"Gardner, Erle Stanley - Perry Mason 060 - The Case of the Singing Skirt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Earle Stanley)

"What happened to it?"
"Frankly, I don't know, Mr. Mason. I think George did a little sleight of hand on me when he inventoried the cash with me at the time I took over. George is very swift and very clever with his hands. He can deal from the bottom of the deck or deal seconds, and it's almost impossible to catch him at it. I think that when he counted the cash in the cash register with me at the time I took over, he used his sleight of hand. All I know is that when I came to balance up, there was a shortage of a hundred and twenty dollars."
"Who found it?"
"I found it."
"And what did you do?"
"I communicated immediately with him. I told him about it; that is, I told one of the waitresses to tell him. He was in this game."
"And what happened?"
"He fired me. I had about a hundred dollars coming in back wages. He handed me forty dollars and told me that was enough to get out of town on and if I wasn't across the state line within twenty-four hours, he'd have a warrant issued for me. He called me a thief and everything else in the--"
"Anyone present?" Mason asked.
"Quite a few people in the place could hear him," she said. "He wasn't particularly quiet about it."
"Know any of their names?"
"A couple. Sadie Bradford was there."
"Who is she?"
"One of the girls who does all-around work. Sometimes she acts as attendant in the powder room, sometimes she's a hat-check girl, sometimes she works in the motel office."
"There's a motel?" Mason asked.
"Yes. George and Slim own two whole city blocks. They have a motel with a swimming pool, a trout pooi, a night club and bar, and a sort of casino.
"Some of the construction is modern, some of it is rambling old-fashioned buildings. The night club, for instance, started out as an old barn. George modernized it, put on an addition, kept the barnlike atmosphere and called the place 'The Big Barn.'
"This Sadie Bradford," Mason said, "heard him call you a thief?"
"Yes."
"Would she be a witness?"
"I don't know. Her bread and butter might be at stake."
"What happened after he called you a thief and told you to get out of the state?" Mason asked.
"I wanted to go to my locker to get my street clothes, and he told me whatever was in the locker might be evidence, that he thought I had money secreted there. He handed me my coat and told me to get started."
"A rather spectacular way of discharging help," Mason said.
"He did it," she said, "for a purpose."
"To get even with you?"
"That was only part of it. They'd been playing poker for the last few weeks with this man, Helly Ellis--his first name is Helman--Helly is his nickname."
"And I take it this Helman Ellis was the man they wanted you to signal about."
"That's right. Last night they were ready to really take him to the cleaners and, of course, George was afraid that if I told what he had asked me to do, it might make trouble--so he chose this method of getting me discredited, firing me under a cloud, giving me just enough money to get out of town. He said he'd have my things packed up, put in a suitcase and sent to me at the Greyhound Bus Depot at Phoenix, Arizona. They'd be there in my name. I could call for them there."
"And when he cleans out your locker?" Mason asked.
She met his eyes steadily. "You don't know George," she said. "I do. When he cleans out my locker, he'll have some witnesses with him and they'll find a wad of bills."
"This was the first time you'd ever been in charge of the cash register?"
"No, I'd had charge before."
"Were there other shortages?"
"I think there were," she said, "but not in the cash register. I had heard George complaining that some nights the receipts dropped way down although business was good. He intimated that someone had been knocking down--only ringing up a part of the sales. He threatened to get private detectives on the job and said everybody was going to have to take a lie-detector test."
"I take it he hasn't won any popularity contests with the help," Mason said.
"Not recently," Ellen Robb said dryly.
"And somebody has been knocking down on him?" Mason asked.
"He seems to think so, and I would assume he probably is right."
"Could that person or those persons have tampered with your cash register?"
She shook her head. "Most of the knocking down that is done," she said, "is done at the bar. People who buy drinks at the bar pay cash, and if the bar is very busy and the bartender takes in four or five payments at once, he can ring up varying amounts in the cash register and there is no one to check on him. For instance, let us suppose one man has a cocktail which is seventy-five cents or a dollar. Another man has a drink which is sixty cents. Another person has bought drinks for three or four, and his bill is two dollars and eighty-five cents.
"By timing things just right a good bartender can be preoccupied at just the right moment so that every glass gets empty at about the same time. That makes for a rush of business and a lot of payments being made all at once.
"So then the bartender picks up all the money, goes over to the cash register and starts ringing up sales of varying amounts.
"If the bartender is good at mental arithmetic, he can add up the figures in his mind and ring up an amount that is exactly two dollars short of the real amount. Then he gives each customer his exact change. Various amounts have been leaping into sight on the cash register, staying there for just a moment only to be superseded by another amount. Nobody can tell for certain what check is being rung up. If the bartender sees someone paying attention to the cash register, he is scrupulously accurate in ringing up the amounts, but if people are talking and not paying too much attention, he'll knock down a couple of dollars and no one is any the wiser. He'll do that perhaps ten to twenty times in an evening."
"Were you doing any of this work at the bar?"
"Not last night. I was handling the main cash register. I had the only key to it while I was on duty--at least, it was supposed to be the only key. I would Sit there on the stool, and people would come to me with their checks, or the waitresses would come to check out the amounts due at their tables. I'd take in the money and give out the change."
"Was there any reason why you couldn't have knocked down if you had wanted to?" Mason asked.
"There's more of a check on the main cash register. The waitresses issue dinner checks and keep a carbon copy which has to be filed when they go off shift. Theoretically the cash rcgister should show a total income equal to the exact total amount of checks issued by the waitresses. But there are lots of ways of beating that game."
"How?" Mason asked.
"Walks, for one."