Erle Gardner - The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe

The woman came through the door first, head high, chin up, eyes flashing. Behind her, Bill Golding walked softly, his face an expressionless mask. Only his eyes, glinting with sullen fires, gave any indication of his feelings. “Sit down,” Mason invited. “Close the door, Della.”

Golding said, “What’s the idea of serving that damned subpoena on us?”

“I want you as witnesses,” Mason said.

“On behalf of the defendant? ”

“That’s right.”

Golding laughed sarcastically and said, “And I thought you were a good lawyer!”

“Opinions differ on the subject,” Mason admitted easily.

“You’ve insulted my wife,” Golding went on, his lips tight with rage.

“I’m sorry,” Mason said.

“What the devil did you mean by subpoenaing her as Eva Tannis?”

“I understood that was her name.”

“Well, it isn’t. Her name’s Mrs. Golding.”

“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Golding,” Mason said, “but I wanted the subpoena to be binding, so I wasn’t taking any chances.”

She regarded him with glittering eyes, the lids slightly narrowed. Her dilated nostrils gave evidence of her emotion. “You’re going to regret that, Mr. Perry Mason,” she said.

“Regret what?”

“Serving a subpoena on us.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Well, I do.”

Golding said, “Look here, Mason. You know as well as I do that we’re running a joint. You bring us into court, and I’m going to be asked about my name, residence, and occupation. Then they’re going to ask Eva a lot of things. Those things aren’t going to do any of us any good.”

“They may do my client some good,” Mason said.

“That’s what you think.”

Mason ignored the sarcasm and said, “How about a cigarette, Mrs . Golding.”

“No... thank you.”

“You, Golding?”

“No.”

Mason took a cigarette and said, “Well, I’ll have one. You’re driving a new car, aren’t you, Golding?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Mason said, lighting his cigarette. He shook out the match, exhaled the first deep drag of smoke, and said, “I Understand you bought it the day after Cullens was murdered.”

“So what?”

“I was interested in the car you traded in,” Mason said. “It was in pretty good shape. You’d had it less than six months.”

“My God!” the woman exploded. “Do we have to account to a lawyer every time we want to trade in a car?”

Without looking at her, Mason went on evenly, “I became interested in that trade-in, Golding. I had my detectives find out about that car. It was a blue sedan with a crumpled left rear fender. I don’t know whether you know it, but Diggers says that just before Mrs. Breel stepped out from the sidewalk, a car which had been parked at the curb pulled out right ahead of him and swung sharply to the left. It was a blue sedan with a crumpled left rear fender.”

Golding and the woman exchanged swift glances. Then Golding said, “That doesn’t prove anything. I’ll bet a detective agency could turn up a hundred blue sedans with crumpled left rear fenders on twenty-four hours’ notice.”

“That’s possible,” Mason admitted readily enough.

“Then why do you want us as witnesses?”

“Oh, I just thought the jury might be interested in hearing about where you went after Cullens left your place.”

“That’s another thing I don’t like,” Golding said. “You’ve been snooping around with my bankers, trying to put the finger on me there.”

Mason’s eyes became level-lidded as they stared at the gambler. “I don’t like that word snooping , Golding,” he said.

“Well, I said snooping .”

“I heard you.”

The woman said, “Wait a minute, Bill. That isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

“I’ll say it isn’t,” Mason agreed.

She suddenly got to her feet. “I want to talk with Bill,” she said. “Have you an office where we can discuss something?”

“Why not discuss it here?” Mason asked.

She whirled to face him and said, “I’m tempted to.”

“Shut up, Eva,” Golding warned.

She stared down at Mason and said, “You’re asking for it.”

“Eva, shut up!”

“Don’t be a fool, Bill,” she said. “We have to tell him now. He’s brought it on himself.”

“Tell him nothing,” Golding said. “We talk with our lawyer first. Then he talks with Mason.”

“As bad as that, eh?” Mason asked.

The woman dropped back in the big overstuffed leather chair and said, “No, Bill, we don’t want to see a lawyer. A lawyer would talk, and you can’t tell who he’d talk to. We’re going to tell Mason, and that’s all.”

“You’re crazy!” Golding said.

She didn’t even look at him, but went on steadily, “All right, Mr. Mason. We were out there. We were the ones who were parked in that blue sedan at the curb. We went out about twenty minutes after Cullens left, and...”

“Eva! For God’s sake, shut up!” Golding said, getting up from his chair and starting toward her.

She turned to face him then. “Get back to your chair,” she said, as one might order a dog into a corner. “Sit down. Shut up! You’re a hell of a gambler. You don’t even know when you hold the losing hand.” She turned back to Mason. Her voice had remained low, steady and conversational, and she resumed her story without changing her tone or even glancing at Golding as he hesitated, then slowly stepped back to his chair and sat down. “We couldn’t figure what Cullens was making all the squawk about,” she said. “It looked like some sort of a frame-up. I didn’t like it. We talked it over and decided we weren’t going to be pushed around. We went up to Trent’s office building. Trent wasn’t there. We telephoned his sister. She wasn’t home. Then we decided we’d go out to Cullens’ place and put the cards on the table.

“We drove out and parked the car. The house was dark. Bill said, ‘There’s no one home.’ I said, ‘We’ll go up and ring the bell anyway.’ ”

“Who was driving?” Mason interrupted to ask.

“I was,” she said.

“Go ahead,” Mason told her.

“All of a sudden, Bill said, ‘Look! There’s someone in there with a flashlight.’ I took a look. Sure enough, you could see the beam of a flashlight. It wasn’t very powerful, or else it was shielded in some Way, but you could see the beam moving around across the Windows.”

“Lower floor or upper floor?” Mason asked.

“Lower floor.”

“Go ahead.”

“We decided we didn’t want any of that, whatever it was,” she said, “but we were curious. I kept the motor running, the gear in and the clutch out, so I could get away from there fast. And then we heard two shots.”

“Two?” Mason asked.

“Two.”

“Coming from the house?”

“Coming from the house,” she said.

“And this was after you’d seen the flashlight?”

“Yes.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“We saw some more flashlight,” she told him, “and then a woman ran out of the house. She came out of the front door and ran toward the street. She was carrying a bag in her hands, and was pushing something down into the bag. I was sitting on the left side of the car at the steering wheel. Bill was on the right, next to the curb. He said, ‘That’s George Trent’s sister,’ and that’s all I waited for. I shoved in the clutch, and we went away from there.”

“You didn’t see what happened to the sister?”

“No.”

“Where did you go?”

“We put the car in the garage and went back to our place.”

“And turned the radio on to police calls?” Mason asked.