Mason moved to the bathroom door.

  Harrington Faulkner lay motionless in death. His coat and shirt had been removed, leaving him attired in trousers and undershirt, and the front of the undershirt was a mass of blood. Back of the head was an overturned table, and on the floor fragments of curved glass caught the rays of the bathroom light and reflected them. A thin layer of water which had seeped over the floor had carried blood in a crimson stain to the far corners of the bathroom. On the floor near the figure were perhaps a dozen motionless goldfish, but as Mason looked, one of these goldfish gave a tired, dispirited flap of its tail.

  The bathtub was half full of water and in this water a lone goldfish swam energetically back and forth, as though in search of companionship.

  Mason stooped to pick up the lone fish which had shown signs of life. Gently he lowered it into the water of the bathtub. The fish kicked about for a moment, then turned half on its side, floated to the top of the water and remained motionless, save for a slight motion of the gills.

  Mason felt the touch of Sally Madison’s body, turned to find her standing just behind him.

  “Get out,” Mason said.

  “Is he . . . is he . . . ?”

  Mason said, “Of course he is. Get out. Don’t touch anything. Leave a fingerprint here and it may make trouble. What’s his wife doing?”

  “Throwing a fit on the bed.”

  “Hysterics?”

  “Not that bad, just a wild fit of grief.”

  “Does it mean that much to her?”

  “It’s the shock.”

  “Was she in love with him?”

  “She was a fool if she was. You never can tell. I thought she didn’t have any emotion at all. She had me fooled.”

  Mason said, “You don’t ever show much emotion yourself.”

  Her eyes regarded him thoughtfully. “What’s the use?”

  “There isn’t any,” Mason said. “Go back to Mrs. Faulkner. Get her out of the bedroom. Call the Drake Detective Agency. Tell Paul Drake to get down here just as quick as he can, then, after you have done that, call police headquarters, get Homicide and ask for Lieutenant Tragg. Tell him you’re speaking for Perry Mason and that I have a murder to report.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’s all. Don’t touch anything in the room. Get Mrs. Faulkner out of the bedroom and into the living room, then keep her there.”

  Mason waited until Sally Madison had left the room, then, moving backward away from the bathtub a few inches at a time, he carefully studied every part of the room, taking great care, however, not to touch any object with his hands.

  On the floor, slightly to one side of the body, was a pocket magnifying glass consisting of two lenses, each approximately an inch and a half in diameter, hinged to a hard rubber case so that they would fold back out of the way when not in use. Back against the wall, almost directly under the washstand, were three popular magazines of approximately nine by twelve inches.

  Mason bent over to notice the dates on the magazines. The top one was a current magazine, the one underneath that was three months old, and the bottom one four months old. On the top magazine was a smear of ink about half an inch in width by three or four inches in length and slightly curved in shape, trailing off almost to a point as it approached the end of the three-inch smear.

  On a glass shelf over the washstand in the bathroom were two sixteen-ounce bottles of peroxide of hydrogen, one of them almost empty, a shaving brush, a safety razor, to the edge of which soapy lather was still adhering, and a tube of shaving cream.

  The man had apparently been shot in the left side over the heart and had died almost instantly. When he fell he had apparently upset the table on which the goldfish bowl had been placed. One of the curved segments of broken bowl still held about half a cup of water.

  On the floor, beneath the body of one of the goldfish was a pocket checkbook, and near by, a fountain pen. The cap of the pen lay some two feet away. The checkbook was closed, and bloody water had seeped against the edges of the checks. Mason noticed that about half of the checks in the book had been torn out, leaving the stubs of approximately half the checks in the front part of the book.

  Faulkner had apparently been wearing his glasses when he was shot and the left lens had been broken, evidently when he had fallen, as the fragments of curved glass from that lens of the spectacles lay within an inch or two of the head. The right lens had not been injured and it reflected the bathroom light in the ceiling with a glitter which seemed oddly animate in the face of the death that tarnished the floor of the bathroom with its crimson stain.

  Mason regarded the overturned table, stepping carefully backward and bending over to get a good look at it. There were drops of water on this table, and a slight blob of ink, partially diluted with water.

  Then Mason noticed something that had hitherto escaped him. A graniteware cooking pan of about two-quart capacity was in the bottom of the bathtub, lying on its side.

  As Mason finished his careful inspection of the contents of the room, Sally Madison called to him from the bedroom. “Everything’s been done, Mr. Mason. Mrs. Faulkner is waiting in the living room. Mr. Drake is on his way out here and I’ve notified the police.”

  “Lieutenant Tragg?” Mason asked.

  “Lieutenant Tragg wasn’t in, but Sergeant Dorset is on his way out.”

  Mason said, “That’s a break,” and then added, “for the murderer.”

  Chapter 7

  A siren, at first as muted as the sound of a persistent mosquito, grew in volume until as the police car approached the house it faded from a keen, high-pitched demand for the right-of-way to a low, throbbing protest, then lapsed into silence.

  Heavy steps sounded on the porch and Mason opened the front door.

  Sergeant Dorset said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Reception committee,” Mason announced briefly. “Do come in.”

  Men pushed into the room, not bothering to remove their hats, gazing curiously at the two women: Sally Madison calm and collected, her face as expressionless as that of a doll, Mrs. Faulkner, her eyes red from crying, half sitting, half reclining on the davenport, emitting low, moaning sounds which were too regular to be sobs, too low in volume to be groans.

  “Okay,” Sergeant Dorset said to Mason, “what’s the story this time?”

  Mason smiled suavely. “No need to run a blood pressure, Sergeant. I didn’t discover the body.”

  “Who did?”

  Mason inclined his head toward the woman on the sofa.

  “Who’s she, the wife?”

  “If you wish to be technically correct,” Mason said, “and I’m certain you do, she’s the widow.”

  Dorset faced Mrs. Faulkner, and by the simple process of tilting his hat toward the back of his head, gave her to understand that she was about to be interviewed. The other officers, having spilled through the house in a questing search for the body, congregated almost at once at the entrance to the bathroom.

  Sergeant Dorset waited until Mrs. Faulkner glanced up. “Okay,” he said.

  Mrs. Faulkner said in a low voice, “I really did love him. We had our troubles, and at times he was terribly hard to get along with, but. . .”

  “Let’s get to that later,” Dorset said. “How long ago did you find him?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  “How many? Five? Ten? Fifteen?”

  “I don’t think it’s been ten minutes. Perhaps just a little more than five.”

  “We’ve been six minutes getting here.”

  “We called you as soon as I found him.”

  “How soon after you found him?”

  “Right away.”

  “One minute? Two minutes? Three minutes?”

  “Not as much as a minute.”

  “How’d you happen to find him?”

  “I went into the bedroom and—and opened the door to the bathroom.”

  “Looking for him?”

  “No. I had let Mr. Mason in and . . .”

  “What was he doing here?”

  “He was waiting at the door as I drove up. He wanted to see my husband.”

  Dorset seemed to glance sharply at Mason.

  Mason nodded.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” Sergeant Dorset said.

  Mason smiled. “Miss Madison was with me, Sergeant, and had been with me for the last hour or two.”

  “Who’s Miss Madison?”

  Sally Madison smiled. “Me.”

  Sergeant Dorset looked her over. Almost unconsciously his hand strayed to his hat, removed it and placed it on a table. “Mason your lawyer?” he asked.

  “No, not exactly.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, I hadn’t fixed things up with him—you know, retained him, but I thought perhaps he could help me, thought he would, you know.”

  “Help you what?”

  “Get Mr. Faulkner to finance Tom Gridley’s invention.”

  “What invention?”

  “It has to do with curing sick fish.”

  A voice from the bedroom called, “Hey, Sarge. Look in here. He’s got a couple of goldfish swimming around in the bathtub.”

  “How many goldfish are swimming?” Mason asked.

  “Two of ’em, Sarge.”

  Sergeant Dorset said angrily, “That wasn’t me who asked you that last question. That was Mason.”

  “Oh,” the voice said, and a broad-shouldered officer came to the door to stare belligerently at the lawyer. “I’m sorry.”

  Mrs. Faulkner said, “Please, I want to have someone come to stay with me. I can’t bear to be here alone after all this. I—I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Hold it, lady” the officer in the bedroom said. “You can’t go in the bathroom.”

  “Why not?”

  A certain delicacy caused the officer to keep silent.

  “You mean you aren’t going to . . . to move him?” Mrs. Faulkner asked.

  “Not for a while. We’ve got to take pictures and get fingerprints and do lots of things.”

  “But I’m going to be sick. What. . . what shall I do?”

  “Ain’t there any other bathroom in the place?”

  “No.”

  “Look,” Dorset said, “why don’t you go to a hotel for the night? Perhaps you can ring up some friend and . . .”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I don’t feel up to going to a hotel. I’m all upset. I’m . . . I’m nauseated . . . Besides, I don’t think I could get a room in a hotel this hour of the night, just ringing up and telling them I wanted a room.”

  “Got some friend you could stay with?”

  “No—not very well. She’d have to come over here. She and another girl share an apartment. There wouldn’t be any room there for me.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Adele Fairbanks.”

  “Okay. Ring her up.”

  “I . . . oh . . . !” Mrs. Faulkner clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Go out on the lawn,” the officer in the doorway said.

  Mrs. Faulkner dashed for the back porch. The men heard the sound of retching, then the running of water in a set tub.

  Sergeant Dorset said to the officer in the bedroom, “She’s got a girl friend who’ll be coming over. They’ll be using the bathroom. Get busy on the fingerprints.”

  “They’re taking ’em now, Sergeant, but the place is full of latents. You can’t get ’em classified, photographed and all that by the time they’re ready to move the stiff.”

  Sergeant Dorset reached a prompt decison. “Okay,” he said, “lift ’em.” Then he turned to Mason and said, “You can wait outside. We’ll call you when we want you.”

  Mason said, “I’ll tell you what you want to know now, and if you want any more information from me you can reach me at my office tomorrow.”

  Dorset hesitated, said, “Wait outside for ten or fifteen minutes anyway. Something may come up I want to ask you about.”

  Mason glanced at his watch. “Fifteen minutes. No longer.”

  “Okay.”

  Sally Madison got up from her chair as Mason started for the door.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Sergeant Dorset said.

  Sally Madison turned, smiling invitingly. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  Sergeant Dorset looked her over, glanced at the officer who was standing in the doorway. The officer closed his eye in a surreptitious wink.

  “All right,” Dorset said abruptly, “wait outside with Mr. Mason. But don’t you go away.” He strode to the door, jerked it open and said to a man in uniform who was on guard outside, “Mr. Mason’s going to wait outside for fifteen minutes. If I want him within that time I’ll call him. The girl is going to wait outside until I call her. She isn’t to leave.”

  The officer nodded, said, “Fifteen minutes,” and looked at his watch. Then he added, “A private dick’s out here. I wouldn’t let him in. He says the lawyer called him.”

  Sergeant Dorset glanced over to where Paul Drake was leaning against the side of the porch, smoking a cigarette.

  “Hello, Sergeant,” Drake said.

  “What are you doing here?” Dorset asked.

  “Keeping the porch from falling over,” Drake drawled.

  “How did you come—in a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Go on out and sit in it.”

  “You’re so good to me,” Drake said humorously.

  Sergeant Dorset held the door open until Sally Madison and Perry Mason had moved out to the porch, then slammed it shut.

  Mason jerked his head toward Paul Drake and moved off toward the place where he had left his automobile. Sally Madison hesitated a moment, then followed. Drake joined them at the curb.

  “How’d it happen?” Drake asked.

  “He was in the bathroom. Somebody shot him. One shot. Dead center. Through the heart. Death must have been instantaneous, but the medical examiner hasn’t said anything yet.”

  “Did you find him, Perry?”

  “No, the wife did.”

  “That’s a break. How did it happen? Wasn’t she home when you got here?”

  “No. She drove up just as I was ringing the bell. You know, Paul, she seemed to be in one hell of a hurry. There was a peculiar smell to the exhaust fumes. Suppose you can get over and take a look at her car before the officers start questioning her and perhaps get the same idea I have?”

  “What idea?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It isn’t definite enough to be an idea, but she certainly slammed that car around the corner and up into the driveway. I don’t know what gave me the idea, Paul, other than the smell of the fumes from the exhaust—but I wondered if she’d driven the car a long ways, or whether she’d been parked around the comer somewhere. I remember there was something peculiar about the way the motor sounded, and I got the smell of all but raw gasoline when she slammed the car to a stop. How about taking a look at the choke?”

  “Well,” Drake said dubiously, “I can try.”

  “They can’t hook you for trying,” Mason said.

  Drake moved away, starting toward the front porch. The officer grinned, shook his head and jerked his thumb. “Nothing doing, buddy,” he said, and then added, “sorry.”

  Drake veered off to one side, made a few aimless motions, then strolled quite casually over toward the automobile Mrs. Faulkner had driven up to the house. Acting very much as though this were the automobile in which he had driven up, the detective settled down in the front seat and after a moment took a cigarette from his pocket and lit a match, delaying the application of the match to the end of the cigarette long enough to study the dashboard of the automobile.

  “What do they mean by lifting fingerprints?” Sally Madison asked Mason.

  “They dust objects with a special powder,” Mason said, his eyes on Paul Drake. “That brings out what are known as latent fingerprints. Sometimes they use a black powder, sometimes a white powder, depending on the surface. Mostly when they lift fingerprints they use a black powder to bring out the latent, and then take a piece of adhesive, place it over the developed latent, rub it' smoothly until every bit of powder has had a chance to adhere to the adhesive, and then pull off the adhesive. That definitely lifts the fingerprint from the object on which it was found.”

  “How long do fingerprints keep when they do that?”

  “Indefinitely.”

  “How do they know where they took the prints from?”

  Mason said, “You’re asking a lot of questions.”

  “I’m curious.”

  “It all depends on the expert who’s doing the job. Some of them make marks on the object from which the print was lifted, number the adhesive and put a corresponding number on the object. Some of them put the numbers in a notebook with a sketch or a description of the place from which the print was lifted.”

  “I thought they had fingerprint cameras and took photographs.”

  “Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. It all depends on who’s doing it. Personally, I’d photograph all latents, even if the women never got the use of the bathroom.”

  Sally Madison looked at Mason curiously. “Why?”

  “Because,” Mason said, “if there were a lot of latents, the man’s going to have a heck of a job keeping them all straight.”

  “I don’t see the importance of that.”

  “You would if they found one of your fingerprints.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It might make a difference whether they found it on the doorknob or on the handle of the gun—a difference to you, anyway.”

  Paul Drake opened the door of the car Mrs. Faulkner had been driving, swung his feet around to the ground, stretched, yawned, slammed the door shut, and the red of his cigarette glowed in the darkness as he casually walked over to where Mason and Sally Madison were standing, talking.

  “You played a hunch, Perry.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Choke halfway out, motor temperature almost stone cold. Even making allowances for the fact that she’s been here for twenty minutes or even half an hour, the motor wouldn’t have cooled off that fast. It looks as though the car hadn’t been driven more than a quarter of a mile. Perhaps less than that.”