I went back to the hotel, went up to my room, opened a fresh package of cigarettes, sat by the window, and did a little thinking.
Bertha Cool was somewhere between New Orleans and Los Angeles. Elsie Brand would be running the office. It looked like a good time to get the information I wanted.
I picked up the telephone and placed a station-to-station call. It took about five minutes to get the call through. Then I heard Elsie Brand’s voice, crisp and businesslike, saying, “Hello.”
“Hello, Elsie. Donald talking.”
The hard, keen edge came off her voice. She said informally, “Oh, hello, Donald. Operator said New Orleans was calling, and I thought it was Bertha. What’s new?”
“That’s what I want you to tell me.”
“How come?”
“Bertha tells me she’s gone in for war work.”
“Didn’t you know?”
“No. Not until she told me.”
“She’s been working with it for about six weeks. I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t. What’s the idea?”
She laughed and said uneasily, “I guess she wants to make money.”
“Listen, Elsie, I’ve been associating with Bertha long enough so I object to paying long-distance telephone rates for the pleasure of listening to you beat around the bush. What’s the idea?”
“You ask her, Donald.”
“I could get pretty damned peeved about this in a minute,” I warned.
“Use your head,” she said suddenly. “You’re supposed to have brains. Why should Bertha want to get into war work? Why would you do it if you were in Bertha’s position? Figure it out for yourself, and quit pressing me for information. I’ve got a job to hold, and you’re just one of the partners.”
“Was it so she could make a claim that would exempt me from military service?”
There was silence at the other end of the line.
“Was it?”
“We’re having very nice weather out here,” Elsie said, “although I suppose I shouldn’t tell you that, because it’s a military secret.”
“It is indeed?”
“Oh, yes. By suppressing all information about the weather, we’ve taken a long step toward winning the war. One of the things we’re short on is newsprint. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce used to use up enough paper telling about the climate to cover with dense forest an area of nine thousand, six hundred and eighty-seven acres, assuming that the trees would be on an average of eighteen inches in diameter and would be growing at distances of ten and six-tenths feet, measuring from the center of the trunks. That assumes that the trees would have an average height of—”
“Your three minutes are up,” the operator broke in.
“You win,” I told Elsie. “Good-by.”
“By-by, Donald. Good luck.”
I heard the receiver click at the other end of the line, and hung up.
I sat back with my feet propped on a chair, thinking.
The telephone rang.
I picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” and heard a man’s voice saying cautiously, “Are you Mr. Lam?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a detective, having offices in Los Angeles — a member of the firm of Cool and Lam?”
“That’s right.”
“I want to see you.”
“Where are you?”
“Downstairs.”
“Who is this?”
He said, “You’ve met me before.”
“Your voice is vaguely familiar, but I don’t place you—”
“You will when you see me.”
I laughed and said cordially, “Come on up.”
I dropped the receiver into its cradle on the telephone, grabbed my hat, topcoat, and briefcase, made certain the key to the room was in my pocket, slammed the door shut, locked it, and sprinted down the corridor. I slowed down as I neared the elevator shaft, walked past the elevators, on down to a turn in the corridor, and waited.
I heard an elevator door slide open, waited a few seconds, and peered cautiously around the comer.
There was only one man. He was hurrying down the corridor. There was something vaguely familiar about the way he held his shoulders, and that came as a surprise to me. I’d have bet ten to one that the call had been from the cops, making certain I was in the room before they started to sew the place up. The fact that this man was alone and that I really knew him was an agreeable surprise, but I didn’t start down the corridor until I’d placed him, and I didn’t do that until he made the turn to the left.
It was Marco Cutler.
Cutler was knocking at my door for the second time when I joined him. “Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Cutler.”
He whirled. “I thought you were in your room.”
“Me! Why, I just came in!”
He looked at the briefcase, the hat, the topcoat, said, I’d have sworn that I recognized your voice. I called your room just now.”
“Must have got the wrong number.”
“No. I told the operator very distinctly the room I wanted.”
I stepped back from the door and lowered my voice. “And someone answered the telephone?”
He nodded, and I could see sudden apprehension upon his face.
I said, “This may not be as simple as it sounds.” I took his arm, and moved away from the door. “Let’s go get the house detective.”
“You mean — you think there’s a burglar?”
I said, “It may be the police frisking the room. You didn’t give your name, did you?”
This time I could see the twitching of the little muscle at the corner of his left eye. “No-let’s get out of here.”
“Suits me,” I said. “Keep right on going.”
We started walking. He said, “I thought your voice sounded a little strange.”
“How,” I asked, “did you locate me?”
“It’s rather a peculiar story.”
“Let’s hear it.”
He said, “I looked up the landlady who owns that apartment. I told her that when you folks were finished with it, I’d like to move in. I said I didn’t want to put you out, but that I’d pay double the rent she was getting at the present time. I understood you only wanted it for a week and—”
“Go ahead,” I said. “Skip the alibis.”
“I explained to the landlady that my wife, Edna, had lived in the apartment. She said Edna had been there for several months around three years ago, that she could look it up, and let me have the exact dates. I told her I’d want her as a witness. I took Edna’s picture from my pocket, showed it to her, and asked her to identify it. She said that wasn’t the woman. Then she got suspicious and wanted to know what it was all about. In the course of the conversation it came out that you had appeared on the scene a few days earlier and showed her a picture of the woman who actually had rented the apartment, and that she had identified the photographs for you.
“Naturally, that bothered me. You’ll understand why. I went up to the apartment at once, trying to get you. You weren’t there. I was excited. I kept pounding on the door. A man told me to go away and stay away. I told him I had to see him at once on a matter of life and death, and finally he grumblingly opened the door. I’d expected to find you there or the heavy-set woman. This man was something of a surprise.”
“What did you tell him? How much?”
“I told him that my wife had occupied that apartment some three years ago, that I was trying to check up on it to prove that certain papers had been served on her there, that I’d talked with you, and that I simply must talk with you again.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he thought I could reach you at the hotel, that you hadn’t said anything to him about it, but that if there was anything I wished investigated, you were a very fine private detective. I think he was trying to get you a job. He praised you to the skies.
“The more I thought it over, the more peculiar it sounded. It began to look to me very much as though you were — well—”
“Trying to slip something over?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“So what?”
“So I came to see you.”
“That’s all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
The elevator cage slid to a stop. I said, “Probably not. We’ll talk down in the lobby.”
“Isn’t that terribly public?”
“Yes.”
“Then why talk there?”
“Because it’s public.”
“And how about that person in your room?”
I said, “We’ll speak to the house detective.”
Cutler wasn’t keen about that house-detective idea, but he waited while I summoned the house detective, explained to him that a friend of mine had telephoned my room, that a stranger had answered, and that I thought someone might be prowling through the room. I gave him my key, told him to go up, and take a look.
Then I turned to Cutler. “Okay, now we can talk.”
Cutler was frightened. “Look here, Lam, suppose it should be the police?”
“The person in my room?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“If it’s the police, it’s all right. City police sometimes get suspicious of private detectives and want to check up on them. It’s something we get accustomed to. You have to learn to take it — and like it.”
“But if it is the police, they’ll come down here, pick you up for questioning, find me talking with you, and—”
I interrupted him with a laugh. “That shows how little you know about this game.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it’s the police,” I said, “they’ll tell the house detective to go back and say there was no one in the room. He’ll come down here, looking smugly complacent, and say that everything is okay.”
“And what will the police do?”
“Fade out of the picture temporarily. They don’t like to get caught searching a person’s room without a warrant.”
Cutler seemed apprehensive. “I wish I could believe you.”
“You can. I’ve been through this before. It’s a regular procedure — all in a day’s work.”
He turned that over in his mind. “I don’t want police messing around with this thing. This is a private matter and I’m going to settle it in my own way.”
“Very commendable.”
“But if the police should start to question me, certain things would come out that I don’t want to have made public.”
“Such as what?”
“That divorce, for instance.”
I said, “Bosh, that divorce was put through in legal form. It’s a matter of public record. The whole set of papers will be on file—”
“I know that,” he said, and squirmed.
“Go ahead. What’s the rest of it?”
“My wife.”
“What about her?”
“Don’t you understand?”
“No. I thought you said you didn’t know where she was.”
“Not that wife.”
“Oh-oh! You’ve married again, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Puts you in something of a predicament, doesn’t it?”
“Predicament is no name for it.”
I said, “It sounds interesting. Let’s hear some more.”
“Edna left me and came to New Orleans. I divorced her and got an interlocutory decree. Those things take time. Love doesn’t wait. I met my present wife. We went to Mexico and got married. We should have waited for the final decree. It’s one hell of a mess.”
“Does your present wife know?”
“No. She’d hit the ceiling if she even suspected. If Goldring did serve the wrong woman-well, you know something about the case. What is it?”
“Nothing that would help you.”
“I could pay you a lot of money to uncover something that would help me,”
“Sorry.”
He got up. “Keep it in mind. If in your investigations, you stumble onto something that would help me, I’ll be very, very generous.”
I said, “If Cool and Lam do anything for you, you won’t need to be generous. You’ll get a whale of a bill.”
He laughed at that, got to his feet, said, “Okay, let’s leave it that way!”
We shook hands and he left the hotel.