It was eight-forty when I strode into the hotel where I’d left Esther Clarde. A young woman telephone operator was on duty at the switchboard. I told her to ring Miss Claxon’s room, and tell her that Mr. Lam was waiting in the lobby.
She said, “Miss Claxon has checked out.”
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Sometime last night.”
“Can you find out exactly when?”
She said, “You’d better ask the room clerk.”
I walked over to the registration desk and asked the room clerk. He moved down to the window marked Cashier and said, “She paid in advance.”
“I know she paid in advance. What I want to know is when she left.”
He shook his head, started to push back the drawer of cards, then some notation caught his eye. He turned it over to the corner and looked at the pencil note. “She went out about two o’clock this morning,” he said.
I thanked him and asked if there were any messages for me. He looked through a stack of envelopes and said there were none.
I called up Bertha Cool from a booth in a restaurant a couple of doors down the street. No one answered at either the office or her apartment.
I had breakfast and smoked cigarettes over two cups of coffee. I got a newspaper, glanced through the headlines, and read the sporting news. I called Bertha Cool’s office again, and she was in.
“Anything new?” I asked.
“Where are you, Donald?”
“At a pay station.”
Her voice was cautious. “I understand the police are making headway in the Ringold murder.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. There are some recent developments they can’t figure out.”
“Such as what?”
“Someone got into the hotel room, apparently early this morning, and ripped it all to pieces. The upholstery was cut open, curtains were pulled down, carpets torn up, pictures taken out of the frames — a hell of a mess.”
“Any clues?”
“Apparently none. The police aren’t exactly communicative. I had to get information that was bootlegged out.”
“Nice goings,” I said.
“What are you going to do, lover?”
“Just keep circulating.”
“Mr. Crumweather’s office called up. It seems that Mr. Crumweather is very anxious to see you.”
“Say what he wanted?”
“No. He just wanted to talk with you.”
“Sociable old buzzard, isn’t he?”
“Uh-huh. Donald, watch your step.”
“I’m watching it.”
“Bertha couldn’t use you, you know, if you were sleeping in a room that had iron bars all over it.”
I pretended to be surprised and hurt. “You mean you’d stop my salary if I had to go to jail over trying to solve a company case?”
Bertha fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. She said, “You’re goddam right I’d stop your salary, you impudent little squirt,” and slammed up the telephone so hard it sounded as though she’d pulled the receiver hook out by the roots.
I went back and had another cup of coffee on the strength of that, then went over to Crumweather’s office.
Miss Sykes gave me one look, said, “Just a minute,” and dived into Crumweather’s private office. It was a good minute before she came out. I figured she’d had fifty seconds worth of instructions.
“Go on in, Mr. Lam.”
I went into the private office. Crumweather beamed all over his face. He pushed out a bony hand at me, and was as effusively cordial as an applicant for a loan greeting a bank appraiser who’s called to go over the physical assets.
“Well, well, Lam, my boy,” he said, “you certainly are an active little chap — damnably active! You certainly do get around. Yes, sir, you certainly do.”
I sat down.
Crumweather pushed his bushy eyebrows together in level speculation, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and looked me over with cold, hard appraisal. He tried to soften the severity of his eyes by freezing his lips into a smile.
“What have you been doing since I saw you last, Lam?”
“Thinking.”
“That was clever, that idea of yours about the oil company— Now tell me, Lam, just what made you use that approach.”
“I thought it would be a good one.”
“It was a good one, very good indeed! Too good. Now, I want to know who put you up to it.”
“No one.”
“There’s been a leak somewhere. Someone has been talking about me. A man in my position can’t afford to have his professional reputation questioned.”
“I understand that.”
“Rumours have a way of traveling, getting garbled, distorted out of all sense of proportion.”
“They do for a fact.”
“If you’ve heard anything about any of my legal activities and came to me because it had been rumored I could beat the Blue Sky Act. Well, I want to know about it. I’d be willing to be generous — you know, grateful.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “I take it,” he said sarcastically, “the idea just popped into your head. You said to yourself, ‘Now, I want to approach Crumweather and get him to talk. What’s the best way to get him to open up? Ah, I have it. Tell him I want to beat the Blue Sky Act.’ ”
“That’s right.”
“Bunk!”
I puffed at my cigarette.
He studied me for a while, and then said, “You know, Donald — I’m going to call you Donald because you seem like a boy to me, not that I’m commenting on your immaturity, but simply because I’m a much older man, and I’ve taken a fatherly interest in you.”
“Have you?”
“I have indeed. You know you have a very shrewd mind. There’s something about you that appeals to me. I’ve investigated your past a bit— You’ll understand my interest in you?”
“I understand.”
He beamed, then the beam expanded into a chuckle. “You do, at that,” he said.
We were silent for a minute, then Crumweather went on. “I find that you’ve had a legal education. Most interesting. I consider a legal education a wonderful foundation for success in almost any field of endeavour.”
“Primarily in the law business,” I said.
He threw back his head and laughed. “A dry sense of humor, my boy, very dry, very interesting. You know, a man with your keenness of perception could make a great deal of money in the law business — if he had the proper connections. It’s very difficult for a young lawyer to open an office, finance the purchase of books and office furniture, and then wait for clients to come in.”
“So I understand.”
“But persons who have a well-established law practice are sometimes willing to consider offering junior partnerships to men with the right amount of ability.”
I didn’t say anything.
He said, “I find, Donald, that you had an argument with the grievance committee in regard to legal ethics. You told a client how to commit a murder and avoid all legal responsibility.”
“I didn’t tell him anything of the sort. I was discussing abstract law.”
“The committee didn’t so understand it — the committee also said that you were in error.”
“I know they did, but it worked out. It actually held water.”
He rocked back and forth in his swivel chair, chuckling. “It did for a fact,” he admitted. “I happen to know one of the members of the grievance committee. I called the matter to his attention. He found it an embarrassing subject.”
“You cover a lot of territory yourself,” I observed.
“At times I do — not physically, but mentally. I find that a person keeps his mind keyed to a higher pitch if he conserves his physical energy as much as possible.”
I said, “All right, let’s quit beating around the bush. Where’s Esther Clarde?”
He stroked the long angle of his bony jaw with gnarled fingers. “I’m glad you’ve brought that up. I was wondering just how to broach the subject. I—”
The secretary popped her head in the door. “A long-distance call,” she said, “from—”
The smile left Crumweather’s face as though he’d ripped off a mask. His lips were ugly and snarling, his eyes hard and intolerant. “I told you I wasn’t to be interrupted. I told you what to do. Get out there and do it, and don’t—”
“It’s a long-distance call from Valleydale. The man says it’s terribly important.”
Crumweather thought that over for a minute. “All right, I’ll take the call.”
He picked up the telephone on his desk. His face was without expression. Only his eyes gave evidence of extreme mental concentration. After a while I heard a click and Crumweather said, “Hello... Yes, this is Crumweather. What do you want?”
I couldn’t hear anything coming in over the wire, but I could watch his face. I saw him frown, then the eyebrows raise just a bit. The mouth tightened. He glanced at me as though afraid that, through some psychic eavesdropping, I might be hearing what was reaching his left ear through the receiver. My expression reassured him, but the tendency to furtive secrecy was strong in the man. He cupped the palm of his right hand over the mouthpiece as though that would bottle up the telephone.
After a few seconds Crumweather moved his hand from the mouthpiece long enough to say, “You have to be absolutely certain you aren’t making any mistakes about this,” and then slid his hand back quickly.
Again he listened, and slowly nodded. “All right. Keep me posted.”
He listened a little while longer, then said, “All right, good-by,” and hung up. He looked at me speculatively, doubled his left fist, wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the knuckles, and squeezed until the knuckles popped. He picked up the telephone, and said to his secretary, “Let me have an outside line.” He dialed a number, taking pains to see that I couldn’t watch what number he was calling. He said, “Hello, this is Crumweather — all right. Now listen, get this straight. I want the operations reversed. Where you’ve been selling, you’ll have to buy. Quit selling immediately and buy back what you’ve sold. That’s right — I can’t explain — not right now. Do what I say. Well, suppose there was more of a foundation of fact than you’d thought — everything was just the way you — well, let’s look at it this way. Suppose a man was making a three-minute talk, and suppose everything he said in that three minutes happened to be not only true but true on a bigger scale than he’d even dared to dream — that’s right — you haven’t any time to waste. This thing is going to leak out. Call in all the men and get busy.”
He hung up the telephone and turned to me. It took him a minute to pick up the thread of the conversation.
“Esther Clarde,” I reminded him.
“Oh, yes,” he said, and his face once more settled into that fixed, frozen smile. “You know you made a most remarkable impression on that young woman, Donald.”
“Did I?”
“You did. I mean you really did.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“You should be. It was most advantageous for you, but you see, I’m an older man and a wiser man, and, if I may say so, an older friend. Before she’d take any drastic steps, she’d consult me.”
“You’ve known her for some time?”
“Oh, yes, a very nice young woman — a very nice young woman.”
“That makes it nice,” I said.
“I can appreciate her generosity,” Crumweather said, “in trying to protect you, Donald, but I can’t condone it.”
“No?”
“No, not for a moment. Of course, Donald, a desperate man will do almost anything; but, even so, I can’t appreciate how any man could so far forget himself as to let a woman put himself in the position of being an accessory after the fact, an accomplice to the crime of murder.”
“Indeed.”
“And I have so advised Esther Clarde. It may interest you to know, Donald, that I talked with her early this morning. I have an appointment with her at ten-thirty. I’ve persuaded her that the only thing to do is to call the officers and confess frankly that she tried to protect you.”
“You mean reverse her statement?”
“That’s it exactly.”
“Her identification won’t amount to much if she goes on the stand now and swears I was the one who went into the hotel.”
He was positively beaming. “That’s right, Donald, that’s right. You have a very clear legal mind, but if she said that you had bribed her not to identify you, that it was because of this bribe she lied to the officers, but that afterward she had competent legal advice and realized that that made her an accessory after the fact — well, Donald, that legal mind of yours won’t have any difficulty in putting two and two together.”
“It doesn’t,” I said.
“I didn’t think it would.”
“Very clever,” I told him.
“Thank you,” he said, flashing his teeth in a grin. “I thought it was pretty good myself.”
“All right, what do you want?”
The grin left his face. He looked at me steadily. He said, “I want that last bunch of letters that Jed Ringold was supposed to have delivered in that envelope.”
“Why?”
“As a lawyer, Donald, you don’t need to ask that question.”
“But I am asking it.”
He said, “My client is going to be tried for murder. It’s one of those cases where a jury will act on prejudice rather than evidence. Those letters could build up a prejudice against my client, and the results would be disastrous.”
“Why didn’t you destroy them when you got your hands on them, then?”
He blinked his eyes at me. “I don’t think I understand, Donald.”
I said, “You got those letters. You wanted them destroyed so that D.A. could never use them. But you were too smart to burn them up yourself. You decided you’d let Alta burn them up and pay thirty thousand dollars for the privilege. That would get the letters out of the way just as effectively as though you’d struck the match yourself, and you’d be thirty grand to the good.”
He turned the idea over in his mind for a moment, and then nodded his head slowly. “That would have been a splendid idea, Donald, a splendid idea. As I told you, Donald, two heads are always better than one. A young man, particularly if he’s ingenious, thinks of things an older man might well overlook. You really must consider that partnership proposition. It would mean a career for you, my boy.”
Suddenly his eyes hardened. “But, in the meantime, Donald, don’t forget I want those letters. I’m not a man to be easily put aside or trifled with. Much as I respect your ingenuity and intelligence, I want those letters.”
“How long have I got?” I asked.
He looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes.”
I walked out. He wanted to shake hands, but I managed not to see his paw.
I went down to the agency office. Bertha had rented another typewriter and desk and moved them in. The girls were getting more familiar with the work. Both of them were clacking merrily away at typewriters. I walked on across to the private office and opened the door.
Bertha Cool, reading the newspaper and holding a cigarette in a long, carved ivory holder between the fingers of her jewelled left hand, said, “God, Donald, you certainly do keep things stirred up.”
“What’s the matter now?”
“Telephone calls,” she said. “Lots of them. They won’t leave their names. People want to know when you’re coming in.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That I didn’t know.”
“Men or women?”
“Women,” she said, “young women, from the sound of their voices. God, lover, I don’t know what it is you do to them — I could understand it if you were one of these indifferent heartbreakers, but you certainly aren’t a matinee idol. And you fall for them just as hard as they do for you — not in the same way. You’re not on the make, Donald. You put women up on a pedestal and worship them. You think just because they have skirts wrapped around their waists they’re something different, noble, and exalted. Donald, you’ll never make a good detective until you learn that woman is nothing more or less than the female of the species.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
She glared at me and said, “None of your impudence, Donald. After all, you’re working for me.”
“And making a hundred bucks a day for you.”
That registered. “Sit down, lover,” she invited. “Don’t mind Bertha. Bertha’s cross this morning because she didn’t get much sleep last night.”
I sat down in the client’s chair.
The telephone rang.
Bertha said, “This is another one of those women calling for you.”
“Find out who it is,” I said. “If it’s Esther Clarde or Alta Ashbury, I’m in. If it’s anyone else, I’m out.”
“Those two women,” Bertha said, “falling for them both at the same time! That Clarde woman is just a common little strumpet, and Alta Ashbury is a rich girl who considers you a new toy. She’ll play with you until she breaks you, and then she’ll throw you on the junk heap without so much as—”
The phone had kept on ringing. I said, “You’d better answer it.”
Bertha picked up the telephone and barked savagely, “Yes. Hello.”
She was handling her own calls now that Elsie Brand wasn’t there on the switchboard, and it griped her.
Bertha listened for a moment, and I saw the expression on her face change. Her eyes got hard. She said, “How much?” and then listened again. She glanced across at me and said, “But I don’t see why — well, if you didn’t have any authority — well, when can — goddammit, don’t keep interrupting me whenever I try to say anything. Now listen, if you didn’t have any authority to complete that deal, how did you — I see. How much? I’ll ring you back sometime this afternoon and let you know — no, this afternoon — no, not by one o’clock. Later — well, by three o’clock — all right, by two, then.”
She hung up the telephone and looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“Something about the case?” I asked.
“No, another thing. A man came in here the other day and said he wanted to talk for three minutes. I agreed to give him exactly three minutes of my time. When he ran over it, I called him. He thought he’d have me so interested I wouldn’t say anything, but I certainly did give him a jolt. Donald Lam, what the hell are you smiling at?”
“Nothing,” I said, and then after a moment asked, “How much do they want to pay?”
“Who?”
“The people who sold you the stock.”
“How do you know that was the people who sold me the stock. How do you know I bought any stock? What the hell have you been doing? Snooping around in my affairs? Getting into my desk? Have you—”
“Forget it,” I said. “I read you like a book.”
“Yes, you do!”
“And so does everyone else,” I said. “That’s an old racket in the sucker game.”
“What is?”
“Telling a person you want three minutes and guaranteeing to complete what you have to say in that three minutes. You tell them everything you want to, then keep right on talking. The sucker is so anxious to show you that he can’t be bluffed, he keeps calling the time limit, and doesn’t ask the questions he otherwise would. It’s a nice high-pressure method of selling stock.”
Bertha looked at me, gulped twice, picked up the telephone, dialed a number, and said, “This is Bertha Cool. I’ve thought it over. I’ll take it — all right, have the money here — I said the money. I don’t want any goddam checks. I want cash.”
She slammed the receiver back on the hook.
“How much did they offer?” I asked.
“None of your business. What have you been doing?”
“Stalling around.”
“What the hell do you mean by stalling? You’re hired to solve a murder and—”
“Get it out of your head,” I interrupted, “that we’re hired to solve a murder. We were hired to get Alta Ashbury out of a jam.”
“Well, she’s in it worse than ever.”
“We’re still hired.”
“Well, get busy and go to work.”
“We’re getting paid by the day, aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
I lit a cigarette.
She glowered at me and said, “Sometimes, Donald, you make me so damn mad I could tear you apart. What the hell did you do to Tokamura Hashita?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“He rang me up and said there wouldn’t be any more lessons.”
I said, “I guess I hurt his feelings.”
“How?”
“I told him that that stuff of his would work all right in a gymnasium, but I knew a couple of men who said that it had been exposed two or three times as not being any good at all in the conditions which confront a man in real life. I told him they said they could draw empty guns if he didn’t know when they were going to do it and make him look like a monkey. I offered to give him fifty dollars—”
“Fifty dollars!” she interrupted with half a scream, “Whose fifty dollars?”
“Ashbury’s.”
She settled back, somewhat mollified. “What did he do?”
“He took the dough.”
“Then what happened?”
“He was right.”
“Then you’d better continue with the lessons.”
“I think Hashita figures someone slipped something over on him.”
“Donald, how did you know that the three-minute gag was a high-pressure stock-selling stunt? I’d never heard of it.”
“How much did they stick you for?”
“They didn’t stick me. I’m going to get twice what I paid—”
“Thanks,” I said.
She just sat there glaring at me. After a while, she said, “Some day I’m going to fire you.”
“You may not have to. Crumweather wants me to go into partnership.”
“Who does?”
“Crumweather, the lawyer.”
Bertha Cool leaned across the desk. “Now listen, lover, you don’t want to get back into that law business. You know what would happen. It would be the same thing all over again. You’d build up a good practice, and something you’d do would irritate those long-haired scissor-bills at the bar association, and you’d be out pounding the pavements again looking for work. You have a nice berth here, and there’s a chance to work up. You can make—”
“About a tenth what I could practising law.”
“But there’s a future to it, lover, and you couldn’t leave Bertha. You’ve so got Bertha that she depends on you.”
I heard voices raised in excited comment in the outer office, then quick steps. The door of the private office jerked open, and Esther Clarde stood in the doorway. One of the secretaries was peering over her shoulder, tugging at her arm in a halfhearted way.
I said, “Come on in, Esther.”
Bertha Cool said, “Indeed she won’t come in. That’s a hell of a way to try to crash my office. She’ll go back and sit down and be announced and—”
“Sit right here,” I said, getting up and indicating the client’s chair.
Esther Clarde came in. Bertha Cool said, “I don’t give a damn who she is, Donald. No one’s going to—”
I closed the door in the new secretary’s face, and said, “What is it, Esther?”
She said, “That lawyer’s trying to get me to double-cross you, and I wanted you to know I won’t do it.”
“Did you tell him you would?”
She shifted her eyes for a moment, said, “Yes,” and then added by way of explanation, “I had to.”
Bertha Cool said, “Now you look here, Donald. You can’t step in and start running things. You can’t invite people in this office—”
“She wants you to go out,” I said to Esther Clarde.
Esther Clarde got up. Her eyes were swollen. I could see she’d been crying. “I just wanted you to know, Donald.”
“You called him last night?”
“Who?”
“Crumweather.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He’s been my friend — oh, it hasn’t been an unselfish friendship, but he’s—”
Bertha Cool interrupted. “Donald, you look at me. We’re going to have this thing out right here and now. It isn’t a question of whether we’re going to talk with this girl. It’s a question of who the hell is running this office. Now you—”
I said to Esther, “She wants us to get out of here. Perhaps we’d better go,” and started for the door.
It took a moment for that to soak in, then Bertha pushed her hands down on the arms of the swivel chair and tried to lift herself out of the chair quickly. “You come back here,” she yelled at me. “I want to know what’s going on in this case. You can’t leave me batting around in the dark. What’s Crumweather trying to do? What’s the double-cross he—”
I opened the door, escorted Esther Clarde through.
“Donald, you little runt, you heard me! You come back here and—”
The closing door cut off the rest of it. I walked across the outer office with Esther, while the two secretaries stared open-mouthed. The door of Bertha Cool’s private office jerked open just as I opened the door to the corridor. She knew better than to try to catch up with us. Her big beam and avoirdupois were too much handicap. As we went out, she was still standing in the door of the office.
In the corridor I said, “Listen, Esther, there’s one thing I have to know. Don’t lie to me. Who gave you those letters?”
“I never saw the letters,” she said, “until after Jed Ringold had them, and I haven’t any idea who gave them to him.”
“Bob Tindle?” I asked.
“I suppose so, but I don’t know.”
I stood in front of the elevator shaft and pressed the button. “Did Ringold have any home other than that hotel?”
“No,”
“No other place where he lived?”
“Except with me,” she said.
The door of the agency opened. Bertha Cool came barging out. An elevator showed a red light just as an ascending elevator came to a stop. The door opened. Two men got out. One of them started toward the agency office. The other turned to check up on us. He stopped abruptly and said, “Okay, Bill. Here he is.”
The men came walking over. One of them flashed a badge. “Okay, buddy,” he said, “you’re going for a little ride.”
“Who with?” I asked.
“Me.”
“What’s the idea?”
“The D.A. wants to talk with you.”
“I don’t want to talk with anyone. I’m busy.”
The descending elevator came to a halt. The two detectives pushed us on in. Bertha Cool screamed, “Hold that elevator. I want to go down.”
She came along the corridor, walking as rapidly as she could. The operator held the cage. One of the passengers snickered.
The cage jiggled as Bertha Cool’s weight was added to that of the other passengers. The attendant slid the door shut. Bertha Cool turned around and faced the door. She casually pushed the rest of us back in the cage. She didn’t say a word to me.
We shot straight down to the ground floor. There was a long passageway past the building directories and a cigar stand near the entrance. Bertha Cool was first out. She started walking down the passageway. I stood to one side for Esther Clarde to get out. The detective on my right said, “Hold the jane there, Bill,” and pushed me out into the passageway. Three other men were standing there. They all closed in. We started walking. I said to the detective, “Wait a minute. What’s the idea?”
He didn’t say anything. A man was sitting on the shoe-shining stand, getting his shoes shined. I didn’t pay any particular attention to him until I heard his voice shrill out in an excited shout, “There he is! That’s the one!”
The whole outfit stopped. I looked up. The man who was getting his shoes shined was the night clerk at the hotel where the murder had been committed. He was pointing his finger directly at me.
The detective grinned and said, “Okay, buddy, there’s your line-up, and that’s your identification.” He turned back toward the elevator and said, “Okay, Bill, bring along the skirt.”
Lots of things happened all at once. The grinning detective said to the three men who had been walking along with me, “You boys can leave now. Remember to be available when we call on you.” The other detective brought Esther Clarde out from the elevator. Bertha Cool, without looking back, walked to the telephone booth at the end of the hallway. She squeezed herself in, but wasn’t able to get the door closed. I saw her drop a nickel and dial a number. She put her lips up close to the transmitter so people outside couldn’t hear what was being said. The hotel night clerk came hopping down off the shoe-shining stand. One shoe was shined. The other wasn’t. His pants cuffs had been doubled back. He was dancing with excitement. He kept pointing his finger at me and saying, “That’s the one. That’s the fellow. I’d recognize him anywhere.”
He saw Esther and ran toward her. “Look, Esther, there’s the guy. That’s the one. That’s—”
Esther said, “You’re crazy, Walter, that isn’t the man. He looks something like it, but it isn’t the man.”
He looked at her in astonished surprise. “Why, it is too. You can’t mistake him. He’s—”
“He has the same build,” Esther said, “and about the same complexion, but the man who came in the hotel was a little broader, a little heavier, and I think a year or two older.”
The clerk hesitated dubiously, staring at me.
The detective said, “Be your age, guy. She’s been playing around with him and is trying to protect him.”
The clerk’s face went white as a sheet. He said, “That’s not so! Esther, you know that isn’t so! Tell him it’s a lie.”
“It’s a lie,” Esther said.
“Of course it’s a lie. Esther’s running a cigar counter, and she kids them all along, but when it comes to—”
“Bunk,” the detective said. “She’s stringing you along. Why don’t you take a tumble to yourself, sucker? This is the guy that’s beating your time. How the hell do you suppose she got here? She was riding down in the elevator with him. They were headed for her apartment when we picked them up.”
The clerk stared from the detective to Esther, then to me. I saw hatred come in his eyes. He shrilled, “That’s not true about Esther, but this is the man. I’ll swear it’s the man.”
The detective grinned at me. “How about it, buddy? You the guy?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, now, ain’t that too bad? Must be a case of mistaken identity. Do you want to help the officers clear it up?”
“Of course.”
“Then we’ll go over to the hotel and look around.”
I said, “No, we won’t. We’ll talk things over right here, or else we’ll go and see the D.A.”
“Oh no, buddy. You’re going to the hotel.”
“What do you expect to find there?”
“Oh, we can sort of look around. We’d like to try the blade of your knife and see whether it fits into that little hole in the door.”
I shook my head. “If you’re going to try and pin anything on me, I’m going to see a lawyer.”
“Now listen, buddy, if you’re guilty, that’s all right. You just go ahead and sit tight. Don’t say anything and get a lawyer, but if you’re innocent and don’t want to have this thing pinned on you, you’d better help us clear it up.”
“I’m willing to help you clear it up, but I’m not going to be dragged around the streets.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Out to Ashbury’s house,” I said.
“Why?”
“I have some work to do out there. That’s where my clothes are.”
I saw a crafty look on the detective’s face. “That’s fine,” he said. “We’ll get a taxi and go out to Ashbury’s.”
“How about the car you came in?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “that’ll be sort of crowded.”
He walked back to Esther Clarde and said, “All right, sister, you’re at the parting of the ways. Either identify this guy or get hooked as an accessory. Which do you want to do?”
“He isn’t the one.”
“We know he’s the man. You’re standing right at the fork of the road. Pick your bed, because you’re going to have to lie in it.”
Bertha Cool, who had walked toward the elevators and paused to listen in on the conversation, said, “Isn’t that intimidating a witness?”
The detective looked up at her, an angry flush coming to his face. “Move on,” he said. “This is police business.” He flipped back the lapel of his coat to show her his star.
Bertha Cool said, “Phooey. That piece of tin doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. If I understand what I’ve heard correctly, you’re telling this girl that if she commits perjury, nothing will happen to her, but that if she tells the truth, you’re going to hook her for being an accessory after the fact.”
“Go jump in the lake,” the detective said irritably.
“Find one big enough and I will,” Bertha cooed.
Esther Clarde remained quietly positive. “He isn’t the man.”
Markham, the night clerk, said, “You know he’s the man, Esther. What are you trying to do? Why should you protect him? What’s he to you?”
“A total stranger,” she said. “I never saw him before in my life, and neither did you.”
The detective who had charge of me said, “Bill, take them out to Ashbury’s place. We’ll go in a cab. I want to keep this girl and Lam apart, and you’d better keep her from talking to that night clerk.”
“Let her talk her head off,” the other detective said, “She’s just building up a case against herself.”
Esther said to the night clerk, “If you’d had a good look at him, Walter, you’d know he isn’t the same one. You didn’t see him as well as I did. You—”
“You heard what I said,” the detective remarked.
“Well, what the hell am I going to do? Am I—”
The detective who had me grabbed Markham by the arm. “You come along with us,” he said.
Markham came walking along, his pants flapping around his ankles where the cuffs had been rolled up.
We went in a taxi. The others followed in the police car, clearing the way for the cab with the siren. I never did know how Bertha got there, but she managed to keep right along with the procession. When we pulled up in front of Ashbury’s house and got out, the detective looked at her, and said, “You again. Where do you think you’re getting in on this party? Beat it.”
Bertha said, “It happens this young man is working for me, and I’ve telephoned a lawyer who’ll be here in about ten minutes. Mr. Ashbury wants to see me, and if you try to keep me out of this house, you’ll have a damage suit on your hands.”
“We don’t want any lawyers,” the detective said. “All we need is to get things straightened out. Lam can make a frank statement, and that’s all there’ll be to it.”
Bertha snorted.
The detectives held a whispered conference, then we all went in.
“Is Miss Ashbury at home?” one of the detectives asked the butler.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get hold of her. Get her here right away.”
“Yes, sir. Who shall I say is calling?”
The detective pulled back his coat. “The law,” he said. The butler took it on the double quick.
I heard Alta’s feet on the stairs — quick, light steps.
Alta paused on about the fourth step where she could see into the room. No one needed to blue-print the situation for her. She stood there staring with eyes that were a little wider and a little rounder than usual, then she came forward with her chin up. “Why, Donald, what is this?”
“A personally escorted tour,” I said.
The detectives who seemed to be in charge pushed forward and said, “You’re Alta Ashbury?”
“Yes.”
“You hired this man to get some letters for you, didn’t you?”
“I did nothing of the sort.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Giving my father physical culture lessons.”
“Bunk.”
She drew herself up, and there was something about her that put the detectives on the defensive. “This is my father’s house,” she said. “I don’t think he’s invited you to call, and I’m certain I haven’t.”
Bill said, “How about taking his finger-prints, Sergeant?”
“Good idea.”
They grabbed my hands. I resisted as best I could, but they held my wrists and took finger-prints.
Bill said, “Come on, Lam. What’s the use of beating around the bush. Your finger-prints check with the ones we found there in the hotel.”
“Then someone planted them.”
“Yes, I know. You loaned someone your hands for the evening.”
I said, “Show me where they check.”
The detectives huddled together, began comparing my prints with some photographs they had. I heard the sound of heavy steps in the upper corridor, and Mrs. Ashbury and Bernard Carter came walking down the stairs. He was tenderly solicitous. She was prepared either to make a scene or put on an act, as the occasion might require.
There was something in the ponderous dignity of her appearance that impressed the officers more than Alta Ashbury’s clean-cut patrician manner. The officers became deferential.
“What’s going on here?” Mrs. Ashbury asked.
“We’ve caught the murderer,” one of the detectives said, and motioned toward me.
“Donald!” she exclaimed in surprise.
He nodded.
I heard quick, pounding steps, and Bob, running up from the billiard room, came to stand in the doorway.
Alta Ashbury moved over to my side and said, “Dad’s on his way out here.”
He came in while the officers were still in a huddle over the finger-prints. I saw things weren’t going to suit them. They shifted photographs around and stared in scowling concentration at the prints they’d taken of my fingers. I was glad I’d remembered to wear gloves there in that hotel room.
Ashbury came over to stand near me.
The sergeant of detectives moved over to talk with Markham, the night clerk. Markham was more and more positive. He kept nodding his head emphatically. They moved over and had a whispered conference with Esther Clarde, and she continued to shake her head.
Ashbury said, “What’s all this all about, Donald?” Bertha Cool took his arm, pulled him off to one side, and started to whisper.
I said to the sergeant, “It’s too bad those finger-prints don’t check. You wanted to crack the case, didn’t you?”
“All right, wise guy,” he said, “go ahead and shoot off your mouth. You’ll sing a different tune before we’re done with you.”
I motioned toward Bernard Carter.
“Why don’t you try his fingers?” I asked. “See if they match.”
“Nuts. The man we’re looking for is a man of your build, your complexion— In short, we’re looking for you!”
“All right,” I said, “if you don’t try his finger-prints, you have yourselves to thank for passing up a chance of advancement.”
At that, I don’t think they’d have done it if it hadn’t been for the look on Carter’s face.
The officer moved over toward him. “Just a routine checkup,” he said.
Carter shot his hands behind his back. “What the hell do you fellows think this is? Who do you think you’re pushing around? I’ll have you busted wide open.”
I lit a cigarette.
The officers looked at each other and then converged on Carter.
He put up quite a fight, first with a lot of threats, and then by trying to break away. They got his finger-prints. It took only one look at the finger-prints and the photograph, a quick consultation, and one of the officers pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
Mrs. Ashbury said, “Bernard, what’s the meaning of this? What are they trying to do?”
“It’s a frame-up,” he yelled. “I’ll be damned if I stand for it.” He broke loose, and started for the door.
“That’s far enough, buddy,” the sergeant in charge said.
Carter shot through the door and started to run through the corridor. The officer pulled out a gun. Mrs. Ashbury screamed.
The officer yelled, “I’ll shoot! By God, I will!”
We heard Carter’s running feet come to a stop. The officer walked toward him.
I said to Ashbury, “That’ll just about wind it up,” and turned to encounter Alta’s eyes.