Bertha Cool was evidently giving a party.
I stood in front of the door of her hotel room and listened to the sound of laughter. A babble of voices indicated that the room was well filled with people, and all of them were trying to talk at once.
I rapped on the door.
Bertha Cool called, “Who is it?”
I heard a man say, “Probably the boy with the ice.”
The transom was open an inch or two, far enough to enable me to hear Bertha Cool’s voice say, “Open the door for him.”
A latch clicked on the inside of the door. I turned the knob and walked in.
It was quite a gathering. All three of the Dearbornes were there, also Paul Endicott, Arthur and Philip Whitewell. Bertha Cool was half reclining on a chaise longue, propped up with pillows. She was wearing a low-cut backless evening gown.
A table in the center of the room was littered with bottles. Glasses were scattered around the room. A silver pail of ice cubes held only an inch or two of water. Ash trays were well filled with cigarette stubs and cigar butts. The atmosphere of the room was pretty thick. The men were in dinner jackets.
Bertha Cool’s eyes grew big as she stared at me.
The conversation came to an abrupt stop as though someone had turned off a radio when a mob scene had been playing.
Bertha said, “Well, fry me for an oyster!”
I stood in the doorway. People put glasses down as though I’d been a prohibition officer making a raid.
“Well,” Bertha demanded truculently, “where the hell have you been?”
“I’ve been to Reno. I’ve found Corla Burke.”
The room became absolutely silent. You couldn’t even hear the rustle of motion or the sound of breathing. Then Anita Dearborne gave a quick, sharp intake of breath. At the same time, Eloise sighed.
Philip Whitewell was coming toward me, hands outstretched.
“How is she?” he asked. “Is she all right? Is she—”
“She’s in a hospital.”
“Oh,” he said, and then after a moment, “Oh, my God!”
“Mental,” I explained.
He was staring at me as if I’d driven a knife into his chest.
“Amnesia. Doesn’t know who she is, who her friends are, or where she came from, or what has happened. Otherwise, she’s in good health.”
“At Reno?”
“Yes.”
Philip Whitewell looked at his dad. “We must go at once,” he said.
Arthur Whitewell ran his hand up over his bald forehead, smoothed the hair on the top of his head, and repeated the gesture twice. He glanced surreptitiously at Ogden Dearborne, then back to me. “How did you do it, Lam?” he asked.
I said, “Helen Framley knew more than she admitted.”
“How did you get it out of her?”
Bertha Cool came in with the answer. “Made love to her, of course. They go absolutely mad over Donald. What did she tell you, lover?”
“I’ll make my report later on,” I said, “in confidence, in writing, and to you.”
I turned to look at Arthur Whitewell.
Philip said, “Come on, Dad let’s get started. We’ll have to arrange for a plane.”
Whitewell said, “Yes. Naturally, we must leave at once. Is she — is there any chance of recovery, Lam?”
“As I understand it, her physical condition is all right. It’s purely a mental reaction.”
“From what?”
“The doctors say it could have been caused by shock, by overwork, by nervousness.”
“Did you tell the doctors—”
“Not a thing.”
Whitewell turned to Mrs. Dearborne, managed to make his remarks include Eloise and Ogden. “Naturally, this is quite a blow — that is, a surprise. I take it you’ll understand.”
Mrs. Dearhorne got to her feet at once. “Certainly, Arthur. We only wish there was something we could do. We know there isn’t. It’s a matter that you must handle.” Her eyes swiveled abruptly to me. She wrapped me in a cold stare until I felt like a barren tree limb the morning after an ice storm. “So you found her,” she said.
I nodded.
She smiled frostily. “I might have known you would,” she said. “Come, Eloise.”
Ogden helped them on with their wraps. Bertha saw them to the door. Mrs. Dearborne paused to make the usual formal acknowledgment of a pleasant evening. Bertha Cool didn’t take time wasting any words. She barely waited until they were out in the corridor, then turned, heeled the door shut, and said, “I thought there was something fishy about you running away with that woman. You were following a lead. How much money have you spent?”
“Quite a bit.”
She snorted.
Philip said, “Please, let’s not lose a minute.”
Arthur Whitewell looked at his watch. “It’s going to be difficult to charter a good plane from here I’m afraid, but we can try. If necessary, we can telephone Los Angeles and arrange to have one leave at once. Philip, suppose you go down to the airport and see what you can do. Paul can go with you and give you a hand. We’ll leave it entirely to you. Use your discretion.”
“I have a plane which brought me from Reno,” I said. “Irwin hold three passengers in addition to the pilot.” Bertha said, “That’s fine. I’ll stay right here. Mr. Endicott can wait with me. Arthur, you and Philip can leave right away, and go with Donald.”
Endicott said, “Let’s not rush the thing too much. After all, she’s perfectly safe. They probably won’t let us see her before morning anyway, and I for one think it’s more important to have the right kind of a doctor on the job than anything else. Don’t you suppose, Arthur, you could get Dr. Hinderkeld to take a plane and meet you in Reno? In cases of this sort, a sudden shock may revive the patient’s memory. On the other hand, it might be disastrous. A great deal would depend on the condition of the patient.”
Whitewell said, “You’re right. Paul, you telephone Dr. Hinderkeld. Wait until you’ve found out what you can do here about a plane. If we have to get a ship from Los Angeles, Hinderkeld can come in on it, and we’ll all go to Reno together.”
Philip was standing at the door, his hand on the knob. “Come on, Paul,” he said, and to his father, “You can do what you want about a doctor. I’m going to her now.”
Endicott flashed Arthur Whitewell one searching glance, then he and Philip were out in the corridor.
Whitewell turned to me. “I suppose I have you to thank for this.”
“For what?”
“As though you didn’t know.”
“You wanted me to find her, didn’t you? I’ve found her.”
He said, “You told Mrs. Cool that you thought I might have dictated that letter, that I might have given her money. Evidently, young man, you don’t have a very high opinion of me.”
I said, “I’m employed to do a job. The letter she wrote Helen Framley was written on your stationery. The top had been cut off with a knife. Women don’t carry knives. A woman cutting off the top of a letterhead would have folded the paper, and cut it with a paper cutter, or she would have used a pair of scissors, or she might have even tried to tear it off. She wouldn’t have cut it with a sharp knife.”
“Well, what of it?”
“The letter was written at night. It was picked up shortly before midnight. It was written on your office stationery. To my mind, that means it was written in your office.”
“Well?”
“A man was present. She hadn’t intended to write the letter before she went to the office. Otherwise, she’d have had the letter written — or else she’d have waited until she got back to her apartment to write it. She went to your office. She met some man. They had a conversation. As a result of that conversation, she decided to write a letter. For some reason, it was considered imperative that she write the letter then and there. She did so. The man cut off the letterhead. Someone furnished a stamped envelope. Corla Burke left very mysteriously the next day. The circumstances surrounding her departure were such that it was impossible to believe she hadn’t left of her own volition. She’d left a purse on her desk with all of her money in it. Evidently, it was all the money she had. She couldn’t have gone far without money. Therefore, it’s obvious she was getting money from someone.
“There was enough in that letter to Helen Framley to show that she was leaving under her own power and because of some circumstance or development which she thought put her in a questionable light, particularly with the man she was to marry. You evidently knew of that letter. You evidently had a pretty good idea what was in it. You were willing to hire a firm of private detectives to start working on the case. You were very careful to see that the detectives met you in Las Vegas and started working from there. You were so afraid they might miss Helen Framley that you had her all ticketed, earmarked, and ready for delivery like a box of quick-frozen strawberries. And you carry stamped envelopes.
“Now you put all that together and see what you’d think if you were a detective.”
Bertha said, “Damn you, Donald. He’s a client — and a friend.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’m reporting. I haven’t said anything to anyone else yet, have I?”
“That word ‘yet’ sounds like a threat,” Whitewell said.
I didn’t say anything.
“How much of all this about the amnesia attack is true?” Whitewell asked.
I said, “I somehow had an idea her disappearance might have had to do with a prior marriage.”
“What gave you that idea?”
“She left under her own power. She tried to save her face, and she tried to save Philip’s face. She wasn’t the sort of girl who would have let you buy her off. Looking at it from any angle, the most plausible explanation was that a prior marriage was mixed up in it.”
“So you went to Reno?”
“That’s right. Persons who are suffering from unfortunate marriages and suddenly disappear are quite apt to go to Reno.”
“And you made inquiries at the hospitals, I suppose,” Whitewell said sarcastically.
“Exactly. There were two practical solutions, and only two. One of them was a prior marriage, and the other was an attack of amnesia.”
“And if it had been a prior marriage, she’d have gone to Reno?”
“That’s right.”
“But why should she have gone to Reno if she had been suffering from amnesia?”
“It was a complication of both, causes,” I said, and grinned at him.
“And so you found her in this hospital! How nice!”
“Yes. When I made the evening round, I learned that a woman who answered Miss Burke’s description had been picked up suffering from amnesia. I checked. It was Corla Burke, all right. That put me in a spot. The hospital authorities were trying to find someone who knew her. Naturally, they wanted to pump me. I kept my mouth shut.”
Whitewell raised his left hand to the shining expanse of his high forehead, stroked what hair he had left with the palm of his hand. “If you’d uncovered Helen Framley,” he said, “found that letter, turned it in, and then quit, your services would have been worth a great deal more to me.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me that was what you wanted me to do? You told me you wanted me to find Corla Burke.”
He abruptly pushed his hands down in his trousers pockets. “I see by the paper,” he said, “that the man who was living with Helen Framley was Sidney Jannix.”
“He wasn’t living with her. It was a business partnership.”
Bertha Cool snorted.
Arthur Whitewell’s eyes were narrowed. “Now that you have blurted out that you’ve found Corla, Philip, of course, will have to go to see her. Jannix is dead — murdered, very fortunately for her. She has no recollection of what happened. The poor girl was suffering from a nervous strain. Wouldn’t it be just fine if the sight of Philip should restore her memory? She’d then have no recollection of what had happened from the time she walked out of the office and would be all ready to go on with the wedding.”
I met his eyes. “I think that would make your son very happy.”
He folded his arms. “Perhaps,” he said, “I am more concerned with my son’s happiness one year or ten years from now than in helping him gratify a brief infatuation.”
“Quite possibly that’s true.”
“I don’t suppose you’d have any ideas about that?”
“You hired me to find Corla Burke. I’ve found her.” Bertha Cool said, “He’s right on that, Arthur. You should have taken us into your confidence. I told you Donald was very competent and a fast worker. He—”
“Shut up,” Whitewell said without taking his eyes from me.
Bertha Cool came up out of that chair as though she’d been a rubber ball dropped from a twenty-story window. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” she demanded. “Don’t you tell me to shut up. You — such a polished gentleman that butter won’t melt in your mouth, filled with all your goddamn flatteries — and telling a lady to shut up! You hired us to do a job, and we’ve done it. Now get out your checkbook and settle up.”
Whitewell completely ignored her. He said to me, “I suppose you’d also resort to a little blackmail?”
“About what?”
“Threatening to tell Philip unless you get the sort of settlement you want.”
I said, “I’m reporting to Bertha Cool. She runs the agency any way she wants to. I don’t have anything to say about that. However, if you’re going to play ostrich and try sticking your head in the sand, you might remember that the police here in Las Vegas are going to be mildly interested.”
“What business is it of theirs?”
“You forget the murder.”
“You mean this mess is all going to come out in connection with the murder?”
“It might.”
He frowned at me, and said, “By the time I unscramble that enigmatic ‘remark, young man, I suppose I’ll find a hook in it. That has all the earmarks of being the opening gun in a campaign of shakedown.”
I lit a cigarette.
Bertha said, “You’d better come down to earth and realize you aren’t done with us yet. You’re going to need representation to keep this murder rap off your shoulders.”
“Off my shoulders!” Whitewell exclaimed.
Bertha’s eyes glittered at him, hard and greedy. “You’re damn tootin’,” she said. “Don’t forget that girl who saw you.”
Whitewell began to smile, a slow grin of amused triumph. “Well,” he said, “isn’t it going to be interesting to see what happens. Corla Burke has lost her memory. She doesn’t know anything that happened from the time she finished taking dictation on the day of her disappearance. The next thing she remembers is when Philip walks into the hospital and says, ‘Corla,’ and the emotional shock suddenly brings back her memory. Rather a nice little master of ceremonies, aren’t you, Lam?”
“Go ahead,” I said. “Spill the rest of it.”
“All right, I will. Corla Burke was an adventuress. She’d been married before, and she was concealing that marriage from my son. She’d trapped my son into a love affair. She was going to marry him. Then a few days before the ceremony, her husband makes a very inopportune appearance. Immediately Corla Burke disappears. Shortly thereafter, her husband is murdered. As soon as he has shuffled this mortal coil so that she becomes a widow and therefore perfectly eligible to make an immediate marriage, a private detective finds her in a hospital, suffering from amnesia. And I won’t insult your intelligence by intimating there’s any chance she won’t be promptly cured as soon as she sees my son, and I hope that you won’t insult my intelligence by trying to make me swallow it as a genuine performance. But the point is, she was the one who had a motive for murdering Sidney Jannix. She wanted him out of the way. She had every reason to know that he could be located through Helen Framley. That’s something for you to consider, Lam.”
“Why?”
“Because if she doesn’t know where she has been during the intervening time, she can’t deny that she was in Las Vegas. She can’t deny that she killed him.”
“So what?”
“So,” he said, “you have a plane here. We are getting a plane. If you started now, you could get back to Reno ahead of us. If Corla Burke isn’t there in the hospital when we arrive, so far as I’m concerned, there won’t be any temptation to associate her with the murder of her husband.”
I said, “No soap.”
Bertha Cool said, “What the hell do you take us for anyway?”
Whitewell made a little gesture with his hands. “All right, I’ll approach it another way. Philip is my only child, my only living close relative. I realize that he is introspective, that he’s abnormally sensitive, that he’s inclined to brood. I know that his happiness doesn’t depend entirely on himself. He’s a young man who will be greatly influenced by his environment. That means that his marriage is going to be terribly important — getting just the right woman is going to mean a lot.
“Can’t you give me credit for having some intelligence? Can’t you realize that I know Philip better than any other person on earth? Don’t you understand that his happiness is the primary consideration with me, that if I thought he could be happy with Corla Burke, I would move heaven and earth to bring the two together? Can’t you realize that the only reason I didn’t want him to marry Corla was that I knew she wasn’t the woman for him? I knew the match was unsuitable. I knew that it was but the prelude to tragedy. She wouldn’t stay with him. She isn’t his type. She’d break his heart. Some persons can marry more than once. Some persons can’t. Philip is one who can’t.”
I asked, “How is your son going to feel toward her when he finds she’s been married before?”
He grinned. “What you’re leading up to is how is he going to find it out? I can’t say anything. That would be a giveaway. She won’t say anything because she’s had this very convenient loss of memory. Of course, it will come out after marriage, but that will be afterwards. Oh, I’ll hand it to you, Lam. You’re clever all right. It would have been a neat little checkmate. But it isn’t a mate.”
I saw the glitter in his eyes. “Don’t forget that I can be absolutely ruthless when anyone crosses me. You either have her out of the way by the time Philip gets to Reno or she’ll be arrested for murder, and then the whole thing will come out — and once she’s pulled this amnesia business, she’s licked.”
I yawned.
He stood glaring down at me. “Damn you, you insolent little terrier, I mean it.”
I reached in my pocket.
He crossed the room, picked up the telephone, and said to us, “I’m calling police headquarters.”
I pulled out the letter I’d taken from Corla Burke’s Reno apartment.
Whitewell took one look at that envelope and dropped the telephone as though it had been hot. I said, “I inquired for mail at Reno. I thought there might be a letter for her. There was.”
He became very still.
“That was a breach of the postal laws. They can raise hell with you for that.”
I went on calmly, “I notice Paul Endicott seemed very anxious to mail your letter about the option. It’s fortunate you accepted it. Evidently he’s quite familiar with your business.”
Bertha said, “Donald, what the hell are you talking about?”
I said, “Suppose Philip takes it right on the chin and still loves her, regardless of how many times she’s been married? You’re a man who likes your family, Mr. Whitewell. You’re going to be pretty lonesome without Philip, and it’s going to be quite a blow to you to be estranged from your own grandchildren.”
If I’d given him Louie Hazen’s one-two shift in the solar plexus, I couldn’t have given him more of a jolt.
“If I were in your shoes,” I went on, “I’d have considered the amnesia as just about the best break I’d had in ten years.”
He said with conviction, “When he finds out how she’s deceived him, he’ll walk out on her. It will hurt for a while, but he’ll walk out.”
I said, “You’re wrong. He won’t find out. Personally, I’m going to get something to eat. I’ll see you in about twenty minutes.”
I walked out and left him alone with Bertha.
I strolled down the street to a bar, got a toothpick, and came back to Bertha Cool’s room. She was alone. “Where’s Whitewell?” I asked.
“Gone to get some things together. You really shouldn’t have handled him that way, lover. You’ve always had a chip on your shoulder with him.”
“I gave him a break with that amnesia business, and he was too dumb to realize it,” I said.
“No, not dumb. Just confident that Philip will do exactly what he expects him to do.”
“Philip is in love.”
“Donald, what about that letter he sent. What was in it?”
“Nothing much.”
She glared at me. The phone rang. She picked it up, listened a moment after she’d said, “Hello,” and then said, “Okay, we’ll be on our way.”
She hung up. “Philip has chartered a plane. That and the one you brought from Reno will take us all. We start at once. Donald, what was in that letter?”
I started for the door. “Let’s get going.”