after you shot it?”

“Certainly. I cleaned it and oiled it in my room. My uncle showed me how to take care of it.”

“And you cleaned and oiled it?”

“Yes.”

“And reloaded the gun?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t take it to the office until eight o’clock?”

“I think it was almost exactly eight o’clock.”

Sergeant Holcomb shook his head and said, “Now, look here, Miss Trent, you’re mistaken about that gun. That gun killed your uncle. Your uncle met his death around four-thirty Saturday afternoon. Now then, you couldn’t have had that gun with you.”

“But I did have it.”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “Now wait a minute. You think you had it, but you didn’t notice it particularly, did you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t check the numbers on the gun?”

She smiled and said, “Of course not.”

“You simply took a gun out of the desk drawer and put it in your purse, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “And all you know is it was a thirty-eight caliber revolver?”

“It was the same make,” she said, “as the one I’d been shooting, I know that.”

“But there’s nothing about it which will enable you absolutely to identify it, is there?”

“No,” she said slowly, “there isn’t.”

“Now then, at eight o’clock Saturday night, you returned to the office and put that gun which was in your purse in the drawer, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Was there any other gun in the drawer at that time?”

“No.”

“How were you dressed when you returned that gun to the office?”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I had on street clothes.”

“Were you wearing gloves?”

She frowned for a moment and said, “I was wearing gloves when I came to the office, but I... No, I wasn’t, either. I wasn’t wearing gloves.”

“The gun was in your purse?”

“Yes.”

“And you took it out and put it in the drawer?”

“Yes.”

“Did you handle it at all — that is, did you make any investigation to make certain it was loaded?”

“I opened the cylinder and looked at it to make certain it was loaded, yes. I always do that before I put it in the drawer.”

Sergeant Holcomb said triumphantly, “All right, Miss Trent, that proves my point. You didn’t have the gun which killed George Trent.”

Her silence showed her complete lack of conviction.

“What makes you think she didn’t?” Mason asked.

“Because,” Holcomb said, “our examination of that gun shows that the last person who handled it had been wearing gloves. Any latent fingerprints which were on it were smudged so they were virtually valueless, and from the manner in which the prints were smudged, our expert figured the gun was last handled by someone with gloves. And it had been handled quite a bit.”

Mason flashed a quick glance at Virginia Trent, then turned back to Sergeant Holcomb. “Go ahead, Sergeant, let’s hear the rest of it.”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “I think you can cooperate with us in this, Mason. You see what happened. Someone removed George Trent’s gun and put another one in its place. Some time Monday morning, that person returned George Trent’s gun to the drawer and took out the one which had been left there.”

“Why do you say Monday morning?” Mason asked.

“Because no one went to the office after six-thirty Saturday night, until eight o’clock Monday morning, with the exception of Miss Trent Saturday evening, and Mrs. Breel Sunday.”

“I see,” Mason said, “and just what do you want us to do?”

Sergeant Holcomb’s tone was almost pleading. “Newspaper reporters are going to be talking with this young woman,” he said. “I don’t want her to say anything about the gun.”

Mason turned to Virginia Trent. “Under the advice of your counsel,” he said, “you’re not to discuss this case with anyone. Do you understand?”

She nodded. Sergeant Holcomb gave Mason his hand. “That,” he said, “is damned white of you, Mason.”

Mason grinned. “Not at all, Sergeant. It’s always a pleasure to cooperate with you.”

Mason was grinning gleefully as he entered his office. Della Street said, “Why the cat-swallowed-the-canary expression, Chief?”

Mason said, “I was thinking of the logic and beauty of an old bit of philosophy.”

“Tell me the philosophy first,” she said, “and then I’ll tell you whether I agree with you.”

“The philosophy,” Mason said, “is a quotation having to do with an engineer.”

She knitted her brow. “An engineer?” she asked.

Mason, scaling his hat at the hat rack, said, “Uh-huh, and it goes like this: ‘For ‘tis sport to see the engineer, hoist by his own petard.’ ”

“Something seems to me,” she said, “that it’s going to get us into trouble.”

“On the contrary,” Mason told her, “it’s going to get us out of trouble. And, by the way, Della, do you know that one of the greatest troubles with police officers is that they lack imagination?”

“Just what in particular are you referring to?” she asked.

“I was thinking,” he said, “about the historical background leading up to the identification of bullets by comparison and micro-photography. You know, Della, it’s only within the last few years that it’s been demonstrated that little marks and blemishes in the barrel of a revolver automatically fingerprint a bullet which is discharged from it.”

“Sure,” she said, “it’s only during the last few years that the radio has been perfected. And think of the strides we’ve made in sales and income taxes, Chief.”

He grinned. “Getting serious for the moment, Baggage, where a man is utilizing some scientific invention, you’d think he’d want to know something of the history back of that invention.”

“Well,” she said, “I hate to distract you from your philosophical contemplation of crime, but it occurs to me that while you’re being serious I’d better dissipate your mood of joyous hilarity by telling you the worst.”

“What,” he asked, “is the worst?”

“One of Drake’s detectives is looking for you with blood in his eye.”