Chapter one

Bertha Cool sighed deeply and overflowed the edges of the collapsible wooden chair. She lit a cigarette, and her jeweled hands became semicircles of brilliance in the bright lights which beat down on the padded canvas. Against the gloom of the big deserted gymnasium, her glittering diamonds sparkled like drops of ocean spray in the sunlight.

The Japanese, naked except for a breechclout and a light-colored coat of the texture of heavy linen, braced his feet and looked me over. His face was expressionless.

I was cold. The coat which he had given me was too big. I felt naked in my short trunks, and there were goose pimples on my legs.

“Give him the works, Hashita,” Bertha said.

There were just the three of us in the big, barnlike room. The Japanese smiled at me with his lips, and I saw white rows of glistening teeth. The pitiless lights, imbedded in the trough-shaped cradle of tin which was suspended over the padded canvas, beat down upon me. The Japanese was well fleshed, firmly muscled. When he moved, I could see his muscles ripple beneath skin that was like brown satin.

He said to Bertha, “First lesson please. Not too severe.”

Bertha inhaled a deep drag from her cigarette. Her eyes grew hard as her diamonds. “He’s a smart little runt, Hashita. He learns fast, and it’s my money. I want to get value received.”

Hashita kept his eyes on me. “Jujitsu,” he explained in a swift monotone, “is like lever please. Other man furnish power. You only change direction.”

I nodded, because in the silence which followed his remark, I knew I was expected to nod.

Hashita reached in his loincloth and pulled out a short-barreled revolver. The nickel plate was peeled, the barrel rusted. He opened the cylinder to show me the gun was unloaded.

“Excuse please,” he said. “Honorable pupil take gun, hold in right hand, raise gun, and pull trigger. Quickly please!”

I took the gun.

Bertha Cool’s face held the expression which I have sometimes thought must adorn the faces of women at bullfights.

“Quickly please,” Hashita repeated.

I raised the gun.

He reached smoothly forward and contemptuously pushed my hand down. “Not so slow please. Pretend I am very bad man. You raise gun. Very quickly you pull trigger before I move.”

I remembered reading somewhere that the Western bad-man had been at his most deadly efficiency when he was cocking the gun while raising it. It was a double-action revolver, and I started pulling the trigger as I snapped the gun up.

Hashita was standing in front of me, a broad target. I could feel the hammer coming back as I jerked my wrist.

Suddenly, Hashita wasn’t there at all. He had simply dissolved into motion. I tried to move the revolver to follow that streak of human agility. It was like trying to keep pointing at a lightning flash.

Thick brown fingers coiled around my wrist. Hashita was no longer in front of me and no longer facing me. He was under my arm, with his back turned toward me. My arm was over his shoulder. He jerked my right wrist down. His shoulder smacked under my armpit. I felt my feet leave the floor. The bright lights in their tin cradle and the canvas mat reversed position. I seemed to hang suspended in the air for several seconds, then the padded canvas rushed up to meet me.

The jar made me sick.

I tried to get up, but couldn’t make my muscles respond. There was a quivering in my stomach. Hashita leaned over, caught my wrist and elbow, and lifted me to my feet so quickly it seemed I’d bounced up off the canvas. His teeth were now flashing in a wide grin. The gun lay behind him.

“Very simple,” Hashita said.

Bertha Cool’s diamonds flashed back and forth, up and down, as her hands moved in applause.

Hashita took my shoulders and pushed me back, raised my right arm. “Hold very steady please. I show you.”

He laughed — the nervous, mirthless laugh of a Japanese. I seemed to be standing still in the center of a room which was swaying back and forth on a huge pendulum.

Hashita said, “Now watch closely please.”

He moved slowly, but with such perfect rhythm there was no jerk to his motions. It was exactly as though I’d been watching his image projected on the screen in a slow-motion-picture shot. His left knee bent. His weight slid forward and on his left hip. As he dipped, he turned. His right hand moved forward. The fingers slowly clamped about my wrist. He twisted the ball of his left foot on the canvas. His left shoulder started coming up under my right armpit. The tension of his fingers increased. My right arm was twisted so I couldn’t bend the elbow. He exerted pressure, making a lever out of my own arm. The fulcrum rested on his shoulder, back under my armpit. He tightened the pressure until I could feel pain, and then feel my feet lifting from the canvas.

He relaxed his grip, turned smoothly back into position, and stood smiling! “Now,” he said, “ you try. Slowly at first please.”

He stood facing me with his right arm extended.

I reached for his arm with my right hand. He pushed me back. There was impatience in his gesture. “Honorable pupil remember left knee please. Bend left knee at same time reach with right hand, then turn foot at same time as twist on right arm, so elbow cannot bend.”

I tried it again. This time it was better. He nodded his head, but there was no great enthusiasm in the nod.

“Now try quickly please, with gun.”

He took the gun in his hand, raised his arm, pointing the gun at me. I remembered my left knee and flashed out my hand for his right wrist. I missed it by a good two inches and stumbled forward off balance.

He was too polite to laugh, which made it a lot worse.

I could hear the thud of steps along the bare board floor of the gymnasium.

Hashita said, “Excuse, please,” straightened, and turned. His slanting eyes were squinted as he strove to peer out from under the glare of the lights into the darkness of the big room.

I could make out the man coming forward. He was smoking a cigar; a short man in the forties with glasses and brown eyes. His clothes had been carefully tailored to emphasize his chest and minimize his stomach, but, even so, the narrow slope of the shoulders and the watermelon stomach dominated the suit.

“You the wrestling instructor?” he asked.

Hashita flashed his teeth, and walked toward him.

“My name’s Ashbury — Henry C. Ashbury. Frank Hamilton told me to look you up. I’ll wait until you’re not busy.”

Hashita wrapped sinewy fingers around Ashbury’s hand. “Very great pleasure,” he said with a hissing intake of the breath. “Will honorable gentleman please be seated?”

Hashita moved with catlike swiftness, picked up one of the collapsed wooden chairs, jerked it open so swiftly that it sounded as though the chair had exploded in his hands. He placed it beside Bertha Cool’s chair. “Wait for fifteen minutes?” he inquired. “So sorry, but have pupil taking lessons.”

“Sure,” Ashbury said, “I’ll wait.”

Hashita bowed and apologized to Bertha Cool. He bowed and apologized to me. He bowed and smiled at Ashbury. He said, “Now we try again.”

I looked over to where Ashbury was sitting beside Bertha Cool. His eyes were fastened on me with mild curiosity. It had been bad enough putting on a private exhibition for Bertha. The presence of a stranger made it unbearable.

“Go ahead,” I said to Hashita. “I’ll wait.”

“You’ll catch cold, Donald,” Bertha warned.

“No, no. Go right ahead,” Ashbury said hastily, placing his hat on the floor by the side of his chair. “I’m in no hurry at all. I–I’d like to see it.”

Hashita faced me, teeth glittering. “We try again,” he said, and picked up the gun.

I saw his arm coming up. I gritted my teeth and lunged. This time I caught him by the wrist. I was surprised to find how easy it was to pivot. My shoulder came up under his armpit. I jerked down.

Then unexpected things happened. I knew, of course, that Hashita had given a little leap as I pulled, but the effect was spectacular. He came up over my head. I saw his feet fly up and his legs silhouette against the blazing brilliance of the lights. He twisted suddenly in the air like a cat, wrenched his arm free, and came down on his feet. The gun was lying on the canvas. I was certain he’d dropped it purposely. But that didn’t detract from the effect on the audience.

Bertha Cool said, “I’ll be damned! The little shrimp!”

Ashbury glanced swiftly at Bertha Cool, then stared at me, startled respect in his eyes.

“Very good,” Hashita said. “Very, very good.”

I heard Bertha Cool say casually to Ashbury, “He’s working for me. I run a detective agency. The little runt is always getting beaten up. He’s too light to make a good boxer, but I thought the Jap could teach him jujitsu.”

Ashbury turned to take a good look at her.

He saw only Bertha Cool’s profile. She was watching me with hard, glittering eyes.

There was nothing soft about Bertha. She was big and well-fleshed, but it was hard flesh. She had a big neck, big shoulders, a big bosom, big arms, and a good appetite. Her face had that placid look of meaty contentment which comes to women who have quit worrying about their figures and feel free to eat what they want as often as they want it.

“Detective did you say?” Ashbury asked.

Hashita said, “Now I show you slowly please.”

Bertha Cool kept her eyes on us. “Yes. B. Cool Confidential Investigations. That’s Donald Lam doing the wrestling.”

“He’s working for you?”

“That’s right.”

Hashita took a rubber-bladed dagger from his loincloth and presented the hilt to my fingers.

“He’s a little runt, but he’s brainy,” Bertha Cool went on, talking over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe it, but he was a lawyer, got admitted to the bar. They kicked him out because he told someone how to commit a murder and go scot-free. Smart as a steel trap—”

Hashita said, “Stab please with knife.”

I grabbed the knife and doubled my right arm. Hashita stepped smoothly in, caught my wrist, and the back of my arm, pivoted, and I went up in the air.

As I got to my feet I heard Bertha Cool say, “... guarantee satisfaction. A lot of agencies won’t handle divorce cases and politics. I’ll handle anything there’s money in. I don’t give a damn who it is or what it is, just so the dough’s there.”

Ashbury was looking exclusively at her now.

“I suppose I can trust your discretion?” Ashbury asked.

Bertha Cool seemed to have lost interest in me. “Hell, yes. Absolutely! Anything you say to me stops right there... Don’t mind my cussing.”

“Advisable not to light on head please,” Hashita said. “Honorable pupil must learn to twist in air, so to come down on feet.”

Bertha Cool flung over her shoulder, without even looking at me, “Get your clothes on, Donald. We’ve got a job.”

Chapter two

I sat in the outer office, waiting. I could hear the low hum of voices coming from Bertha Cool’s private office. Bertha never liked to have me listen in while financial arrangements were being made. She paid me a monthly guarantee, which she kept as low as possible, and sold my services for as much as she could get.

After about twenty minutes she called me in. I knew from the expression on her face the financial arrangements had gone to suit her.

Ashbury was sitting in the client’s chair, touching it at only two points — the base of his neck and his hip pockets. That posture caved his chest in and pushed his neck forward. Looking at him, I knew where his watermelon stomach came from.

Bertha oozed sweetness and good will. “Sit down, Donald.”

I sat.

Bertha’s jeweled hand glittered as she scooped a check off the top of the desk and dropped it into the cash drawer before I could even get a glimpse of the figures. “Shall I tell him,” she asked Ashbury, “or will you?”

Ashbury had a fresh cigar in his mouth. His head was bent forward so that he had to look at me over the tops of his glasses. Ashes from the old cigar had dribbled over his vest. The new one was just getting started. “You tell him,” he said.

“Henry Ashbury,” Bertha Cool said with the precision of one compressing facts into a concise statement, “married within the last year. Carlotta Ashbury is his second wife. Mr. Ashbury has a daughter by his first wife. Her name is Alta. On the death of Ashbury’s first wife, half of her property was left to our client, Mr. Ashbury,” and Bertha indicated him with a nod of the head, like a schoolteacher pointing out a figure on a blackboard, “and one half to their daughter, Alta.”

She looked at Ashbury. “I believe,” she said, “you didn’t give me even the approximate amount.”

Ashbury rolled his eyes over the top of the glasses from me to her. “I didn’t,” he said without taking the cigar from his mouth, and the motion dribbled more ashes down on his necktie.

Bertha covered up that one with fast conversation. “The present Mrs. Ashbury had also been married before — to a man named Tindle. She has a son by that marriage. His name is Robert. Just to give you the whole picture, Donald, Robert was inclined to take life a little too easy, following his mother’s second marriage. Is that right, Mr. Ashbury?”

“Right.”

“Mr. Ashbury made him go to work,” Bertha went on, “and he has shown a remarkable aptitude. Because of his winning personality and—”

“He hasn’t any personality,” Ashbury interrupted. “He didn’t have any experience. Some of his mother’s friends took him in on a corporation because of his connection with me. The boys hope to stick me one of these days. They never will.”

“Perhaps you’d better tell Donald about that,” Bertha said.

Ashbury took the cigar from his mouth.

“Couple of chaps,” he said, “Parker Stold and Bernard Carter, control a corporation, the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company. My wife has known Carter for some time — before her marriage to me. They gave Bob a job. At the end of ninety days, they made him sales manager. Two months later, the directors made him president. Figure it out for yourself. I’m the one they’re after.”

“Foreclosed Farms?” I asked.

“That’s the name of the concern.”

“What does it handle?”

“Mines and mining.”

I looked at him, and he looked at me. Bertha asked the question. “What in the world would a Foreclosed Farm Underwriters Company have to do with mines and mining?”

Ashbury slumped lower in his seat. “How the hell should I know? I can’t imagine anything which causes me less concern. I don’t want to know Bob’s business, and I don’t want him to know mine. If I ask him any questions, he’ll start trying to sell me stock.”

I took out my notebook, jotted down the names Ashbury had mentioned, and added a note to look up Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company.

Ashbury didn’t look at all like he had up at the gymnasium. He rolled his eyes over his glasses to look at me again, and reminded me of a chained mastiff. His eyes seemed to say that if he could get a couple more feet of chain, he’d snap my leg off.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Among other things, you’re going to be my trainer.”

“Your what?”

“Trainer.”

Bertha Cool flexed her big arms. “Build him up, Donald. You know — sparring work, jujitsu lessons, wrestling, boxing, road work.”

I stared at her. I’d be useless in a gymnasium as a Republican in a post office. I couldn’t chin myself with a block and tackle.

“Mr. Ashbury wants you to be in the house with him,” Bertha went on to explain. “No one must suspect you’re a detective. The family have known for a long time that he’s intending to do something about getting in shape. He wanted to arrange with Hashita to come to the house and give him lessons. And he’d been thinking about hiring a good detective. As soon as he saw your work in the gymnasium, he realized that if he could plant you as his trainer, that would solve his problem.”

“What,” I asked Ashbury, “do you want detected?”

“I want to find out what my daughter’s doing with her money. Find out who’s getting chunks of her dough — and why.”

“Is she being blackmailed?”

“I don’t know. If she is, I want you to find out about it.”

“And if she isn’t?”

“Find out what’s happening to her dough. She’s either being blackmailed, is gambling, or Bob has inveigled her into financing him. Any of them are dangerous to her and distasteful to me. Not only have I her welfare to consider, but I’m in a very delicate position myself. The first breath of financial scandal in my family would raise merry hell with me... And I’m talking too damn much. I don’t like it. Let’s get this over with.”

Bertha said, “He took a fancy to you as soon as he saw you throw that Jap around, Donald. Isn’t that right, Mr. Ashbury?”

“No.”

“Why, I thought—”

“I liked the way he acted while the Jap was throwing him around. We’re all talking too damn much. Let’s get to work.”

I asked, “Why do you think your daughter is being—”

“Two cheques in the last thirty days,” he interrupted, “each payable to ‘Cash’. Each in the sum of ten thousand dollars, and each deposited by the Atlee Amusement Corporation. That’s a gambling outfit — restaurants downstairs for a blind, gambling upstairs for profit.”

“Did she lose the money gambling in those places?” I asked.

“No. She hasn’t been in either place. I found that out.”

“When,” I asked, “do you want me to go out to the house with you?”

“Now. I don’t want any snooping. Win Alta’s friendship. Get her to confide in you — capable — dependable — athletic — aggressive.”

“She’d hardly pick on a physical culture trainer as one in whom to confide.”

“Wrong. That’s just what she would do. She isn’t a snob, and she hates snobs. Try to cultivate her, and she’ll snub you. You’re wrong... No, wait a minute. Maybe you’re right... All right, let me think... Tell you what. You aren’t a professional trainer. You’re an amateur — but a topnotch amateur. I’m figuring on backing you in a business proposition. I’m figuring on opening a string of private, exclusive gymnasiums where businessmen who are out of shape can be put in first-class condition at so much per. You’re going to manage the whole string for me, salary and bonus. You’re not a trainer. You’re a business partner who knows the game... Putting me in shape will be incidental... Leave it to me.”

“All right. That end of it’s up to you. Now I’m only supposed to find out about your daughter’s financial drain. Is that all?”

“All! Hell’s fire, that’s the biggest job you ever tackled. She’s steel spring and dynamite, that girl. If she ever finds out you’re a detective, I’m sunk and you’re fired. Get that?”

“But how about your stepson? Why did you want to tell me about his business and—”

“So you can keep out of his way, and keep Alta out of his damn business. He’s a stuffed shirt with a wilted collar. His mother thinks he’s a genius. He thinks so, too. Don’t get fooled. If he’s inveigled Alta into putting dough into his business — well, I’ll fix that. I want the facts, that’s all. I told him, and I told his mother, I’d be damned if I gave him another cent. If he’s getting it through Alta, it’s the same as though he were getting it through me. I won’t have it... And I’m talking altogether too damned much. I’m finished. When’ll you be out?”

“Within an hour,” Bertha answered for me.

Ashbury rippled his back in a contortion which enabled him to get his hands on the arms of the chair. Using his arms, he pushed himself up and to his feet. “All right, come in a taxicab. Mrs. Cool has the address. I’ll go out and pave the way... Now remember, Lam. No one’s to know you’re a detective. The minute anyone finds that out, your goose is cooked.” He spun to Bertha Cool, and said, “You remember that, too. Don’t make any false moves. Alta’s nobody’s damn fool. She’ll find out if you make a single stumble. One boob play, and you’ve kicked a hundred dollars a day out the window.”

So Bertha was getting a hundred dollars a day, plus expenses. She was paying me eight when I worked, with a monthly guarantee of seventy-five bucks.

Ashbury said, “Get there in an hour, Lam, and you can meet the family tonight — all except Alta. She’ll be out somewhere, won’t get in before two or three o’clock in the morning. We have our workout at seven-thirty, breakfast at eight-thirty. And I’m not kidding about having you show me some of that jujitsu stuff. I want to get my muscles built up. I’m too flabby.”

He wiggled his narrow shoulders inside the padded coat, and it was surprising to see, when the tips of his shoulders touched the cloth, how much the tailor had been able to do with padding.

“Donald will be there,” Bertha Cool said.

After he went out, Bertha said, “Sit down.”

I sat on the arm of the chair.

She said, “There’s a lot of expenses in connection with running this business that you don’t know a damn thing about: rent, secretarial salaries, social security, income tax, occupation tax, stationery, bookkeeping, lights.”

“Janitor service,” I suggested.

“That’s right. Janitor service.”

“So what?”

“Well, this is a pretty good job, Donald, and I’ve decided to raise your wages to ten dollars a day while you’re working on it.”

“That’ll be ten dollars,” I said.

“What will?”

“One day.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s as long as I’ll last. How can I teach anyone physical culture?”

“Now don’t be like that, Donald. I’ve got it all worked out. We’ll make arrangements with Hashita to give you your lessons every afternoon. I told Mr. Ashbury you’d have to get off every afternoon between two and four in order to come up here and make reports. What you’ll really do is go to Hashita and get lessons in jujitsu. Then you’ll give Mr. Ashbury a rehash of those lessons. Don’t let him develop too fast.”

“He won’t,” I said. “What’s more, I won’t.”

“Oh, you’ll take to it like a duck to water, Donald.”

“How do I get back and forth? How far is it?”

“It’s too far to go on a streetcar, but because he thinks you’re coming up to the office to make reports, I’ve made him agree to pay taxi fare.”

“How much?”

“You don’t need to bother,” Bertha Cool said. “We aren’t going to spend all our profits on taxicabs. I’ll drive you out to within a block of the place tonight. You can walk the rest of the way. I’ll be waiting every day at two o’clock with my car. We may just as well have that extra profit as not.”

“It’s a foolish chance to take, just to knock down a taxi fare, but it’s your funeral,” I said, and went out to pack my suitcase.

Chapter three

Bertha Cool dropped me within a block of Ashbury’s place at ten twenty-five. It was drizzling a bit. I walked the block with my suitcase banging against my legs. It was a big place out in millionaire row with a gravel driveway, ornamental trees, roomy architecture, and servants.

The butler hadn’t heard any taxicab drive up. He looked at the rain which had fallen on the brim of my hat and asked if I was Mr. Lam. I told him I was.

He said he’d take my suitcase up to my room, that Mr. Ashbury wanted to see me right away in the library.

I went in. Ashbury shook hands and started performing introductions. Mrs. Ashbury was considerably younger than her husband. She had the big-breasted, big-hipped, voluptuous type of beauty. She was carrying about fifteen pounds too much weight to make the curves smooth and voluptuous. Here and there the contours broke into bulges. Apparently she couldn’t keep still. Her body was always in motion, little undulations, swayings and swingings. Her eyes sparkled with animal vitality. She looked me over, and I felt as though she’d rubbed her hands over me. She gave me her hand and started pouring out words. “I think it’s the most wonderful idea Henry has ever had. I suppose I should do something like that, too. I’ve really been putting on far too much weight the last two years. I wasn’t like that until this high blood pressure came along, spells of dizziness, and a pain over my heart. The doctor told me I shouldn’t exercise. But if the doctors can ever get this condition cleared up, I’ll exercise, and I lose weight very rapidly. You seem to be in marvelous shape, Mr. Lam. You don’t have any weight at all.”

She stopped talking long enough to let Ashbury introduce a man named Bernard Carter. He was a fat, jovial chap in the middle forties. He had fish eyes which were badly filmed, fat, pudgy hands, and a back-slapping manner. He was nicely tailored and was the sort of salesman who would show a customer a sample, tell him a smutty story, show him another sample, tell him another story, and get the order. Keep them laughing was his motto. He had three chins, and when he laughed they all quivered with mirth. The fat on his cheeks would push up under his eyes so that you could only see narrow slits when he was laughing, but if you watched those slits closely, you saw that the eyes behind them hadn’t changed expression a bit. They were filmed and watchful and fishy. Mrs. Ashbury watched him with beaming approval. He was very attentive to her.

I gathered Carter must be related to Mrs. Ashbury in some way. They seemed to have a lot in common — a pair who liked the good things in life, who lived to enjoy themselves.

Mrs. Ashbury couldn’t seem to take her eyes off me. She said, “You don’t seem to have an ounce of fat on you. You’re little, but you must have a wonderful body.”

“I try to keep in shape,” I said.

Carter said thoughtfully, “Henry, I guess I’ll have to become one of your first clients. I weighed myself the other day — wouldn’t believe how much weight I’d put on.”

Mrs. Ashbury said, “You’re all right, Bernard. Of course, a little exercise would tone you up a bit. Yes, it’s a splendid idea, and as soon as my blood pressure goes down, I’m going to exercise. It must be wonderful to be slim and hard like Mr. Lam — only you’re rather light for a professional wrestler, aren’t you?”

“Instructor,” I corrected.

“I know, but you must be good. Henry tells me you took on a Japanese jujitsu wrestler and made him look like thirty cents.”

Henry Ashbury stared steadily at me.

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t be modest for me to comment,” I said.

Her throat, shoulders, and diaphragm rippled as she gave a high-pitched, delighted laugh. “Oh, I think that’s priceless. That’s just absolutely priceless! Bob would get an awful kick out of that. Bob’s modest, too. Did Mr. Ashbury tell you about Robert?”

“Your son?” I asked.

“Yes. He’s a wonderful boy. I’m so proud of him. He started in right at the bottom, and through diligent application and hard work, he’s been made president of the corporation.”

I said, “That certainly is remarkable!” Ashbury’s eyes stared at me over the tops of his glasses.

Bernard Carter said, “I’m not just throwing any bouquets when I say that Bob’s a business genius. I’ve never seen a man who could grasp things as quickly.”

“Doing all right, is he?” Henry Ashbury asked noncommittally.

“All right!” Carter exclaimed. “My God, he’s—” He looked across at Mrs. Ashbury, became silent, spread his palms in a little gesture, as much as to say, “Oh, what’s the use,” and exhaled his breath slowly.

“Glad to hear it,” Ashbury said without any show of enthusiasm.

Mrs. Ashbury had a low-pitched, throaty, seductive voice, but when she became excited, it jumped up an octave and bounced off the roof of her mouth as easily as hail off a tin roof.

“I think it’s absolutely mar velous, and, with it all, he’s just as modest as he can be. He hardly ever talks about his work. He feels that Henry isn’t interested in it. I’ll bet you don’t even know about their latest strike, Henry, or what Bob—”

“I have enough business at the office,” Henry interrupted.

“But you should get together more with Bob. You know, after all, in his position as president of the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company, Bob has opportunities to learn a lot of what’s going on in the business world. Some of that knowledge might prove very valuable to you, Henry.”

“Yes, my love, but I’m too tired when I get home to talk business.”

She sighed. “Oh, you businessmen! Bob is the same way. You just can’t get a word out of him.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“Down in the billiard room with his sales manager, Parker Stold.”

Ashbury nodded to me. “Come on, Lam. We’ll go meet Bob and Stold.”

I said conventional things to Mrs. Ashbury, and she took my hand and held it for a minute. When I got away, Henry Ashbury led the way down a long corridor, down a flight of stairs, and into another corridor. I could see a playroom on one side, with a long Ping-pong table. On the other side was a room from which came the click of balls and a mumble of conversation.

Ashbury opened the door. A man who had been getting ready to make a shot, with one hip on the table, climbed down and said “Hello, Governor,” to Ashbury.

This was Robert Tindle, a chap with a sloping forehead, long, straight nose, and eyes the color of cheap glass marbles — a watery green, covered with a film that was like scum. You felt that if you looked at those eyes closely, you’d see lots of little air bubbles. His face didn’t have any particular expression, and all I could think of when I looked at him was the ad for the contented cows.

He wore a dinner jacket and shook hands without enthusiasm.

Parker Stold evidently had something on his mind. He regarded our visit as an interruption, and acknowledged the introduction to me with a quick “Please’-t’-meetcha” and didn’t offer to shake hands. His eyes were a little too close together, but his hair was wavy, and he had a nice mouth. I figured he was a little older than Bob.

The butler got me up at seven o’clock the next morning. I shaved, dressed, and went down to the gymnasium. It was a big, bare room on the basement floor just back of the billiard room. It had the smell of never having been used. There were a punching bag, horizontal bars, Indian clubs, dumbbells, weight-lifting machines, a canvas wrestling mat, and, at the far end, a squared ring for boxing. There were boxing gloves hanging on a rack. I went over and looked at them. The price tags, which had turned yellow with age, were still tied by a faded-green string to the laces.

I was wearing a pair of tennis shoes, slacks, and an athletic undershirt. When Henry Ashbury came in, he was bundled up in a bathrobe. He slipped it off and stood with nothing on but some boxer’s tights.

He looked like hell.

“Well,” he said, “here we are.”

He looked down at his watermelon paunch. “I suppose I’ve got to do something about this.” He walked over to the weight-lifting machine and began tugging away at the weights and puffing and blowing. After a minute he stepped aside and nodded toward them. “Do you want a workout?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Neither do I, but I’ve got to.”

“Why don’t you try sitting up straighter — get a better posture?”

“I sit down because I want to be comfortable. I’m most comfortable when I’m slumped down in a chair.”

“Go ahead and exercise, then,” I said.

He flashed me a quick glance and acted as though he was going to say something, but didn’t. He went back to the weight-lifting machine and did some more work. Then he went over and weighed himself on the scales.

He walked over to the canvas mat and said, “Do you think you could show me some of that stuff the Jap was showing you last night?”

I met his eyes and said, “No.”

He laughed and put on the bathrobe. After that we sat down and talked politics until it was time to take a shower and dress for breakfast.

After breakfast Ashbury went to the office. Along about eleven o’clock I met Alta, who had just got up for breakfast. She’d evidently heard all about me. “Come on in and keep me company while I eat,” she said. “I want to talk with you.”

It looked like a good chance to get acquainted. I went in and went through the routine of seating her at the table. I sat opposite her, and had a cup of coffee with cream and sugar while she had black coffee, three pieces of Ry-Krisp, and a cigarette. If I could have had a figure like hers by eating that sort of breakfast, I’d have done it myself.

“Well?” she asked.

I remembered what Henry Ashbury had said about being myself, and not trying to force things. “Well, what?”

She laughed. “You’re the new physical instructor?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t look as though you were much of a boxer.”

I didn’t say anything.

“My stepmother tells me it’s not weight but speed. She says you’re so fast that you’re like a streak of lightning. I must see you work out some day.”

“I’m training your father. He isn’t doing any boxing.”

She eyed me critically and said, “I can see why you go in for jujitsu. That must be interesting.”

“It is.”

“They say you’re so good that it takes the best of the Japanese to give you any sort of a match.”

“That’s not exactly true.”

“But you do wrestle with the Japanese?”

“Some.”

“Didn’t Dad see you throwing a big Japanese wrestler last night?”

I said, “Can’t we talk about something else besides me?”

“What, for instance?”

“You.”

She shook her head. “I’m never an interesting subject of conversation at this time in the morning... Do you like to walk?”

“No.”

“I do. I’m going to take a long brisk walk.”

Instructions had been most explicit. I was to get acquainted with Alta Ashbury, win her confidence, let her feel that I was capable of whipping my weight in wildcats, and get her to open up and tell me what was bothering her. In order to do that, I had to make hay while the sun was shining.

I took a long brisk walk.

I didn’t learn anything on the first part of the walk except that she certainly had a swell figure, that her eyes were warm and brown and had a trick of laughing every time her lips smiled. She had the endurance of a marathon runner, a love of fresh air, and a scorn for most of the conventions. After a while, we sat under some trees. I didn’t talk. She did. She hated fortune hunters and men who “had a line.” She was inclined to think marriage was the bunk, and that her father was a fool for letting himself get roped into it, that she hated her stepmother, that her stepbrother was the apple of Mrs. Ashbury’s eyes, and that she thought the apple was full of wormholes.

I felt that was pretty good for one afternoon. I got back in time to ditch her and duck around the corner to where Bertha Cool was waiting. She took me up to the Jap. Hashita showed me a few more grips and holds, and made me do a lot more practicing. By the time I got done with him, the walk, the exercise of the day before, and the tumbles I’d taken made me feel as though I’d just lost a ten-round bout to a steam roller.

I explained to Bertha that Ashbury was wise, so it wasn’t going to be necessary to keep up the jujitsu lessons. Bertha said she’d paid for them, and I’d take them or she’d know the reason why. I warned her about continuing to take me back and forth to the house, and told her since Ashbury was paying for it, I’d better get a cab. She told me she was fully capable of running the business end of things, and got me back in time for dinner.

It was a lousy dinner. The food was good, but there was too much service. I had to sit straight as a ramrod and pretend to be interested in a lot of things Mrs. Ashbury was saying. Robert Tindle posed as the tired businessman. Henry Ashbury shoved in grub with the preoccupied manner of one who hadn’t the slightest idea of what he’s eating.

Alta Ashbury was going out to a dance about ten o’clock. She took an hour after dinner to sit out on a glassed-in sun porch and talk.

There was a half-moon. The air was warm and balmy, and something was worrying her. She didn’t say what it was, but I could see she wanted companionship.

I didn’t want to talk. So I just sat there and kept quiet. Once when I saw her hand tighten into a little fist, and she seemed all tense and nervous, I reached my hand out, put it over hers, gave it a little squeeze, said, “Take it easy,” and then, as she relaxed, took my hand away.

She looked up at me quickly, as though she weren’t accustomed to having men remove their hands from hers.

I didn’t say anything more.

A little before ten she went up to dress for the dance. I’d found out that she liked tennis and horseback riding, that she didn’t care for badminton, that she liked swimming, that if it weren’t for good old dad she’d pull out and leave the house flat on its foundations, that she thought her stepmother was poisoning her father’s disposition, and that someone should give her stepmother back to the Indians. I hadn’t said anything one way or another.

The next morning Ashbury started to lift weights, found his muscles were sore, said there was no use going at the thing too damn fast, put on his big lap robe, came over and sat down beside me on the canvas mat, and smoked a cigar. He wanted to know what I’d found out.

I told him nothing. He said, “Alta’s fallen for you. You’re good.”

We had breakfast, and about eleven o’clock Alta Ashbury showed up. Mrs. Ashbury always had breakfast in bed.

When we took our walk that afternoon, Alta told me more about her stepmother. Mrs. Ashbury had high blood pressure, and the doctor said she mustn’t be excited. The doctor was standing in with her, gave in to her, wheedled her and petted her. She thought her dad should kick Bernard Carter out of the house. She didn’t know what there was about me that made her talk so much, unless it was because I was so understanding, and because she was so worried about her dad she could cry.

She warned me that if Mrs. Ashbury ever wanted anything, no matter how unreasonable, I wasn’t to cross her at all, because, as surely as I did, the doctor would make an examination, find her blood pressure had gone up, blame the whole thing on me, and I’d go out on my ear. I gathered she didn’t want me to go out on my ear.

I felt like a heel.

At two o’clock Bertha Cool picked me up, and the Jap kneaded me as though I’d been a batch of bread dough. When I got away from those stubby fingers I felt like a shirt that had been put through a washing machine, run through a wringer, and dried on a mangle.

I staggered in to supper. It was the same as the previous night, only Alta looked as though she’d been crying. She hardly spoke to me. After dinner I hung around, giving her a chance to talk with me in case there was anything she wanted to confide.

Alta didn’t make any secret about how she felt about Bernard Carter. She said he was supposed to be working on a business deal with her stepmother. She didn’t know just what it was... No one seemed to know just what it was. Alta said both of them hated her, that she thought her stepmother was afraid of some woman whom Carter knew, that one time she’d walked into the library just as her stepmother was saying, “Go ahead and get some action. I’m tired of all this dillydallying. You can imagine how much mercy she’d show me if our positions were reversed. I want you to—” Carter had noticed she’d come into the room and had coughed significantly. Mrs. Ashbury had looked up, stopped in the middle of a sentence, and started talking about something else with the swift garrulity of one who is trying to cover up.

Alta was silent for a while after she told me that, and then said moodily she supposed she was telling me things she had no right to, but for some reason or other I inspired confidence, that she felt I was loyal to her father, and that if I was going in business with him, I’d have to watch her stepmother, Bob, and Bernard Carter. Then she added a few words about Dr. Parkerdale. He was, it seemed, one of the fashionable boys with a good bedside manner. Every time Mrs. Ashbury had a dizzy spell from eating too much, Dr. Parkerdale became as gravely concerned as though it were the first symptom of a world-wide epidemic of infantile paralysis.

She told me that much, then clamped her lips shut lightly.

I said, “Go ahead.”

“With what?” she asked.

“The rest of it.”

“The rest of what?”

“The rest of the things I should know.”

“I’ve told you too much already.”

“Not enough,” I said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m going in business with your father. He’s going to invest a bunch of money. I’ve got to see that he gets a fair return for his investment. I’ve got to get along with Mrs. Ashbury. I want to know how to do it.”

She said hastily, “You leave her alone. Keep out of her way, and listen... Don’t — don’t ever—”

“Don’t ever what?” I asked.

“Don’t ever trust yourself alone with her,” she said. “If she wants to take exercise in the gymnasium, be sure to have someone else there all the time she’s there.”

I made the mistake of laughing and said, “Oh, surely she wouldn’t—”

She turned on me furiously. “I tell you,” she said, “I know her. She’s a creature of physical appetites and animal cunning. She simply can’t control herself. All this high blood pressure business is simply the result of overeating and overindulgence. She’s put on twenty pounds since Dad married her.”

“Your father,” I said, “is nobody’s fool.”

“Of course he isn’t, but she’s worked out a technique that no man can fight against. Whenever she wants anything and anyone balks her, she starts working herself up to a high pitch of excitement, then she telephones for Dr. Parkerdale. He comes rushing out as though it were a matter of life and death, takes her blood pressure, and starts tiptoeing around the house until he’s created the proper impression. Then he takes whoever is responsible off to one side and says very gently and with his best professional manner that Mrs. Ashbury really isn’t herself, that she simply mustn’t become excited, that if he can only keep her perfectly calm for a period of several months, he can cure her blood pressure, that then she can start taking exercise and reduce her weight and be her normal self, but that whenever there’s an argument and she becomes excited, all the good that he’s done is wiped out, and he has to go back and begin all over again.”

I laughed and said, “That seems to be a hard game to beat.”

She was furious at me because I’d laughed. “Of course it’s a hard game to beat,” she said. “You can’t beat it. Dr. Parkerdale says that it doesn’t make any difference whether she’s right or wrong, that one mustn’t argue with her. That means you have to give in to her all the time. That means she’s becoming more selfish and spoiled every minute of the time. Her temper is getting more ungovernable. She’s getting more selfish, more—”

“How about Bernard Carter?” I asked. “Does he get along with her?”

“Bernard Carter,” she snorted. “Bernard Carter and his business deal! He’s the man who comes around when Father goes away. She may fool Dad with that business talk, but she doesn’t fool me a darn bit. I–I hate her.”

I observed that I thought Henry Ashbury was quite capable of handling the situation.

“He isn’t,” Alta said. “No man is. She has him hamstrung and hogtied before he starts. If he accuses her of anything, she’ll throw one of her fits and Dr. Parkerdale will come rushing out with the rubber tube he puts around her arm and take her blood pressure... Oh, can’t you see what she’s doing is simply laying the foundation for filing a suit for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty, claiming that Father was so unreasonable and unjust with her that it ran up her blood pressure and ruined her health and kept Dr. Parkerdale from curing her. And she has the doctor all primed to give his testimony. The only thing Father can do is efface himself as much as possible and wait for something to break. That means he has to give in to her... Look here, Donald. Are you pumping me or am I just making a fool out of myself talking too damn much?”

I felt like a heel again, only worse.

She didn’t talk much after that.

Someone called her on the telephone, and she didn’t like the conversation. I could see that much from the expression on her face. After her party had hung up, she telephoned and broke a date.

I went out finally and sat on the sun porch. I felt more like a heel than ever.

After a while she came out and stood looking down at me. I could feel her scorn, even though it was too dark to see the expression in her eyes. “So,” she said, “that’s it, is it?”

“What?” I asked.

She said, “Don’t think I’m entirely a nitwit... You, a physical instructor... I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you I’d take the licence number of the car that calls for you every afternoon, and look up the registration... B. Cool, Confidential Investigations. I suppose your real name is Cool.”

“It isn’t,” I said. “It’s Donald Lam.”

“Well, the next time Dad tries to get a detective who’s going to pose as a physical instructor, tell him to get someone who looks the part.”

She stormed out of the room.

There was an extension phone down in the basement. I went down and called Bertha Cool. “All right,” I said, “you’ve spilled the beans.”

“What do you mean, I’ve spilled the beans?”

“She wondered who was calling for me afternoons, waited around the corner, got the licence number of your car, and looked it up... It’s registered in the name of the agency, you know.”

I could hear Bertha Cool’s gasp over the telephone.

“A hundred bucks a day thrown out of the window just so that you could chisel a taxi fare,” I said.

“Now listen, lover,” she implored, “you’ve got to find some way out of this. You can do it, if you’ll put your mind on it. That’s what Bertha has you for, to think for her.”

I said, “Nuts.”

“Donald, you must. We simply can’t afford to lose that money.”

“You’ve already lost it.”

“Isn’t there something you can do?”

I said, “I don’t know. Drive the agency car out here, park it at the place where you usually meet me, and wait.”

Chapter four

Alta went out about quarter to ten. The butler opened the garage doors, and while he was doing that, I was streaking down the street. That’s one thing I’m good at sprinting.

Bertha Cool was waiting in the car. I climbed in beside her, and said, “Get that motor going. When a twelve-cylinder car streaks past us, give it everything you’ve got and keep the lights turned off.”

“You’d better drive, Donald.”