Erle Gardner - The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe

“Yes, I know,” Mason interrupted. “Go ahead and tell me what happened.”

“There was some man in the front room of the house. I had just a confused glimpse of him. Mr. Cullens started to turn on the lights, and the fuse blew out and everything went dark. The man ran right past me and out of the back door.”

“Then what happened?” Mason asked.

“I took the flashlight out of my bag, and gave it to Mr. Cullens.”

“And you were still holding the gun in your hand?”

“Yes.”

“And then what happened?”

“Mr. Cullens said that he’d been robbed of a lot of jewels, and my aunt asked him why he kept jewels in the house that way, and all of a sudden he said to her, ‘By God, I believe that wasn’t a thief at all, but a detective you’ve had on my trail,’ and she said, ‘Why Aussie? Is it because you know those gems of yours had been stolen?’ and he said, ‘So that’s it, is it?’ and she said, ‘Aussie, I’ll promise you that if you’ll tell me where George is, and he’s safe, we won’t do anything at all but if you don’t I’ll tell the police that...’ That was as far as she got. Aussie screamed out something about not being taken alive and flung up his gun and shot right square at Auntie.”

“And what did you do?” Mason asked.

“Whatever I did,” she said, “was just an unconscious reflex. Honestly, I have no recollection of pulling the trigger. The first thing I knew, Mr. Cullens was lying on the floor, and my aunt was just as cool as a cucumber. She said, ‘Virgie, we have to keep our heads on this. I’m afraid something awful has happened to George, and we’re going to have to make Aussie talk.’ She said, ‘We’ll have to telephone for an ambulance and get him to the hospital, but before we do that I think he has some evidence on him we’re going to have to get,’ and she bent over him and opened his vest and shirt and found a chamois-skin belt with some gems in it. She took the gems out and picked up the gun which he’d dropped and put it in her bag, and said to me, ‘Find a telephone, Virgie, and telephone for the police,’ and then while I was still groping around trying to find a telephone, she called to me and said, ‘Wait a minute, Virgie, he’s dead.’ ”

“Then what happened?” Mason asked. Virginia Trent shook her head as though trying to dislodge a memory, and dove into the protection of the pillow. Mason put his hand on her shaking shoulder. “Now, wait a minute, Virgie, you’re all upset. Snap out of it. Tell me what happened.”

After a few moments, she turned her head so that her mouth was clear of the pillow, and said sobbingly, “Aunt Sarah said she thought the stones that he had on him were stolen. That if they were, we’d be all right. That if they weren’t, we were going to be in an awful jam; that no one knew anything about our having been there, and that evidently a burglar had been in the house, and the best thing for us to do was to clear out and say nothing to anyone. She told me to take the back door, and she’d take the front... And then... Well, you know the rest.”

“And you’d gone up to your uncle’s office and put the gun back in the drawer just before I came in, Virgie?”

“Yes.”

“And you had no idea your uncle’s body was up there?”

“Good Lord, no. Coming on top of everything else, it almost floored me. I thought I’d go crazy that night.”

“So then what?”

“Then,” she said, “you know just as much as I do. Aunt Sarah never would admit to me that she remembered anything that happened. She kept saying that her mind was a blank, and seemed perfectly cheerful about it, and said I wasn’t to worry, but was to leave everything to you. She wouldn’t even let me talk to her about anything that happened. She said her mind was a blank and she wanted it that way.”

“Perhaps her mind is a blank,” Mason said.

“I don’t think so. I think she’s just trying to protect me.”

“But you don’t know ?”

“No.”

Mason glanced at Della Street. “Virgie,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something. I want you to remember it. If your Aunt Sarah’s mind is a blank, that’s one thing. If it isn’t a blank, and she’s trying to cover up for you, that’s something else. As far as you’re concerned, it doesn’t make a particle of difference. You shot in self-defense. There’s no question but Austin Cullens intended to kill both you and your aunt. He’d killed your Uncle George, when your uncle had found out that the Bedford diamonds were stolen gems. Probably your uncle sent for Cullens. Cullens came up to the office. They had a showdown. When he saw he was trapped, and your uncle started to call the police, Cullens jerked the gun out of his hip pocket and killed your uncle. He concealed the body in a packing case, removed all evidences of the crime, went home, reloaded his gun, and, because he knew of your uncle’s habits, mailed in the keys to the car.”

“Now then, I didn’t know what had happened, but I had my suspicions. I felt certain that Pete Chennery’s wife had confessed to her husband, everything which had taken place with Austin Cullens, and her husband, Pete Chennery, a gem thief, saw an opportunity to make a good haul so he had his wife continue to string Cullens along. He was engaged in going through the house when Cullens drove up.”

“Now, I felt certain that Cullens had killed your Uncle George. At first, I didn’t know how I could definitely prove it. I couldn’t tell whether your aunt really had lost her memory, or whether she was trying to protect someone. I felt that if she was trying to protect someone, that you would be that someone. I realized that circumstantial evidence pointed at Pete Chennery as the burglar who had entered Austin Cullens’ house. I thought perhaps I could use him as a red herring to drag across the trail, so that I could get your aunt acquitted, because I felt certain the evidence would show the bullets had been mixed up. Then when Sergeant Holcomb got on the witness stand and tried to cover up his mistake by testifying so positively in regard to the bullets, I realized that I had a perfect opportunity to let him unwittingly serve the real ends of justice.

“Frankly, Virgie, I don’t know just what would have happened if the Prosecution had sensed the truth and made a fair investigation. They’d have arrested you, charged you with murder, and you’d have had to plead self-defense. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t have sounded so good. When a man is killed in his own house, it’s rather difficult to establish self-defense.”

She sobbed and said, “I know it.”

“But,” Mason went on, “Sergeant Holcomb thought he must have made a mistake and handed the ballistics expert the wrong bullet. In many ways, you can’t blame him. It was a perfectly natural conclusion for him to reach, and a police officer could hardly be expected to be so conscientious that he’d allow a murderer to escape, simply because he’d inadvertently confused bullets which had been handed him by an autopsy surgeon.”

“But Sergeant Holcomb’s testimony on the witness stand was so belligerent, and so positive, that I saw my big opportunity to fix it so you could never be prosecuted.”

“Why can’t I be prosecuted?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, “the State can never prosecute you for the murder of Austin Cullens, unless they show that Cullens was killed with the gun which you must have placed in the desk drawer in your uncle’s office. The only way they can do that is to trace the bullets from the body of Cullens. And the only way they can do that is to put Sergeant Holcomb on the stand, and Sergeant Holcomb has testified so positively and so belligerently, that he can never back up on that testimony now — not without submitting himself to a prosecution for perjury, as well as a storm of public ridicule. They’ll never do that.”