Bertha went in the plane with me. The others followed in the plane Philip had chartered. At the last minute, Paul Endicott decided he’d go along, too, just for the ride.
The drone of the plane motor lulled me to sleep shortly after the take-off. Occasionally, Bertha would prod me into wakefulness with questions. I’d answer in muttered monosyllables and return to the warm comfort of sleep.
“You mustn’t fight with Arthur Whitewell, Donald.”
“Uh huh.”
“You little devil, Bertha knew you weren’t falling for a woman. You fall in love with them all right, and I mean really in love, but you’re more in love with your profession than with any woman. Answer me, Donald. Isn’t that right?”
“I guess so.”
“Tell me, did Helen Framley kill that man she was living with?”
“She wasn’t living with him.”
“Oh, splash!”
“It was a business partnership.”
Bertha snorted. “Pickle me for a beet.”
I didn’t say anything. After a few minutes, Bertha said, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What?”
“Whether she murdered him.”
“I hope she didn’t.”
I didn’t have to look up to realize that her glittering little eyes were searching every line of my face, trying to surprise some telltale expression. “Helen Framley knows a lot about who committed that murder.”
“Perhaps.”
“Something she hasn’t told the police.”
“Possibly.”
“I’ll bet she’s told you what it is. You wormed it out of her, you little devil. My God, Donald, how do you do it? Do you hypnotize them? I guess you must. You can’t give them the cave-man stuff. You make them come to you. I guess it’s your readiness to fight at the drop of the hat, even when you know you’re going to get licked. I guess that’s it. Women love a fighter.”
I felt my head jerk forward as I all but slipped into unconsciousness. Bertha pulled me back with her patter.
“Listen, lover, has it ever occurred to you what’s going to happen next?”
“What?”
“Whitewell has money, influence, and brains. He isn’t going to be pushed around.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’ll bet that Framley girl would do just about anything you asked her.”
That didn’t seem to call for any reply.
Bertha said, “I’ll bet the person who did the job is sweating blood right now. Suppose this Framley girl really does know who killed him?”
I said, “I think she does.”
“Then she’s told you.”
“No.”
“But she’ll tell the police — if they ask her.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Donald.”
“What?”
“Do you suppose the murderer knows that?”
“Knows what?”
“That she won’t talk.”
I said, “That depends on who the murderer is.”
Bertha said suddenly, “Donald, you know who the murderer is, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“Whether or not I know.”
Bertha said, “That’s a hell of an answer.”
“Isn’t it,” I agreed and went sound asleep in the few seconds of glaring silence which followed. When I woke up, we were droning in for a landing at the Reno airport. It had been the change in the tempo of the motor that had wakened me.
Bertha Cool was sitting very erect and dignified, endeavoring to show her displeasure by a cutting silence.
We came circling in to a landing, and the other plane was right on our tail, following us in within just a few minutes.
Paul Endicott said, “I notice there’s a plane leaving here for San Francisco within the next fifteen minutes. I see no reason for driving uptown with you and then rushing back. I’ve enjoyed the ride, and guess we’re all straightened out now.” He looked searchingly into Whitewell’s eyes and said, “Here’s luck, old man.”
They shook hands.
Philip said, “I’m the one who is going to need the luck. Do you suppose she’ll know me, Dad?”
Whitewell said dryly, “I have an idea she will.”
Endicott gave Philip a handshake. “Keep the old chin up and take it in your stride. We’re pulling for you, all of us.”
Philip tried to say something, but his quivering lips mumbled the words. Endicott covered his embarrassment by keeping right on with a line of patter, never stopping, so Philip would not have to say anything.
We stood there in a little compact group waiting for the taxicab for which we had telephoned. I told them I had to telephone and excused myself. I wanted to check on Helen and Louie, but the Acme Filling Station out on the Susanville highway wasn’t listed in the phone book. I came back and stood around stamping my feet against the cold, waiting for the cab. At length, it drew up and we piled in. Arthur Whitewell stopped for a last word with Endicott, then they shook hands and Whitewell crawled into the jump seat.
“What’s the name of the hospital?” Bertha asked.
“The Haven of Mercy,” I told the driver, and glanced at Arthur Whitewell’s face. It was, set in expressionless immobility. He might have been posing for an old-fashioned time exposure, and concentrating on not even batting an eyelash. Philip was the exact opposite. He kept biting his lip, tugging at his ear, fidgeting uneasily in his seat, looking out of the window of the cab, trying to avoid our eyes, doubtless wishing that he could escape our thoughts.
We pulled up in front of the hospital. I said pointedly to Bertha, “This will be strictly a family affair.”
Arthur Whitewell looked across at his son. “I think, Philip, you’d better go up alone,” he said. “If the shock of seeing you doesn’t clear things up, don’t let it discourage you too much. We’ll have Dr. Hinderkeld come up, and he’ll get results.”
“And if seeing me does clear things up for her?” Philip asked.
His father dropped a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be waiting.”
Bertha Cool looked at me.
I said, “It gives me the creeps to wait around a hospital. I’ll be back in an hour. That will be early enough in case I can do anything to help, and if I can’t, it will give you time enough to get adjusted.”
Bertha asked, “Where are you going?”
“Oh, there are some things I want to do,” I said. “I’ll keep the cab.”
Whitewell said to Bertha, “It looks as though you and I were going to be left to pace the floor in the expectant fathers department.”
“Not me,” Bertha said. “I’ll ride uptown with Donald. We’ll be back here in an hour. And then breakfast?”
“Excellent,” he said.
Bertha nodded to me.
Whitewell said to Bertha, loud enough so Philip could hear, “I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate— Oh, well, we’ll talk about that later. I’m certain you understand.” He placed his hand affectionately on Bertha’s shoulder. “Your understanding and sympathy have meant more to me than you’ll ever realize. And I’ll expect you to control — the entire situation. You—” His voice choked. He gave her shoulder a quick pat and turned away.
Philip, who had been making inquiries at the desk, entered an elevator with a nurse. Arthur Whitewell was settling himself in a chair as Bertha and I went out into the cold chill of the mountain air.
“Well,” I said casually, “we’ll take the cab back uptown and—”
Bertha’s hand clutched my arm. She swung me around so that I faced her, pushed me back against the wall of the hospital. “To hell with that stuff,” she said. “You can stall those other guys, but you can’t stall me. Where are you going?”
“Out to see Helen Framley.”
“So’m I,” Bertha said.
“I don’t need a chaperon.”
“That’s what you think.”
I said, “Use your head. She’ll be in bed. I can’t go out there and wake her up and say, ‘Permit me to present Mrs. Cool—’ ”
“Nuts. If she’s in bed, you’re not going near her. You’re not the type. You’d stand guard in front of the door. Donald Lam, what the hell are you up to?”
“I told you.”
“Yes, you did. I’m getting so I know you like a book. You’ve got some trick up your sleeve.”
“All right,” I said. “Come along if you want to.”
“That’s better.”
We walked down to the taxicab.
“What is it?” Bertha asked.
I told the cab driver, “I want you to drive out of town until I tell you to stop, then let us off, and wait until we come back.”
He looked at me suspiciously.
“Set your speedometer at zero when you cross the railroad tracks. I’ll want to get mileage from time to time. You’ll get waiting time while we’re gone, but I don’t want the lights on or the motor running. Do you get me?”
He said somewhat dubiously, “I know you’re okay, but on a trip out of town that way where we’re left waiting by a highway, we’re supposed to get—”
I handed him ten dollars. “That enough?” I asked him.
“That’s perfectly swell,” he said with a grin.
“Set the speedometer at zero as you cross the tracks.”
“Right.”
Bertha Cool settled back against the cushions. “Give me a cigarette, lover, and tell me what the hell all this is about.”
“Who murdered Jannix?” I asked, handing her the cigarette.
“How should I know?”
I said, “Someone who was close to Arthur Whitewell.”
“Why?” she asked.
“That’s exactly it. Jannix had been playing the thing from the blackmail angle. Someone double-crossed him.”
Bertha forgot to light her cigarette. “Let’s get this straight,” she said, leaning forward.
“The first part of it is a cinch. Helen Framley didn’t write to Corla Burke. Someone did, someone who gave Helen Framley’s name, and told Corla to reply.”
“Well?”
“Get the idea?”
“No,” Bertha said shortly.
“If Corla had walked into that trap, if she’d gone ahead and married Philip Whitewell, the marriage would, of course, have been bigamous. Her understanding would have been that Jannix would get a divorce. You know what would have happened. There never would have been any divorce. He’d have kept bleeding her white. Once she married Philip, she never could make a move to get the divorce. Jannix had her then where he wanted her.”
“And you don’t think Helen Framley wrote that letter?”
“I know she didn’t.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, she told me so. For another thing, it wasn’t the sort of letter she’d have written to a woman in Corla Burke’s position. Someone must have written that letter — and it was someone who was close to Helen Framley.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he told Corla to send the reply to Helen Framley at General Delivery.”
“Why not send it to her at her apartment?”
“Because Helen Framley wasn’t to get it. When she first went to Las Vegas, she’d been getting mail at General Delivery. Jannix had been picking it up occasionally, and probably held her written authorization to deliver any mail addressed to her.”
“I get you now,” Bertha said.
“The post-office authorities were too obliging. That was something the conspirators hadn’t anticipated.”
“I see, I see,” Bertha said. “Go on from there. They delivered the letter directly to Helen Framley. It didn’t make sense to her. But why did Jannix get killed?”
“Because Jannix was in on it, but he didn’t think it up by himself. Someone was back of him, someone who wanted—”
“To cut in on the blackmail?” Bertha asked
“No,” I said. “That was the bait they held out to Jannix. But whoever did it was someone who knew Corla Burke well enough to know she’d never go through with the wedding under those circumstances. Therefore, it was someone who wanted to stop the wedding. It wasn’t done for the purpose of blackmail.”
“Who did it? Who was back of it all?”
“Any number of people, Arthur Whitewell, any one of the Dearbornes — or all three of them. It might have been Endicott, and it might have been Philip himself.” ‘
“Go ahead.”
“It was a nice scheme. It worked perfectly. The only trouble with it was that after it worked, Jannix realized he’d been played for a sucker. He didn’t like it. So Jannix threatened to talk.”
“And got a dose of lead as a consequence?” Bertha asked. “That’s right.”
Bertha said, “Arthur Whitewell wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“He hasn’t any alibi.”
“How about the Dearbornes?” Bertha pointed out. “They’re a lean, hungry bunch of crusaders. I wouldn’t trust any one of them as far as I could throw a bull by the tail up a forty-five-degree slope.”
“That’s okay with me.”
The cab swung down the lighted expanse of Reno’s main gambling street, jolted across the tracks, and headed out past the tree-lined residential district. Bertha said, “So you’re going to go see Helen Framley and try to get the information out of her?”
“I’m going to leave her out of it. All I’m doing is making certain that the other person leaves her out of it.”
“I don’t get you.”
“When I left you in Las Vegas, I was very careful to leave under such circumstances that you’d make a loud squawk. I wanted you to tell everyone who had any connection with the case just what a heel I’d turned out to be, that I’d run away with Helen Framley. That information wouldn’t have meant much except to one person.”
“Who?”
“The murderer.”
“Fiddlesticks. I don’t think there’s anything to that. You’re in love with that girl, Donald Lam, and because you are, you’re worrying about her. But in case you’re right, I’m going to be in on the finish.”
I said, “You can wait in the cab if you want to.”
“But no one could possibly get out there for a long while.”
“I’m not so certain about that. Remember that Endicott stayed behind at the Reno airport; that Arthur Whitewell didn’t go up to the room with his son; that Ogden Dearborne is a pilot and has a quarter interest in an airplane. He didn’t say anything about placing that at Philip’s disposal. Why?”
“Perhaps because he only owned a one-quarter interest.”
“That may be, and then again he may have wanted to go somewhere in a hurry himself.”
“Or with his ‘sister?” Bertha asked.
“Or his mother.”
Bertha Cool said, “Well, of all the saps! That’s what comes of having a detective get lovesick. I’d have been more comfortable waiting in the hospital. I think you’re nuts.”
“You don’t have to come with me. I told you the cab would take you back.”
Bertha Cool said, “That’s just it. If I stay out here and shiver and freeze, not a damn thing will turn up. If I bawl you out for being lovesick, take the cab and go back to Reno, you’ll trap the murderer within thirty minutes, make a big grandstand and have the laugh on me. Nuts to you, Donald Lam. I’m going to stay with the show.”
“All right,” I said, “suit yourself.”
“You should know me well enough by this time to know that I always do,” she snapped.
I cupped my hands up against the windowpane of the taxicab, and looked out, trying to get landmarks. We climbed a little hill, made the curve, started down on the other side. The gasoline station with the lone cabin a hundred-odd feet in the rear showed briefly as black splotches against the sky. Then they had swept on behind us.
I slid open the window. “Stop the car right here, will you?”
He swung the car over to the side of the road. “Don’t race the engine, just cut it off, and switch out your lights.”
“I don’t get you.”
“I want you to wait here.”
He put on his brakes, shut off motor and lights, and said, “I think you got your distances wrong. There ain’t a thing near here.”
“It’s all right,” I told him. “I’ll get out and look around.”
Bertha got out with me. In the eastern sky there was a streak of dim light which as yet had no color. The desert chill seemed intensified after the warmth of the taxicab.
We started walking. The cab driver looked after us for a few moments, then turned back, settled down in his car, and huddled into his overcoat.
Bertha asked, “How much of this?”
“Half or three-quarters of a mile.”
She turned abruptly. “I’m going back to the car. To hell with it.”
“All right, take the cab back to town. I have a car that’s good enough to get me where I want to go. I’ll run back to the hospital as soon as I’m satisfied everything’s all right.”
Bertha turned without a word, started back to the cab. I had covered about fifty yards before I saw the lights flash on again oh the cab. I swung to one side of the road as the cab swept into a turn, waited until the red taillight had become a ruby blot in the distance, and then started trudging along the pavement.
The streak of light in the east became more noticeable. There was enough light now to see objects as black blotches against a grayish background. Ahead of me I could see the gasoline station with the little house behind it, and then a hundred yards back from the road, the cabin. I slid into the shadows and waited.
The light in the east was growing stronger. A watcher concealed in the shadows could have seen me approaching along the road — not plainly enough to recognize me, but still I’d been too visible. It was cold. The air was as still as the reflection in a placid mountain lake. I could feel the tips of my ears tingling with the cold. My nose felt cold. I wanted to stamp my feet, yet dared not move. The sound of a car on the highway — remarkable how far you can hear a car snarling along the pavement. I tingled with anticipation. This would be my man. Now that I was here, I wondered just what would happen. Suppose Louie had been drinking again? Suppose the man who was coming had a gun and didn’t waste time in argument? Suppose— The car swung around the corner. The headlights gleamed along the road. It didn’t even slow down, but swept on past and into the distance. The sound of the car diminished into the frosty silence.
I pushed my hands under my armpits and hugged them. I was shivering now, and my teeth were chattering. My feet felt like chunks of ice. No other cars, no sound, just that still cold.
I looked at my watch. By holding the face toward the east I could see the time plainly. It would be three-quarters of an hour before the sun would shed any warmth. I simply couldn’t stand that cold any more. I hadn’t realized how the dry air of the desert will suck the warmth right out through your clothes.
I didn’t want to waken the girl. I tiptoed around to the other window, and called, in a low, cautious voice, “Oh, Louie! Hello, Louie!”
There was no sound.
I picked up a little pebble and tapped gently on the window. Nothing happened. I ran the pebble quickly along the side of the house and gave a low whistle.
I waited, listened, and heard nothing.
The east was orange now, and the stars had drifted far back into space. I was seized with a paroxysm of shivering. I tapped on the window with my knuckles and called, “Louie. Oh, Louie. Wake up.”
The few seconds of silence after that seemed hours.
I walked around to the front door of the cabin and tapped on it gently. Then when I received no answer, I tried the knob.
The door was unlocked. It swung inward.
It had been cold outside, but the air was fresh. In here, there was a stale closeness to the atmosphere which made it seem even colder. I didn’t think I’d ever get warm again. Louie shouldn’t have left the door unlocked. I’d cautioned him particularly about that, and tonight of all times— I locked the door carefully behind me, tiptoed across the room. The boards creaked under my feet. The door of Louie’s bedroom was closed. I turned the knob, opened the door gently, and said in a whisper, “Oh, Louie!”
Enough light was coming from the east now so I could see the objects in the room clearly. The bed hadn’t been slept in.
I stood staring at that vacant bed as the significance of what it meant gradually dawned on my mind.
I whirled and strode toward Helen Framley’s door. I didn’t bother to knock, just turned the knob and kicked the door open.
Her bed was empty. It was half a dozen seconds before I saw the white thing pinned on the pillow. I walked over to it. It was a sealed envelope with my name and address on the outside. There was also a stamp on it. Evidently, she hadn’t been certain I was coming back, and in that event wanted the letter mailed to me.
I tore it open and read:
Darling — I guess this is the only way. You have your life and I have mine. The two never have mixed and never will. You’re you, and I’m me. I’ve got to get out of town. That roll I gave you came from slot machines, and a dick spotted me. I got away, but they’ll be looking for me. After you’d left, I talked with Louie. He’s been around and he knows the way I feel. I can’t work the slot machines without a man who’s handy with his fists, and who knows the racket. Louie sees it the same way I do. Only remember, Donald, it’s strictly a business partnership. That’s understood. And I won’t have trouble with Louie the way I did with Pug. Louie knows where my heart is — and he worships the ground you walk on. By this time, I guess you know about Pug. I’m not certain that you didn’t all along. It was either him or both of us. He kept that gun in the bureau drawer where he had some of his papers and things that he didn’t want to leave in his rooming-house. I told him I’d give him a drawer in the bureau. I knew there was a gun there. When he began to get so insanely jealous, I took the gun out and hid it in the dishpan in the kitchen. I knew he’d never look there. After he found us together on the street and had that trouble with the cop, he went directly to the apartment. He was wise. He turned off the lights and hid in the closet. I came in a few minutes after nine, turned on the lights, and Pug pushed open the closet door. He was crazy. I couldn’t do a thing with him. He swore that he was going to kill us both. He accused me of turning him over to the cops. He hit me, and then made a dash for the drawer to get the gun. I ran for the door. He headed me off. I got into the kitchen and slammed the door. I didn’t have time to lock it. We struggled for a minute at the door, and then he got it open, throwing me back against the sink. I whipped open the cupboard door and reached in the dishpan. He kept coming. I’m not the least bit sorry. I had to do it. According to your code, I should have notified the law and stayed there and told them my story, let them probe into my past, ask me about my means of making a living, hold me in jail as a material witness, and all that bunk. Well, that’s not my way of doing it. I walked across to the apartment next door and pounded on the door for Mrs. Clutmer — just to make certain that she wasn’t home. No one answered my knock so I just walked out, and left the door open. I ditched the gun where no one will ever find it. I swore I’d never rat, but I can’t hold out on you. There are some things you’ll have to know. The girl with the rabbit nose is named Dearborne. She’s strong for Philip Whitewell. Somebody in Whitewell’s organization who didn’t want the marriage to go through put detectives on Corla Burke. They uncovered her record and turned up Sid Jannix. I didn’t know him by that name. I knew him as Harry Beegan, and called him Pug because he’d been in the ring. I think Pug wrote the letter to Corla Burke and signed my name to it. He was pretty good at forgery. He wanted to get Corla Burke where he could squeeze her dry. She was too smart for him. Pug didn’t think up the scheme. It was someone else who did, someone who didn’t want the marriage to go through. Philip’s father knew about the letter to me. He wrote to the Dearbornes to look me up. The boy made the investigation, but his sister started cultivating me and trying to work me. She was suspicious of Pug. I don’t know how sheknew, but she did know he was connected with Corla Burke. She wanted to pump me. She was so obvious I just strung her along and didn’t bother to take her seriously. I’d had the apartment where you found me for a week. I knew things were coming to a head with Pug, and I wanted a way to leave him for good when I walked out. I knew he’d never think of looking for me in another apartment in the same city. But after the killing, I had to sit absolutely tight. I went out to get some grub — and darned if I didn’t run into the Dearborne girl on the street. She knew I was hiding and offered to see me through. Why, I don’t know. Pug had taken the roll from me as soon as I came in, and I didn’t have over thirty cents to my name. The Dearborne girl offered to get grub. Well, I let her. We’re taking your car for a few days. I have an idea you won’t need it. When we get done with it, I’ll drop you a note at your office telling you where you can find it. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in the world, and I’m taking a powder because I don’t want anything to interfere with the memory of the time we spent together. I know it’s finished. I know we can’t go on. I know that if I try, something is going to happen to rob that memory of all its sweetness. Louie doesn’t understand all the details, but he knows enough to get the sketch. He says if there’s ever anyone you want killed, all you have to do is put an ad in the personal columns of the Los Angeles papers, saying, “Louie, She guy’s name is so-and-so.” Louie would lay down his life for you. Louie says it’s because you’re a real champ, that people feel that way about you. I think it’s because you’re so darn clean and decent. Anyway, we’re both for you and we’re both saying — Good-by.
I was shivering with the cold and a nervous chill. My hand was shaking so I could hardly hold the letter. I turned on the hot water in the shower. When it was good and hot, I got out of my clothes and stood under the stream, letting the water run as hot as I could stand it. When I got out, I felt a little better. I rubbed myself with a towel, went out into the kitchen, and looked in the wood stove. Leave it to Louie to think of little things like that. He’d laid the fire with kindling and dry wood, so all I had to do was touch a match to it.
When the fire was roaring into flame, I lifted the cover from the stove and dropped in Helen’s letter. I put on some coffee, and looked through the cupboard to see if, by any chance, there was any whisky. I couldn’t find any. The warmth of the hot shower left me, and I was standing over the stove once more, shivering.
The east was splashed with vivid crimson, then the sun came up. The wood stove did its stuff, and my bones began to thaw out. The coffee started bubbling, and I had two big cups. By that time, I realized I was hungry. I broke some eggs into a frying-pan, scrambled them, made some toast in the oven, and had another cup of coffee with the eggs and toast. The kitchen was good and warm by that time.
I tried to smoke a cigarette, but the room gave me the jitters. Every article in it reminded me of her. The whole place was vibrant with memories — and desolate as a tomb.
I packed my bag and went out to stand in the sunlight. I couldn’t wait in the house any more.
The man who owned the gas station came out, and unlocked his pumps, rubbing his eyes sleepily. I walked over to him and said, “I’ve got to leave by plane. The others have taken the car and gone on. There are some provisions in the house you can have if you want.”
He thanked me, looked at me curiously, and said, “I thought I heard your wife and the other man drive away last night.”
I started for the highway. I’d been walking about three minutes when a car coming out from Reno swerved and slid to a stop. I looked up, my heart pounding in my throat.
Some woman was rolling down a window. Her arm concealed her face. I started toward the car, running across the pavement.
The window rolled down. The woman’s arm came away so I could see her face. It was Bertha.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Getting things straightened out here.”
“No one showed up, did they?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think they would. It sounded goofy to me. Well, come on. We’ve got work to do.”
“What and where?”
“First we get back to Las Vegas. This man Kleinsmidt on the police force is raising merry hell, and you’re the only one who can do anything with him.”
“What happened with Philip and the girl?”
She snorted and said, “Loss of memory! Well, it’s all right if he falls for it.”
“They’ve made up?” I asked.
“Made up! You should have seen them.”
“Where are they now?”
“Took a plane for Los Angeles. We’ve got to go back and square things with Kleinsmidt. Come on, hop in.”
I climbed in the car with her, and she said to the driver, “All right, now we’ll go to the airport.”
A plane was waiting. We climbed aboard. I wouldn’t talk. Bertha quit trying to pump me after a while. Then gradually the nerve tension left me. I dropped into a sound sleep.
A car met us at Las Vegas. “Sal Sagev Hotel,” Bertha said, and to me, “You look ‘pretty bad. Get a bath, shave, and then come to my room. We’ll get Kleinsmidt up.”
“What’s eating him?” I asked.
“He thinks you spirited a witness away, and he doesn’t like the way everybody pulled out of town last night without saying anything to him. He also thinks he should have questioned Corla Burke. He thinks the murder gave you some kind of a lead on her. You’ve got to square the whole thing. It’ll take a good story.”
“I know it will,” I said.
We went to the hotel. I told Bertha a button was loose on my shirt, and asked her for a needle and thread. She became unexpectedly maternal, and offered to sew it on for me, but I stalled her along.
As soon as her door closed, I beat it for the elevator. It wasn’t much of a walk around to the place where Helen Framley had lived. I stood at the foot of the stairs long enough to make sure no one was around, jabbed the needle into my thumb and squeezed out blood. I tiptoed up the stairs — and tiptoed down.
Bertha Cool was talking on the telephone as I came in. I heard her say, “You’re certain of that?… Well, pickle me for a herring… You’ve investigated at the airport?… That’s right. We’ll leave here on the afternoon plane. I’ll see you in Los Angeles this evening… That’s fine. Give them my congratulations. Good-by.”
She hung up and said, “That’s funny.”
“You mean that Endicott didn’t show up?” I asked.
Her little eyes glittered hard at me. “Donald, you do say the damnedest things.”
“Why?”
“How did you know he didn’t show up?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something you said over the telephone.”
“Nuts. You knew he wasn’t going to show up. Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t take that San Francisco plane out of Reno. He just disappeared into thin air.”
I stretched, yawned, and said, “When do we entertain Lieutenant Kleinsmidt?”
“He’s on his way up now.”
Knuckles pounded on the door. I opened it, and Kleinsmidt walked in.
“You,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Quite a heel you turned out to be.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Taking a powder and putting me in Dutch, after the breaks I tried to give you.”
I said, “I was out working for you.”
“Thanks!” His voice was sarcastic.
“As I see it,” I said, “all that interests you is the murder of Jannix.”
“That’s all, just a little minor matter like that, but the chief gets funny complexes. He’s sort of riding me about it, and there’s been a little criticism here and there, a few suggestions that your departure was rather abrupt, that I might have safeguarded the interests of the taxpayers a little better by seeing that you were provided with room and board. Where’s that Framley woman?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“You went away with her.”
“Uh huh.”
“Where’d you leave her?”
“In Reno.”
“Then what?”
I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Let’s not talk about it. Another guy beat my time.”
I felt Bertha Cool’s eyes staring at me. Kleinsmidt said, “Who’s the guy this time?”
“Man by the name of Hazen.”
“The one who identified the stiff?”
“That’s him.”
“He didn’t look like such a lady’s man to me.”
I said, “I made the same mistake, Lieutenant.”
He said, “I think I’ll do a little checking on that, Lam.”
“Go ahead,” I told him. “I can give you the name of the man who runs the gasoline station where we rented a cabin.”
“What does he know about it?”
“He told me this morning that he heard my wife and the other man drive away in the night.”
Kleinsmidt said, “Too bad. I don’t think you’re looking well. You need a good rest. We have the best climate in the west right here in Las Vegas. We’d hate to have you leave us again unexpectedly. I’m going to make arrangements to see that you don’t.”
I said, “Well, don’t be in a hurry about it. Here’s something for you to run down first.”
“What?”
“Remember Paul Endicott, Whitewell’s right-hand man?”
“Naturally.”
“I don’t know whether you heard Whitewell say so, but was going to give his son a partnership interest when he got married. You know, the income-tax people get funny ideas about those things. When the new partnership was organized, they’d want an audit of the books, even if Whitewell didn’t.”
I saw Kleinsmidt’s eyes showing interest.
“Keep right on,” he said.
I said, “I wouldn’t know, but if I wanted to make a bet, it would be that an audit of Whitewell’s books would show the real reason Endicott didn’t want the marriage to go through. That’s why he got Helen Framley to write a letter to Corla Burke that would make her think the marriage couldn’t go through.”
“What was in the letter?” Kleinsmidt asked.
“I wouldn’t know exactly, but it seems that Corla Burke’s father walked out and left the family when she was about fifteen. I wouldn’t want to be quoted, but I think the letter told her that her father had been arrested and was serving time in a penitentiary. Naturally, Corla wouldn’t have gone ahead with the marriage under those circumstances. She wouldn’t have thought it was fair to Philip.”
“It’s your story,” Kleinsmidt said. “So let’s hear the next installment.”
“Corla got to brooding over it. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from overwork, anyway. She started out to investigate. Naturally, it wasn’t anything she could entrust to anyone else, and she had to make a stall so she could get away and postpone the wedding until she could find out.”
“That shouldn’t have taken her long.”
“It wouldn’t have,” I said, “if the shock hadn’t thrown her off her trolley. They found her yesterday wandering around in Reno without the faintest idea of who she was or how she happened to get there.”
Kleinsmidt’s eyes narrowed into slits. He said, “Remember, Lam, I played ball with you once. I got my fingers hurt. Your pitching is full of curves. This time you’ve got to give me something that will stand up with the chief.”
“What do you suppose I’m doing now?” I asked him.
“I’m damned if I know. And I’m a little suspicious.”
I said, “Endicott was fighting for all the delay he could get. Jannix was to back his play. He was to be the witness who’d swear Corla’s father was in the pen. Endicott was going to pay him. You know Jannix. He was hot tempered and a little suspicious anyway. Endicott made the mistake of coming to see him, and caught Jannix in one of his more suspicious moments. When he left, Jannix was dead.”
“Very, very nice,” Kleinsmidt said. “Only it’s full of holes. It’s bum stuff, even for a theory. You wouldn’t, by any chance, have any facts to back up this fairy story, would you?”
“Lots of them.”
Kleinsmidt said, “Well, you might begin by telling me how it happened Endicott could have done this at the exact moment he was sitting in a picture show. The chief would be interested in that. He’s funny that way, the chief is.”
I said, “If a woman had killed Jannix, he was killed between eight-fifty and nine-fifteen. If a man killed him, he might have been killed any time.”
“How interesting!”
“The trouble with you,” I said, “is that you got a theory and then tried to fit the facts to it. Your idea was that because the people who lived in the adjoining apartment hadn’t heard a shot, the shot must have been fired while they were out.”
“Try firing a shot in there without that old dame hearing it,” Kleinsmidt said.
“Sure. She didn’t hear a shot. She was out at the train. Therefore, the murder must have been committed while she was out.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?”
“Suppose she hadn’t gone out?”
“Then she’d have heard the shot.”
“Would she?”
“Of course, she would.”
“But suppose she hadn’t?”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“If she hadn’t,” I said, “you’d have tried to find out why, wouldn’t you?”
“Naturally.”
I said, “The body was found in an apartment. The people in the adjoining apartment had been out from eight-fifty to nine-twenty. This made it very nice for you. You were able to narrow the crime down to a thirty-minute interval and start asking questions, accordingly. Well, if a woman had killed him, that would have been all right.”
“Why does a man make it any different?”
I said, “A big, powerful man could have shot him in the alley or in an automobile or out in an auto camp, loaded the body into a car, parked in the alley, thrown the body over his shoulder, taken it up to Helen Framley’s apartment and dumped it. Then he could have gone to a picture show and started building himself an alibi. Didn’t it ever occur to you as slightly strange that Endicott dashed in to Las Vegas just to see a movie? He must be some little fan.”
Kleinsmidt shook his head. “It’s lousy,” he said. “It stinks.”
“All right, you wanted me to give you something you could take to the chief. Don’t say I didn’t do it.”
“It’s your story,” Kleinsmidt said. “Even the way you tell it, it’s full of holes. If I tried to put it across, it would rise up and hit me on the chin.”
“Okay, it’s your funeral.”
“It may be my funeral,” he said, “but you’re going to be the chief mourner. Come on.”
I said to Bertha, “You can address my mail care of Lieutenant Kleinsmidt.”
“Like hell I will,” Bertha said, getting to her feet. “Who the devil do you think you are?” she demanded, glaring at Kleinsmidt. “You aren’t going to get away with this. I guess they’ve got lawyers in this town.”
Kleinsmidt said, “Sure they have. You go right ahead and get ’em. Mr. Lam is coming with me.”
Kleinsmidt took my arm. “Let’s go quietly,” he said.
We went quietly. Bertha Cool was standing in the doorway, saying uncomplimentary things to Kleinsmidt. He didn’t pay any attention to her.
As we walked through the lobby, Kleinsmidt said, “I’m sorry, Lam. I hate to do this, but that story just doesn’t hold water. Why don’t you think up a good one?”
“Okay by me. Don’t overlook Bertha, though. She won’t take this lying down. Later on, when you have a chance to think things over, Lieutenant, this is going to be your embarrassing moment. You can write a prize-winning letter on it.”
“I know,” he said, “you’re a plausible cuss, but if you talked me out of this, I’d never hear the last of it.”
He took me down to headquarters. He didn’t put me in a cell, but left me in an office with an officer standing guard. Around noon, Chief Laster came in.
The chief said, “Bill Kleinsmidt has been talking with me.”
“That’s good.”
“And Mrs. Cool is waiting in the other room with a lawyer and a writ of habeas corpus.”
“Bertha’s a two-fisted individual. She makes her compromise with a club.”
He said, “That theory of yours doesn’t sound as crazy to me as it did to Bill Kleinsmidt.”
“It’s just a theory,” I told him.
“You evidently had some evidence on which to base it.”
“Nothing I’d care to discuss.”
“But you had some?”
“No. It was just an idea.”
He said, “I’d like to know just what gave it to you.”
“Oh, just an idea.”
He shook his head. “You had something more to tie to than just an idea. Did the girl tell you something?”
I raised my eyebrows, said with exaggerated surprise, “Why? Does she know anything?”
“That’s not answering my question. Did she tell you something?”
“I’m certain I couldn’t remember. We talked about a lot of things. You know how it is, Chief, when you’re with a girl for several days.”
“And nights,” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
He pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, pulled it way out, then released it, and let it slide back. After a while, he said, “You’re a queer one.”
“What’s the matter now?”
He said, “After Bill told me about that theory of yours, I went out and went over the premises inch by inch. We covered the stairs, taking each stair at a time. We found half a dozen drops of blood.”
“Did you indeed?”
He said, “That knocks Endicott’s alibi into a cocked hat.”
“Have you asked him about it?”
“We can’t. He’s skipped.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. He went to Reno with you last night, and that’s the last anyone has seen of him.”
“Didn’t he take the San Francisco plane?”
“No.”
“What does Whitewell say?”
“Whitewell is saying a lot. I talked with him over the telephone. He’s having auditors in.”
I said, “Well, that’s all very interesting, but I’d advise you not to keep Bertha Cool waiting. She’s capable of sudden, unexpected action.”
The chief got up with a sigh. “I wish you’d tell me what evidence you had to go on. It would help a lot.”
“I’m sorry. It was just a theory of mine.”
“You certainly had some sort of a tip.”
“I don’t see how you arrive at that conclusion. It seems to me it’s a perfectly fair and logical deduction from the evidence. Just because a body is found in a certain place doesn’t necessarily mean that the crime was committed there.”
“When are you leaving Las Vegas?” he asked.
“As soon as I can get a plane out, and I’m not going to talk with any newspaper reporters, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re the one who solved the crime.”
He shifted his eyes and said, “Oh, I don’t care anything about that.”
“Well, I’m just telling you in case you did.”