The police sirens came about three o’clock in the morning. I could hear them coming a long way off. I started to get up and dress, because I wanted to be on hand when things began to happen; then I remembered my own position in the matter and went back to bed.
But it wasn’t Alta the cops were after. They banged around on the front door until Ashbury got up. Then it seemed they wanted to talk with Robert Tindle.
I slipped on a pair of pants over my pyjamas, put on my coat, and tiptoed to the head of the stairs immediately after Tindle had gone down to the library. The cops didn’t lower their voices or try to pull any punches. They wanted to know if he was acquainted with a man named Jed Ringold.
“Why, yes,” Tindle said. “We have a salesman by that name.”
“Where’d he live? Do you know?”
“No, I don’t. It’s on the records up at our office. Why? What’s he done?”
“He hasn’t done anything,” the cop said. “When did you see him last?”
“I haven’t seen him for three or four days.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a stock salesman. That is, he’s a scout. He gets prospects located and phones in a tip. Then the other boys close.”
“What kind of stock?”
“Mining.”
“What’s the company?”
“Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company.”
“What kind of a company is it?”
“For any detailed information,” Tindle said, and it sounded to me as though it was something he’d memorized, “I must ask you to get in touch with our legal department, C. Layton Crumweather, with offices in the Fidelity Building.”
“Well, why can’t you answer the question?”
“Because there are certain legal matters involved, and in my status as an officer of the corporation I might bind the corporation in some pending litigation.” His voice got more friendly and he said, “If you can tell me what you want, I can give you more information, but the lawyer has cautioned me not to speak out of turn because anything I say would be binding on the company, and there are a lot of legal technicalities that—”
“Forget it,” the cop told him. “Ringold was murdered. Do you know anything about that?”
“Murdered!”
“That’s right.”
“Good heavens, who killed him?”
“We don’t know.”
“When was he killed?”
“Right around eleven o’clock tonight.”
Bob said, “This is a terrible shock to me. I didn’t know the man intimately, but he was a business associate. Parker Stold and I were talking about him — it must have been right around the time he was killed.”
“Who’s Parker Stold?”
“One of my associates.”
“Where were you when you were doing this talking?”
“At our office. Stold and I were there chatting and making some sales plans.”
“All right, what enemies did this man have?”
“I’m sure I know but very little about him,” Tindle said. “My work deals mostly with matters of policy. The personnel is handled by Mr. Bernard Carter.”
They fooled around and asked a few more questions, then left. I saw that Alta was tiptoeing out of her room. I pushed her back in. “It’s okay,” I said. “Go to sleep. They wanted to see Bob.”
“What about?”
“Seems Ringold was working for Bob.”
“But why did they want to see Bob about that?”
I figured it was time to hand it to her. I said, “Somebody killed Ringold.”
She stood staring at me without speech, without expression, almost without breath. She had removed her makeup, and I saw her lips grow pale.
“You!” she said. “Good God, Donald, not you! You didn’t—”
I shook my head.
“You must have. Otherwise, you couldn’t have got that—”
“Shut up,” I said.
She came walking toward me as though she had been walking in her sleep. Her fingers touched the back of my hand. They were cold. “What did you think he was to me?” she asked.
“I didn’t think.”
“But why did you — why did you—”
I said, “Listen, dopey, I kept your name out of it. Do you get me? Where would you have been if that had been found?”
I could see she was thinking that over.
“Go back to bed,” I said. “No, wait a minute. Go on downstairs. Ask what’s happened, and what all the noise is about. They’ll tell you. They’re pretty much up in the air now. They won’t notice your expressions, what you say, or what you do. Tomorrow, they’ll be more alert... Does anyone know that you knew him?”
“No.”
“Anyone know that you were seeing him?”
“No.”
“If they ask you,” I said, “avoid the question. Understand? Don’t lie — not yet.”
“But how can I avoid it — if they ask me?”
I said, “Keep asking questions. That’s the best way to avoid answering them. Ask your stepbrother why they were calling on him at this hour of the night. Ask anybody anything, but don’t put your neck in a noose. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
I pushed her down the stairs. “Go on down and don’t let anyone know you’ve seen me. I’m going back to bed.”
I went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I heard people talking downstairs, heard steps on the stairs, low voices in the corridor. Someone walked down the corridor to the door of my room, paused there, tense and listening. I didn’t know who it was. I hadn’t locked the door. There was just enough vague light in the room so I could make out the door. I waited for it to open.
It didn’t.
After a while it got daylight. Then, for the first time, I felt sleepy. I wanted to relax. My feet had been cold ever since I’d walked out into the corridor. Now they got warm, and a heavy drowsiness came over me.
The butler knocked on my door. It was time for me to go and give Henry C. Ashbury his physical culture lesson.
Down in the gymnasium Ashbury didn’t even take off his heavy woollen bathrobe. “Hear the commotion last night?” he asked.
“What commotion?”
“One of the men who’s been working for Robert’s company was killed.”
“Killed?”
“Yes.”
“Auto accident or what?”
“Or what,” he said, and then after a moment added, “Three shots with a thirty eight calibre revolver.”
I looked at him steadily. “Where was Robert?” I asked.
His eyes held mine. He didn’t answer the question. He said instead, “Where were you?”
“Working.”
“On what?”
“On my job.”
He pulled a cigar out of the pocket of his robe, bit off the end, lit it, and started smoking. “Getting anywhere?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think?”
“I think I’m making progress.”
“Find out whose been blackmailing her?”
“I’m not certain she’s being blackmailed.”
“She isn’t throwing cheques around like confetti for nothing.”
“No.”
“I want you to stop it.”
“I think I can.”
“Think there’s any chance she’ll make any further payments?”
“I don’t know.”
“It takes you a long time to make progress,” he said. “Remember I’m paying for results.”
I waited until the silence had made its own punctuation mark, and then said, “Bertha Cool handles all the business affairs.”
He laughed then. “I’ll say one thing for you, Donald. You’re a little guy, but I never saw a big one who had more guts... Let’s go up and dress.”
He didn’t say anything about the reason for his inquiries about where I’d been or what progress I was making with his daughter. I didn’t ask for any explanations. I went up and took my bath and came down to breakfast.
Mrs. Ashbury was all upset. Maids were running in and out of her room. Her doctor had been called. Ashbury explained she’d had a bad night. Robert Tindle looked as though someone had put him through a wringing machine. Ashbury didn’t say much. I studied him covertly and came to the conclusion that the guys in this world who have the money and keep it are the ones who can dish it out and take it.
After breakfast Ashbury went to his office as though nothing had happened. Tindle rode up with him in his car. I waited until they’d cleared out. Then I called a taxi and said I wanted to go to the Fidelity Building.
C. Layton Crumweather had a law office on the twenty-ninth floor. A secretary tried to find out something about me and about my business. I told her I had some money I wanted to pay Mr. Crumweather. That got me in.
Crumweather was a gaunt, bony-faced individual with a narrow, sloping nose down which his spectacles kept sliding. He was big-boned and under-fleshed. His cheeks looked as though they’d sunken in, and that emphasized the big gash that was his mouth.
“What’s your name?”
“Lam.”
“You said you had some money to pay me?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I haven’t got it yet.”
Two deep furrows creased the centre of his forehead, and emphasized the length of his nose. “Who’s paying it?” he asked.
“Suckers,” I said.
The secretary had left the door open a crack. Crumweather looked me over with little black eyes which seemed unusually small for the size of his face. Then he got up, walked across the office, carefully closed the door, came back, and sat down.
“Tell me about it.”
I said, “I am a promoter.”
“You don’t look like one.”
“That’s what makes me a good one.”
He chuckled, and I saw his teeth were long and yellow. He seemed to like that crack. “Go on,” he said.
“An oil proposition,” I told him.
“What’s the nature of it?”
“There’s a lot of nice oil land.”
He nodded.
“I haven’t got title to it — yet.”
“How do you intend to get title?”
“With the money that’s paid in for stock.”
He looked me over, and said, “Don’t you know you can’t sell stock in this state unless you get permission from the Commissioner of Corporations?”
I said, “Why did you think I took the trouble to come here?”
He chuckled again, and teetered back and forth in the squeaky swivel chair back of his desk. “You’re a card, Lam,” he said. “You really are.”
“Let’s call me the joker,” I suggested.
“Are you fond of jokes?”
“No. I’m usually wild.”
He leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. He interlaced his long, bony fingers, and cracked his knuckles. He did it mechanically as though it was a gesture he used a lot. “Exactly what do you want?”
I said, “I want to beat the Blue Sky Act and sell securities without getting an okay from the Commissioner of Corporations.”
“It’s impossible. There are no legal loopholes.”
I said, “You’re attorney for the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company.”
He looked at me then as though he was studying something under a microscope. “Go ahead.”
“That’s all.”
He unlaced his fingers and drummed with them on the edge of the desk. “What’s your plan of operation?”
“I’m going to put some good salesmen in the field. I’m going to arouse interest in the oil possibilities of this land.”
“You don’t own it?”
“No.”
“Even if I could beat the Blue Sky Act and get you the chance to sell the securities, I couldn’t keep you out of jail on a charge of getting money under false representations.”
“I’ll take care of that end.”
“How?”
“That’s my secret. I want you to beat the Blue Sky Law so I can have something to deliver when I call for the dough. That’s all you need to do.”
“You’d have to own the land.”
“I’ll have an oil lease on it.”
He chuckled again. “Well,” he said, “I don’t make a practice of handling such things.”
“I know.”
“When would you want to start operations?”
“Within thirty days.”
He dropped the mask. His eyes were hard and avaricious. He said, “My fee is ten per cent of the take.”
I thought that over a while. “Seven and a half,” I suggested.
“Don’t make me laugh. It’s ten.”
“All right.”
“What’s your first name?”
“Donald.”
He pressed a buzzer on the side of his desk. After a moment the secretary came in. She had a notebook with her. He said, “Take a letter, Miss Sykes, to Mr. Donald Lam. ‘Dear Sir: With reference to your suggestion that you wish to reorganize a corporation which has forfeited its charter to the State of California, it will be necessary for you to give me more specific data as to the name of the corporation, and the purpose for which you wish it revived. My fee in such a matter will be fifty dollars in addition to whatever expenses are necessary.’— That’s all, Miss Sykes.”
She got up without a word and left the office.
When the door had closed, Crumweather said, “I suppose you know how it’s done.”
“The same way you did it for the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company?”
He said, “Let’s not talk about my other clients.”
“All right. What do you want to talk about?”
Crumweather said, “You have to take all the risks. I’ll write letters confirming every conversation I have with you. I’ll give you letters which you are to sign. I have a list of certain old corporations which forfeited their charters to the State of California for failure to pay franchise taxes. I’ve carefully checked those old corporations. Naturally, you want one which didn’t do any business, against which there aren’t any outstanding legal obligations, and where the entire treasury stock — or a large part of the treasury stock — was issued.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” I asked.
“Don’t you see?” he said. “The Blue Sky Act prevents a corporation from issuing its capital stock until it has permission from the Commissioner of Corporations. After stock has once been issued, it becomes private property the same as anything else a man owns.”
“Well?” I asked.
He said, “And the state taxes corporations. Whenever they don’t pay their taxes, their franchise is forfeited to the state, and they can’t do business any more, but those corporations can be revived if they pay their back taxes and penalties.”
“Pretty slick,” I said.
He grinned — an oily, foxy grin. “You see,” he said, “those corporations are just the dead shells of former businesses. We pay the licence, taxes, and revive the corporation. We buy up the outstanding stock which has been issued... Never have to pay more than half a cent or a cent a share... Of course, there are only a few corporations which answer our purpose. I’ve made all the preliminary investigation. I know the corporations. No one else does.”
“Then why do you say in your letter that I’ll have to give you the name of the corporation?”
“To keep my hands clean,” he said. “You’ll write me a letter giving me the name of the corporation. I’ll simply act as your attorney, following your instructions... Understand, Mr. Lam, I’m going to keep in the clear — at all times.”
“When do you give me the name of the corporation?”
“When you have paid me one thousand dollars.”
“Your letter says fifty.”
He beamed at me through his glasses. “It does, doesn’t it? Makes it sound so much better, too. Your receipt will be for fifty, young man. Your payment will be one thousand bucks.”
“And after that?”
“After that,” he said, “you’ll pay me ten per cent of the take.”
“How will you be protected on that?”
“Never fear.” He chuckled. “I’ll be protected.”
The secretary came in with the letter. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose with the tip of his forefinger, and his glittering black eyes read the letter carefully. He took a fountain pen, signed the letter, and handed it to the secretary. “Give it to Mr. Lam,” he said. “Have you got the fee available, Mr. Lam?”
“Not right at the present moment — not the amount you mentioned.”
“When will you have it?”
“Probably within a day or two.”
“Come in any time. I’ll be glad to see you.”
He got up and wrapped long, cold fingers around my hand. “I thought,” he said, “you were more familiar with the routine procedure in such cases... You seemed to be when you came to the office.”
“I was,” I told him, “but I always hate to tell a lawyer the law. I’d rather have him tell me the law.”
He nodded and grinned. “A very smart young man, Mr. Lam. Now, Miss Sykes, if you’ll bring in that file in the Case of Helman versus Helman, I’ll dictate an answer and cross-complaint. When Mr. Lam comes in to pay his fee, I’ll see him personally, and give him a receipt. Good morning, Mr. Lam.”
“Good-bye,” I said, and walked out. The secretary waited until I had gone through the door before going after the file of Helman versus Helman.
I went down to the agency office. Bertha Cool was in. Elsie Brand was at her secretarial desk, hammering away at the typewriter.
“Anybody in with the boss?” I asked.
She shook her head.
I walked across to the door that was marked Private and pushed it open.
Bertha Cool shoved an account book hurriedly into the cash drawer of the desk, slammed the drawer shut, and locked it. “Where did you go?” she asked.
“I tailed along for a while, saw her into a movie, and came back to look for you.”
“A movie?”
I nodded.
Bertha Cool’s little glittering eyes surveyed me thoughtfully. “How’s the job?” she asked.
“Still going.”
“You’ve managed to keep her from saying anything?”
I nodded, and she asked, “How did you do it?”
“Just kidding her along,” I said. “I think she likes to have me around.”
Bertha Cool sighed. “Donald, you have the damnedest way with women. What do you do to make them fall for you?”
“Nothing,” I said.
She looked me over again and said, “It may be at that. All the competition is trying to appear big and masculine, and you sit back as though you weren’t interested... Sometimes I think you bring out the mother complex in us.”
I said, “Nix on that us stuff. This is business.”
She gave a throaty chuckle, and said, “Whenever you try to get hard with me, lover, I know that you’re after the money.”
“And whenever you start handing me the soft soap, I know you’re trying to kid me out of it.”
“How much do you want?”
“Plenty.”
“I haven’t got it.”
“You’d better have it, then.”
“Donald, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you fifty times that you can’t just come in here and hold me up for a lot of expense money. You’re careless, Donald. You’re extravagant. Mind you, I don’t think you pad the swindle sheet, but you just don’t have any perspective in money matters. All you can see is what you want to accomplish.”
I said, casually, “It’s a nice piece of business. I’d hate to see you lose it.”
“She knows you’re a detective now?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t lose it, then.”
“No?” I asked.
“Not if you play your part.”
“I can’t play my part unless I have a roll.”
“Good heavens, listen to the man. Do you think agency is made of money?”
I said, “Officers were out last night — early this morning.”
“Officers?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was sleeping through most of it, but it seems that Robert Tindle — that’s the stepson — had a man working with him by the name of Ringold — or did you read the paper?”
“Ringold? Jed Ringold?” she asked, her voice seeming to jump down my throat.
“That’s the one.”
She kept looking at me for a long time, then she said, “Donald, you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Falling for a woman. Listen, lover, some day that’s going to get you in an awful jam. You’re young and innocent and susceptible. Women are shrewd and designing. You can’t trust them... I don’t mean all women, but I mean the kind of women who try to use you.”
I said, “No one’s trying to use me.”
She said, “I should have known better. I thought it was too damned improbable at the time.”
“What was?”
“That a girl like Alta Ashbury with a lot of money, swell looks, and a lot of men chasing after her would fall for you. It’s the other way around. You’ve fallen for her, and she’s using you as a cover-up... Went to a movie! Movie, my eye! At eleven o’clock at night.”
I didn’t say anything.
She picked up the newspaper and checked through it before she found the address. “Murdered within a couple of blocks of the place where she parked her car — you tailing along behind — officers out at the house at three o’clock in the morning. She knows you’re a detective — and we still have the job.”
Bertha Cool threw back her head and laughed — hard, mirthless laughter.
I said, “I’m going to need three hundred dollars.”
“Well, you can’t have it.”
I shrugged my shoulders, got up, and started for the door.
“Donald, wait.”
I stood at the door looking at her.
“Don’t you understand, Donald? Bertha doesn’t want in be harsh with you, but—”
“Do you,” I asked, “want me to tell you all about it?”
She looked at me as though her ears hadn’t been working right, and said, “Of course.”
I said, “Better think it over for twenty-four hours, and then let me know.”
All of a sudden her face twitched. She opened her purse, look a key from it, unlocked the cash drawer, opened an inner compartment with another key, took out six fifty-dollar bills, and gave them to me. “Remember, Donald,” she said, “this is expense money. Don’t squander it.”
I didn’t bother to answer her but walked across the office, folding the fifty-dollar bills. Elsie Brand looked up from the typewriter, saw the roll of fifties, and pursed her lips into a silent whistle, but her fingers didn’t quit hammering away at the keyboard.
Going out to Ashbury’s place in a taxicab, I read the morning newspaper. Ringold had been identified as an ex-convict, a former gambler, and, at the time of his death, had been employed by “an influential corporation.” The officials of the corporation had expressed surprise when they had been told of the man’s record. Although his employment had been in a minor capacity, the corporation had used great care in the selection of its employees, and it was assumed that Ringold’s references had been forged. The officials of the corporation were making a checkup.
The police were completely mystified as to the motive for the slaying, and the manner in which the murder had been done. Approximately fifteen minutes before the killing, a young man with quiet manners and agreeable personality had asked for a room where he could spend a few hours of undisturbed slumber. Walter Markham, the night clerk at the hotel, was emphatic in his statements that the man had made no effort to get room four-twenty-one, beyond mentioning that he preferred an odd number. He had been assigned to room four-twenty-one, had gone up, hung a “Please Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, and apparently had immediately proceeded to pry off the molding strip which ran along the edge of the door that communicated with room four-nineteen — the room occupied by Ringold. With the molding off, the man had been able to twist the bolt on one side, and, by use of a chisel, pry back the bolt on the other. The communicating door opened into an alcove formed by one wall of room four-nineteen and the door of the bathroom which went with room four-nineteen. It was assumed that Ringold, hearing some noise at the door, had become suspicious and decided to investigate. He had been shot three times. Death had been instantaneous. The murderer had made no attempt either to leave by the room he had rented or to rob his victim. Apparently, he had pocketed the gun, calmly stepped over the body, walked to the corridor, and stood in the doorway masquerading as a guest who had been aroused by the sound of the shots. No one had seen him leave the hotel.
That the crime had been deliberate and premeditated was indicated by the fact that once ensconced in four twenty-one, the man had bored a hole in the panel of the door so that he could make certain of the identity of his intended victim before opening the door.
Esther Clarde at the cigar stand had remembered that a very personable young man had followed a mysterious woman into the hotel. She described him as being about twenty-seven years of age, with clean-cut, finely chiseled features, an engaging voice, and lots of personality. He was about five feet six in height, and weighed about a hundred and twenty-five pounds.
The clerk, on the other hand, remembered him as being shifty-eyed and nervous in manner, emaciated, and looking like a dope fiend.
I paid off the taxi in front of Ashbury’s house and went in. Mrs. Ashbury was reclining on a divan in the library. The butler said she wanted to see me.
She looked at me with appealing eyes. “Mr. Lam, please don’t go away. I want you to be here in order to protect Robert.”
“From what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It seems to me there’s something sinister about this. I think Robert’s in danger. I’m his mother. I have a mother’s intuition. You’re a trained wrestler with muscles of steel. They say that you’ve taken the biggest and best of the Japanese jujitsu wrestlers and tossed them around as though they’d been dolls. Please keep your eye on Robert.”
I said, “You can count on me,” and went off to find Alta. I found her in the solarium. She was seated on the chaise longue. She moved over and made room for me to sit beside her. I said, “All right, tell me.”
She clamped her lips and shook her head.
“What did Ringold have on you?”
“Nothing.”
“I suppose,” I said, “the three ten-thousand-dollar cheques were made for a charitable donation. Perhaps he was a collector for the Community Chest.”
I saw the dismay come into her eyes. “The three cheques?”
I nodded.
“How did you know?”
“I’m a detective. It’s my business to find out.”
“All right,” she said with a flash of temper, “find out why I paid them, then.”
“I will,” I promised, and started to get up.
She caught my sleeve and pulled me back. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Leave me.”
“Come down to earth, then.”
She drew up her feet and hugged her knees, her heels resting on the edge of the cushion. “Donald,” she said, “tell me what you’ve been doing, how you found out about — well, you know.”
I shook my head. “You don’t want to know anything about me.”
“Why?”
“It wouldn’t be healthy.”
“Then why do you want to know about me?”
“So that I can help you.”
“You’ve done enough already.”
“I haven’t even started yet.”
“Donald, there’s nothing you can do.”
“What did Ringold have on you?”
“Nothing, I tell you.”
I kept my eyes on her. She fidgeted uneasily. After a while, I said, “Somehow you never impressed me as being the sort who would lie... Somehow I gathered the impression that you hated liars.”
“I do,” she said.
I kept quiet.
“It’s none of your business,” she went on after a while.
I said, “Some day the cops are going to ask me questions. If I know what not to tell them, I won’t give anything away, but if I don’t know what not to tell them, I may say the wrong thing. Then they’ll start in on you.”
She sat silent for several seconds, then she said, “I got in an awful scrape.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It probably isn’t what you think it is.”
“I’m not even thinking.”
She said, “I took a cruise last summer down to the South Seas. There was a man on the boat. I liked him very much, and— Well, you know how it is.”
I said, “Lots of young women have taken cruises to the South Seas, found lots of men whom they liked very much, and still didn’t pay thirty thousand dollars after they got home.”
“This man was married.”
“What did his wife say?”
“I didn’t ever know her. He wrote me. His letters were — they were love letters.”
I said, “I don’t know how much time we have. The more you waste, the less we have left.”
“I wasn’t really in love with him. It was a cruise flirtation. The moonlight got me, I guess.”
“Your first one?”
“Of course not. I’ve taken cruises. That’s why girls sail on cruises. Sometimes you meet a man whom you really love... That is, I suppose you do. Girls have done so. They’ve married and lived happily ever after.”
“But you haven’t?”
“No.”
“But you played around?”
“Well, you try to give yourself a good time. You can tell after the first two or three days if there’s anyone on board for whom you’re apt to care a lot. Usually you find someone who’s attractive enough for a flirtation. But you’re not flirting with him. You’re flirting with romance.”
“This man was married?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s separated from his wife?”
“No. He told me later he was taking a matrimonial vacation while she was taking one of her own.”
“What was hers?”
“I have my doubts about that, too. She was working for a big oil company which had interests in China. She had to go over to wind up the books when they were closing the Shanghai branch.”
“Why the suspicions?”
“The big boss also went over. He was on the same boat. She was sweet on him.”
“Then what?”
She said, “Honestly, Donald, there were some things about him I didn’t like — definitely. And there were other things that appealed to me very much. He enjoyed himself so much. He was — fun.”
“You came back. You still didn’t know he was married.”
“That’s right.”
“He told you he was single?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“Then what?”
“Then he wrote me letters.”
“You answered them?”
“No. I’d found out he was married then.”
“What’s his name?”
“I’m coming to that in a minute.”
“Why not tell me now?”
“No. You’ll have to get the rest of the picture first.”
“Was this man Ringold?”
“Good Lord, no!”
“All right.”
“I wouldn’t answer his letters because I knew he was married, but I liked getting them. They were love letters — I told you that — but they were full of reminiscences about our trip. Some things were so lovely... We sailed into Tahiti late one night... you’d have to see that to realize it... the native dancers waiting around little fires. We could see the red points of light dotting the shore. Then, as the ship came in, we could see the forms of the dancers around the fires. We could hear the drums beating, that peculiar Tap-tap-TAP! Tap-tap-TAP! Tap-tap-TAP! Then they threw more fuel on the fires. Someone turned floodlights down on the quay, and there were these dancers, with nothing on but grass skirts, stamping their bare feet in the rhythm of a dance, then pairing off and facing each other in a sort of hula which became more and more violent. Then, at a signal, they’d all start a running kind of dance around the fires... He reminded me of that... and other things. They were wonderful letters. I saved them and read them over whenever I felt blue. They were so vivid...”
I said, “Sounds like things a magazine would pay money for, but I don’t see why you should pay thirty thousand dollars for letters you didn’t answer.”
She said, “Brace yourself, because I’m going to give you a shock.”
I said, “You mean that the letters did something to you that he himself hadn’t been able to do? That you—?”
She coloured. “No, no, no! Don’t be a fool.”
“I can’t imagine anything else that would be worth thirty thousand bucks to a young woman who’s as independent as you are.”
“You’ll understand when I tell you.”
“Well, go ahead and tell me.”
“The man’s name,” she said, “was—”
She broke off.
“What’s his name got to do with it?” I asked.
She took a deep breath, and then blurted, “Hampton G. Lasster.”
“That’s a funny name to get romantic about,” I said. “You seem to think it should mean something. What is he, a—” All of a sudden an idea hit me with the force of a blow. I stopped mid-sentence and stared at her. I saw by her eyes that I was right. “Good Lord,” I said, “he’s the man who murdered his wife.”
She nodded.
“Wasn’t there a trial?”
“Not yet. Just a preliminary hearing. He was bound over.”
I grabbed her shoulders, spun her around so I could look down in her eyes. “You didn’t have an affair with this man?”
She shook her head.
“Did he see you after you got back?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t ever write to him?”
“No.”
“What happened to his letters?”
“Those are what I was buying back,” she said.
“How did Ringold get them?”
“Some smart detectives working out of the district attorney’s office figured that what they needed to make a perfect case against Lasster was a motivation — one which would prejudice a jury. They checked back on Lasster just as much as they could. He couldn’t account for his time covering a period of eight weeks during the summer, while his wife was away. The detectives couldn’t find where he’d been.”
“Then, in searching a woodshed, they came on an old trunk which had a steamer label on it. They traced that back and found out about the trip to the South Seas, then got a passenger list, and interviewed passengers. Of course, it was a cinch after that. They found out that Lasster had been definitely interested in me while he was on the cruise.”
“Still,” I said, “if you were reasonably discreet, that didn’t give them anything they could work on — not if he kept his mouth shut.”
“But don’t you understand? It gave them just the lead they wanted. They waited for the right opportunity, managed to break into the house, go through my room in my absence, and— Well, they found the letters. You see what that means. I can swear on a stack of Bibles a mile high that I haven’t written Lasster or seen him since I found out he was married. No one would believe me.”
“How did it happen you bought the letters in three instalments?”
She said, “There were three detectives. After they got the evidence, they did a little thinking. They were drawing a low salary from the county. If they turned the letters over to the district attorney, they wouldn’t even get a rise in pay. I was supposed to be a wealthy woman... Of course, they didn’t appear in it themselves. They got Ringold to act as intermediary. I don’t know how much Ringold was making out of it, but it was arranged that I’d buy the letters in three installments.”
I pushed my hands down in my pockets, stuck my legs straight out in front of me, crossed my ankles, and stared at my toes, trying to see the picture, not only as she saw it but to get angles that she didn’t know anything about.
Now that she’d started talking, she didn’t want to stop. She said, “You can see what it would mean to a woman like me. The district attorney is crazy to get a conviction in that case. In the first place, they don’t know whether it was an accident and she fell and struck her head, or whether Lasster hit her with something. Then, even if the district attorney can prove that Lasster hit her, Lasster’s lawyer could bring up that Shanghai trip and might be able to make a showing of emotional insanity or whatever it is a lawyer pulls when he’s trying to prejudice a jury by making them think that a woman needed killing anyway.
“Well, the district attorney could put a stop to all that right at the start if he could introduce a lot of stuff about me, make it appear that Lasster was infatuated with me, and wanted to get rid of his wife so that he could marry me. I was wealthy and — well, not exactly ugly. He could put me up in front of the jury in a way that would absolutely crucify me, and if he had those letters, he could rip Lasster to pieces the minute he got on the witness stand and tried to deny it, or he could draw the worst sort of conclusions if Lasster didn’t try to deny it.”
I kept thinking, and didn’t say anything.
She said, “When the detectives first got the letters, they thought Hampton’s lawyer might buy them off, but Hampton hasn’t much money. I think it was the lawyer who suggested that they should work through Ringold and get the money out of me.”
“Who’s the lawyer?” I asked.
“C. Layton Crumweather,” she said. “He’s the lawyer, incidentally, who does the legal work for Bob’s corporation, and I’ve been terribly afraid that he’d say something, but I guess those lawyers can be trusted to keep their mouths shut.”
“Are you certain Crumweather knows about the letters?” I asked.
“Ringold said he did, and I suppose, of course, that Lasster told him. I guess when a man gets arrested for murder, he tells his lawyer everything, no matter whom it may affect.”
I said, “Yes, I guess he does.”
She said, “Of course, Crumweather wants to keep those letters out of the district attorney’s hands. Naturally, he wants to get an acquittal in that murder case. The letters would clinch the case against his client... From all I can hear of Crumweather. I think he’s very smart.”
I got up and started pacing the floor. Suddenly I turned and said, “You didn’t open that envelope when he gave it to you last night.”
She stared at me with eyes that began to get wider and rounder. “Then you were in that room, Donald?”
“Never mind that. Why didn’t you open the envelope?”
“Because I’d seen Ringold put the letters in the envelope and seal it. That’s just what he’d done with the other letters. He’d show them to me and then—”
“Did you open that envelope after you got home?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t. There were so many startling developments and—”
“Did you burn it?”
“Not yet. I was getting ready to, and then you—”
“How do you know this whole thing isn’t a trap the D.A. set for you?” I asked.
She stared at me. “How could it be?”
“He wants to use those letters to prove motive for the murder. It won’t do so much good to show letters that Lasster wrote you unless he can show that you answered them, but if he can show that you paid thirty thousand dollars to get those letters back, that would be better than anything else.”
“But, Donald, can’t you see? He won’t have the letters. He—”
“Where did you put that envelope?”
“In a safe place.”
“Get it.”
“It’s in a safe place, Donald. It’s too dangerous to—”
“Get it.”
She looked at me for a moment, then said, “Perhaps you know best,” and went upstairs. About five minutes later she came back with a sealed envelope. “I know these are the letters all right. I saw Ringold put them in. Then he sealed the envelope. That was just the way he’d handed me the other letters — showed them to me, then sealed them in an envelope—” I didn’t wait for her to finish. I reached across, took the envelope out of her hand, and tore it open. There were half a dozen envelopes on the inside. I shook those envelopes out into my hand, opened each one in turn. They were filled with neatly folded sheets of blank paper bearing the imprint of the hotel in which Ringold had been murdered.
I looked up at Alta Ashbury. If attendants had been strapping her to the chair in the gas chamber at San Quentin she couldn’t have looked any more ghastly.