Bertha Cool found us in the solarium. She looked at me and said, “Donald, lover, I’m damned if I know how you do it, but you certainly reached in the grab bag and came out with first prize.”
“Has he confessed?” I asked.
“No, but those finger-prints tally. They found a gun on him that the officers think is the murder gun. They’ve rushed it to the ballistics department.”
Alta patted my hand.
Bertha stood looking down at us. “All right, Donald,” she said, “break it up. The rest of it’s up to the police. We’re going back.”
“Back where?” Alta asked.
“Back to work.”
“But he’s working.”
“Not on this case. It’s all washed up.”
She walked calmly out of the solarium.
“Want to try something?” I asked Alta.
“What?”
I said, “Those letters. There’s only one place they might be.”
She looked around in quick apprehension to make certain that no one was listening.
“Where?” she asked.
“Got your car out here?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
We sneaked out the back way, got in it, and drove out of the yard. Police cars were arriving, a steady procession of sirens.
“Donald, tell me how did you figure that out?”
“I was dumb,” I said.
“You, dumb!”
“Uh-huh.”
She laughed.
I said, “That’s the way it figures. It looked like an inside job to me. It had to be. Esther Clarde knew about the switch on letters — everything that was going on here. When the officers took me up to her apartment, she was going to let them in. Then she saw me, and decided to talk in the corridor. I figured someone was in there I knew. It just about had to be Bob. I pegged Bob for the whole business, but it didn’t exactly fit. I overlooked the most logical bet.”
“What do you mean? You surely don’t mean that Carter got in my room and—”
“No,” I said. “Your stepmother. Don’t you get the picture? You were really the one who made a home for your father. When you went away and he was left to shift for himself, he got desperately lonely. He wouldn’t say anything to you because he thought you had your own life to live, that you’d sooner or later get married and leave him anyway. So he decided to carry on and try to make another home for himself. When you came back, he realised how he’d made a fool of himself. Mrs. Ashbury saw the picture in its true light. Little things you did gave her the clue.”
“You mean she got the letters?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To involve you in that wife murder and get you thoroughly discredited. She thought it would give her the whip hand.”
“And what did she do with them?”
“Gave them to Carter to turn over to the district attorney. Carter turned them over to Jed Ringold because he needed an outside point of contact. Ringold saw a chance to collect twenty grand, and still have enough letters for the D.A. Then he lost his dough gambling and decided to go the rest of the way on the letters.
“Your dad found out you were paying out money. Mrs. Ashbury found it out from him. Carter found out Ringold was double-crossing your stepmother. She wanted the D.A. to get those letters. He wanted the D.A. to get some of them. They were prepared for a little delay while Ringold was rigging a plant, but Ringold made the mistake of carrying things too far.”
“I still don’t see,” she said.
“Crumweather, of course, knew about the letters because Lasster told him. When a man gets into jail on a murder rap, he tells his lawyer everything. Crumweather wanted to make certain those letters were destroyed. He supposed, of course, that you’d burnt them, but he wanted to make certain.
“Crumweather knew Carter, had business dealings with him, and knew Carter had an entrée to your house, so he suggested to Carter that it would be a good plan to make certain the letters were destroyed.
“Then Carter must have passed the word on to Mrs. Ashbury, and she saw a chance to double-cross Crumweather, get you involved in a scandal, and make things so hot for you you’d want to leave the country and never show your face in it again.
“She was the one who got into your room and stole the letters. She gave them to Carter and told him not to let Crumweather have them, but to be certain they got into the hands of the district attorney.
“Carter was willing to double-cross Crumweather if Mrs. Ashbury told him to, but Carter saw a chance to make a little dough out of it. He turned the letters over to Ringold and gave Ringold a nice little fairy story to pass on to you that would account for the letters being offered you in three instalments. The plan was that you were to buy two packages of the letters and then the third package was to be turned over to the district attorney. That would give Ringold and Carter a chance to split twenty thousand bucks and still give Mrs. Ashbury everything she wanted, because the letters that reached the district attorney’s hands would be the gems of the collection.
“But Ringold decided to double-cross everybody. He couldn’t see any reason for turning over that last bunch of letters to the D.A. and getting nothing in return except the thanks of the prosecutor’s office which he didn’t like anyway.
“Then he realised that Carter would know there’d been a double cross, and Ringold was in a quandary. Finally he hit on a bullet-proof scheme. He’d hocus-pocus you into thinking you had the last bunch of letters. He’d cash your check, and then turn over the rest of the letters to the D.A.
“But Carter didn’t trust Ringold, and Mrs. Ashbury couldn’t understand the delay. The conversation you overheard between her and Carter was when she was telling Carter to go ahead and show some speed and get you dragged into the case.”
“How was the murder committed?” she asked.
“Carter didn’t intend to kill anyone,” I said, “but he knew you were going to see Ringold. He thought perhaps there was going to be a double cross. He got a room in another part of the hotel, found four-twenty-one vacant, picked the lock with a skeleton key, watched his chance to slip through the communicating door, and hid in the bathroom. He found out all he wanted to know, and wanted to sneak out, but, in the meantime, I’d checked into that room and locked the communicating door. He couldn’t get back. Ringold caught him in the bathroom. Carter shot his way out.
“As a matter of fact, Carter gave himself away. He was so anxious to get you on the defensive by telling you that he’d seen you near the scene of the murder at the time the murder was committed, he entirely overlooked the fact that this constituted an admission he was there himself — otherwise he couldn’t have seen you.”
“He hasn’t admitted anything. My stepmother’s going to get a lawyer for him, and they’ll put up a fight,” she said thoughtfully.
“Swell,” I said. “Let them.”
“But won’t those letters enter into it?”
“Not unless the D.A. can get hold of them.”
“Well, where are they?”
I said, “Look at it this way. Carter doesn’t know where they are. Esther Clarde, who was handling the payoff, doesn’t know where they are, and Crumweather doesn’t know where they are. They’ve searched the room in the hotel — and I mean searched it. Jed Ringold had those letters when he went to the hotel. He didn’t leave the hotel, and apparently the letters didn’t either.”
“Donald, what are you getting at? You mean they’re concealed in some other room?”
“Perhaps,” I said, “but as I size up Ringold’s character, I don’t think he was that big a sucker.”
“What did he do with them then?”
I said, “We’ll find out.”
I drove to the post office, walked in to the window which had Q to Z over the wicket, and said, “Jack Waterbury, please.”
A bored clerk with a rubber finger stall thumbed through a pile of envelopes and handed me one addressed to Jack Waterbury, General Delivery.
I handed it to Alta as soon as I got in the car. “Take a look at this,” I said, “and see if it’s what you want.”
She ripped open the corner of the envelope and looked inside. Her face told me, the answer.
“Donald, how did you know?”
“There was only one place he could have put those letters — down the mail chute. He had them with him when he was in the room with you. A few minutes later, when he was shot, he didn’t have them. The murderer didn’t get them. Crumweather didn’t get them. Esther Clarde doesn’t know where they are — there was only one place for them to go — down the mail chute.
“The man certainly hadn’t acted the part of a gentleman while you were in the room. Yet when you got up to leave, he fell over himself getting out to the hall to ring the elevator for you. The reason he did that was because the mail chute was right by the elevator. He wanted to drop that letter down the mail chute the minute you left him.”
She said, “I don’t understand just how Crumweather fits into it.”
“He had me fooled at first,” I said. “As Lasster’s lawyer, he naturally asked his client about women. Lasster told him about you and about the letters. Crumweather wanted to get them. He approached Carter. Carter told your stepmother, and she promised to get them. She did all right, but she couldn’t see any reason why she should let you out of the trap — well, you know the rest. She thought the letters were going to the D.A. Carter and Ringold wanted to get twenty thousand dollars, and then turn the last third over to the D.A. Apparently, it never occurred to Crumweather he was being double-crossed until after the murder. Then Esther Clarde got in touch with him by telephone and told him what had happened. Naturally, he was frantic. He wanted to get that last batch of letters before the D.A. did.”
She said, “You’re a wizard when it comes to figuring things out.”
“Not me. I should be kicked for getting off on the wrong foot. I figured Crumweather was in on it all the time. I thought that he saw a chance to sell the letters to you for thirty thousand dollars, and let you burn them up — but evidently he wasn’t in on the play. Carter and Ringold were double-crossing him.”
“Then why should he agree to represent Carter?”
“Money,” I said.
She thought for a minute. “How did you know the name that would be on the envelope?”
“It was Ringold’s real name. I asked Esther Clarde what it was last night.”
“You mean you’d figured out about the mail chute then?”
“Yes.”
“And Carter didn’t know Ringold was going to sell me that last bunch of letters?”
“No. Ringold did that on his own. Carter was suspicious, that’s all. He didn’t dare fall down on the job of putting those letters in the district attorney’s hands. Your stepmother meant more to him than Crumweather.”
She thought for a minute. “Where are you taking me now?” she asked.
“To the Commons Building. I want to talk with Mr. Fischler’s secretary,” I said, grinning, “and instruct her to hold out for ten thousand dollars before she surrenders certain certificates of stock and options in a mining company.”
Alta said, “Donald, are you going to stick them for that much?”
“All the traffic will bear,” I promised.
We reached the Commons Building and went to the Fischler Sales Office. Elsie Brand hastily slammed a desk drawer shut on a magazine as I opened the door. “Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”
I introduced Alta Ashbury. I could see that Elsie was impressed.
“When that salesman comes in,” I said, “tell him that Mr. Fischler is in conference out of the office, that he’s going to call in, in about fifteen minutes; that you can talk with him over the telephone, but he absolutely won’t take message from anyone else; and that he doesn’t expect to be in the office for two or three days.”
She jerked her shorthand notebook out of the drawer on the left-hand side of the desk and made rapid notes. “Any thing else?” she asked.
“He’ll ask you to call me up and give me a message. Twenty minutes later you can call him back and tell him that I’ll forget the whole business and surrender the options for ten thousand dollars, and that I won’t take a cent less.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all. Tell him you want the ten thousand in cash, that you’ll have Mr. Fischler sign the necessary papers and have the escrow made at Bertha’s bank.”
Her pencil made a swift flying succession of pothooks.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” I said to her, and to Alta, “Want to walk into my private office?”
She nodded.
We walked on into the private office. As I closed the door I saw Elsie watching me speculatively. I said, “I don’t want to be disturbed.”
Alta sat down on the settee across from the desk, and I sat down beside her.
“Is this your office, Donald?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What did you take it for? I mean what’s the idea?”
“Just a little flyer in mining stock.”
She looked at me thoughtfully. “You play them awfully close to your chest, don’t you?”
“Not particularly.”
“And I’m not to say anything about those letters?”
“Not to anyone. Let’s see the envelope.”
She handed me the envelope, and I burned the letters carefully one at a time, and ground out the ashes in a cuspidor.
I’d just finished with the last of the bunch when I heard a commotion in the outer office, the sound of heavy steps and then Bertha Cool banged the door open. Henry Ashbury was just behind her.
Bertha said, “Donald, lover, why the hell didn’t you tell me where you were going when you left? After all, you’re supposed to be working for me, you know.”
“I was busy,” I said.
Alta jumped up and threw her arms around her father. “Oh, Dad,” she said, “I’m so happy!”
He held her off at arm’s length so that he could look at her. “Everything cleaned up all right?”
“Perfectly,” she said, and left a smear of lipstick on his cheek.
Bertha looked me over suspiciously.
Ashbury swung his eyes to look across at me. “Well, young man?” he asked.
“What?” I inquired.
“What’s the answer?”
“There isn’t any. I did the job I was supposed to do. It’s all finished, so far as that angle is concerned.”
“But what about this murder?”
“What about it?”
“Apparently Carter is the one who was in that room, but he won’t admit anything, and Mrs. Ashbury rushed to the telephone and got a lawyer for him.”
“Who did she get, Crumweather?”
“Yes.”
“Crumweather,” I said, “should put up rather a good fight. They may have a hard time proving the murder.”
“Don’t you think you should get that cleaned up a little more thoroughly?”
“Why should I?” I asked. “It’s a police job. Why should we be interested in it?”
“So that we could see justice done.”
“You’d prefer to have your divorce handled very quietly and without any notoriety, wouldn’t you?”
He nodded.
I said, “Under those circumstances, Crumweather is a pretty good lawyer for Carter to have.”
He stood looking at me for a minute, then said, “You’re right as usual, Lam. Come on, Bertha, let’s get out of here.”
Bertha said, “I want Elsie back in the office.”
“You can have her in two or three days as soon as I can wind up the business here.”
Bertha looked at Alta, then back at me, then at Henry. She said, “All right, Donald, remember you’re working. This is an office, and these are office hours. Break it up.”
“Break what up?” I asked.
She jerked her head in the direction of Alta.
Alta Ashbury pushed up her chin. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cool,” she said, “but as far as I’m concerned this case isn’t finished. There are some other things I want to talk over.”
“Well, I’ve got a detective agency to run, and I’m employing this boy. You can talk to him after hours.”
Alta said, “I’ll do nothing of the sort. You may not realize it, but we’re paying you a hundred dollars a day, Mrs. Cool.”
“You mean the—” Bertha Cool heaved a sigh. She took quick stock of the situation, and said to me, “I’m going over to the agency office,” and turned to Alta and said, “At that rate, dearie, you can hire him by the month,” and jerked open the door of the private office.
Ashbury said, “See you later, Donald,” and to Bertha, “Just a minute, Mrs. Cool. I want to run down to your office and check up on a few points.”
I heard the sound of Ashbury’s chuckle, heard Bertha Cool slam the door shut so hard she jarred the glass partition, and then Alta Ashbury and I were in the office — alone.