Erle Gardner: The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe

“Yes.”

“And you think she’s been arrested, and want me to find out. Is that what you’re leading up to?”

“No,” she said, “not exactly.”

“Well,” Mason told her, “let’s make it exact. Just what do you want?”

She shifted her eyes uneasily, then took a deep breath and said, “Very well, Mr. Mason, specifically, I’m afraid that Aunt Sarah has stolen the Bedford diamonds.”

The lawyer leaned forward. “Tell me about the Bedford diamonds.”

“They’re some diamonds belonging to a Mrs. Bedford. They were left with Uncle George to be completely redesigned, placed in more modern settings and brought up to date. There was some recutting to be done. I don’t know all of the details of the order.”

“Am I to gather that your Uncle George is on one of his sprees?” Mason asked.

“Yes. He didn’t come home Saturday night. We knew what that meant. Of course, there was no mail delivery on Sunday, but Aunt Sarah went up to the office and got things all ready for Monday morning.”

“Opened the vault?” Mason asked.

“I believe so, yes. Then, this morning, she went up to the office early, got in touch with the foreman, and they planned out the day’s work. Sure enough, the keys to Uncle George’s car were in the first mail delivery. But there was nothing to indicate where the car was. It wasn’t until shortly before noon, the traffic department rang up to tell us it was parked in a thirty-minute zone... You see, it had been left there Saturday night after the parking restrictions had been removed, and then, of course, Sunday didn’t count. But this morning, the traffic tickets started piling up on the car.”

“So you went and moved the car?” Mason asked.

“Yes. Aunty and I went together. We picked up the parking tickets, and moved the car into a garage. Aunt Sarah had some shopping she wanted to do, and I wanted to get a pair of shoes. We went into the department store, and I was getting my shoes and thought Aunt Sarah was standing right behind me. Then suddenly I missed her... You know what happened after that.”

“And you found her up in the tea room?” Mason asked.

“Yes, I’d been looking all over the store for her. I found her up there just before... well, you know.”

“All right,” Mason said, “tell me some more about the Bedford diamonds.”

“The Bedford diamonds,” she said, “came to us through Austin Cullens.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s an old-time friend of the family. He’s known George and Sarah for years. He does a great deal of traveling, is quite a gem collector, and knows lots of interesting people. Uncle George does work quite well and very cheaply, and Mr. Cullens is frequently able to get him some very lucrative business. You see, Mr. Cullens spends a lot of time on shipboard, gets to talk with people about gems, knows a good many gem collectors, and, all in all, is a very valuable business connection for Uncle George.”

“When did the Bedford diamonds come in?” Mason asked.

“Saturday. Mr. Cullens brought them in. Mrs. Bedford was to come in later on in the week.”

“When did you first realize they were gone?”

“About half an hour ago. I decided to come to you at once.”

“Go ahead,” Mason told her.

“After I missed Aunt Sarah, I became completely exasperated. I went back to Uncle George’s office, thinking she might be there. The foreman showed me a note Uncle George had left, giving directions about working out sketches and designs for the Bedford diamonds. But... well, the Bedford diamonds weren’t there.”

“The vault was open?”

“Yes. Aunt Sarah had opened it this morning.”

“How about the men in the shop? Can you trust them?”

“I think so, yes.”

“And what makes you think your Aunt Sarah has the diamonds?”

“Well... well, you saw what happened this noon. And when a person once gets a complex... well, I don’t know whether you’ve studied much about kleptomania, Mr. Mason, but it’s most devastating. Kleptomaniacs simply cannot resist the impulse to take things which don’t belong to them... Well, anyway, Aunt Sarah was up at the office on Sunday, getting things lined up for this morning. She came back to the house yesterday afternoon, and said she’d been seized with a very peculiar dizzy spell while she was at the office; that her mind had gone completely blank for a period of what must have been half an hour; that she didn’t have the faintest recollection of what she was doing. She thought it must have been her heart. I wanted her to call a doctor. She wouldn’t do it. She said that when she regained consciousness she had the most peculiar feeling of having done something she shouldn’t. She felt as though she’d killed someone, or something of that sort.”

“Did you get a doctor?” Mason asked.

“No, she went to her room and slept for a couple of hours, and then said she felt better. At dinner, she seemed to be very much her normal self.”

“Well,” Mason said, “I don’t know just what you want me to do. As I see it, you’d better find your aunt and take some steps to locate your Uncle George. His haunts should be fairly well defined. A man who goes on these periodical drinking sprees usually...”

“But,” she said, “Mrs. Bedford wants her stones back.”

“Since when?” Mason asked.

“She rang up at noon, while I was out, and said that she’d changed her mind that she didn’t want anything done to her stones that she had a prospective buyer who was interested in antique jewelry, and she was going to offer the stones and settings to this buyer.”

“Did you talk with Mrs. Bedford?” Mason asked.

“No. The shop foreman did.”

“What did he tell her?”

“Told her Uncle George was out at the time, but he’d have him call as soon as he came in.”

“Well,” Mason said, “you might get in touch with police headquarters and find out if your aunt has suffered any relapses. That spell may well have been her heart. She may have had another and been taken to the emergency hospital. Or...” He broke off as the door from the outer office opened, and the girl from the information desk tiptoed quietly into the room, to stand just within the doorway. “What is it?” Mason asked.

“A Mr. Cullens is in the outer office,” she said. “He seems to be very much excited and says he must see Miss Trent immediately.”

Virginia Trent gave an exclamation of dismay. “You’ll have to hide me somewhere,” she said to Mason, and then to the girl, “Tell him I’m not here. Tell him I’ve left. Tell him...”

“Tell him nothing of the sort,” Mason interrupted. “Let’s get this thing straight. How did he know you were here, Miss Trent?”

“I left word at the office that if Aunty came in she was to call me here. I guess Mr. Cullens went to the office and the foreman told him.”

“And Cullens was the one who brought your uncle the Bedford business?” She nodded. “You’ve got to see him sooner or later,” Mason told her. “You’d better make it sooner. After all, he’s entitled to some sort of a break. I presume he vouched for your uncle to Mrs. Bedford.”

“Yes,” she said dubiously, “I guess he must have.”

Mason nodded to the girl who stood in the doorway. “Tell Mr. Cullens he can come in,” he instructed.

Virginia Trent’s hands became nervous on her lap. She said uneasily, “Oh, I can’t face him! I don’t know what to say. I just can’t think of the proper thing to tell him.”

“What’s wrong with telling him the truth?” Mason asked.

“But I don’t know the truth,” she said.

“Well, why not tell him that?”

“Because... oh, I don’t know. I just can’t bear to...”