I opened the door marked Bertha Cool — Confidential Investigations — Entrance. Elsie Brand looked up from her shorthand notes, and, without missing a beat on the keyboard, said, “Go on in. She’s waiting.” The staccato rhythm of her typing followed me across the office and through the door marked Bertha Cool — Private.
Bertha Cool, profane, massive, belligerent, and bulldog, sat back of her desk, her diamonds flashing in the morning sunlight as she moved her hand over a pile of papers, sorting and re-arranging. The thin man in the middle forties seated in the client’s chair looked up at me with anxious, apprehensive eyes.
Bertha Cool said, “You were long enough getting here, Donald.”
I said nothing to her, but sized up the client, a slender man with greyish hair, a grey, close-clipped moustache, and a mouth which seemed more decisive than the general anxiety of his appearance would indicate. He wore blue glasses so dark that it was impossible to distinguish the colour of his eyes.
Bertha Cool said, “Mr. Smith, this is Donald Lam, the man I told you about. Donald, Mr. Smith.”
I bowed.
Smith said, in the voice of a man who has disciplined himself to subordinate general impressions to exact accuracy, “Good morning, Mr. Lam.” He didn’t offer to shake hands. He seemed disappointed.
Bertha Cool said, “Now, don’t make any mistakes about Donald. He’s a go-getter. God knows he hasn’t any brawn, but he has brains. He’s a half-pint runt and a good beating raises hell with him, but he knows his way around. Don’t mind my cussing, Mr. Smith.”
Smith nodded. I thought the nod was somewhat dubious, but I couldn’t see his eyes.
Bertha Cool said, “Sit down, Donald.”
I sat down in the hard, straight-backed wooden chair.
Bertha Cool said to Smith, “Donald can find her if anyone can. He isn’t as young as he looks. He got to be a lawyer, and they kicked him out when he showed a client how to commit a perfectly legal murder. Donald thought he was explaining a technicality in the law, but the Bar Association didn’t like it. They said it was unethical. They also said it wouldn’t work.” Bertha Cool paused long enough to chuckle, then went on: “Donald came to work for me, and the first case he had, damned if he didn’t show ’em there was a loophole in the murder law through which a man could drive a horse and buggy. Now they’re trying to amend the law. That’s Donald for you!”
Bertha Cool beamed at me with a synthetic semblance of affection that didn’t mean a thing.
Smith nodded his head.
Bertha Cool said, “In nineteen hundred and eighteen, Donald, a Dr. and Mrs. James C. Lintig lived at 419 Chestnut Street, Oakview. There was a scandal, and Lintig took a powder. We’re not concerned with him. Find Mrs. Lintig.”
“Is she still around Oakview?” I asked.
“No one knows.”
“Any relatives?”
“Apparently not.”
“How long had they been married when she disappeared?”
Bertha looked at Smith, and Smith shook his head. Bertha Cool kept looking at him, and he said finally, in that precise, academic manner which seemed characteristic of him, “I don’t know.”
Bertha Cool said, “Get this Donald. We don’t want anyone to know about this investigation. Above all, no one is to know who our client is. Take the agency car. Start now. You should get there late tonight.”
I looked at Smith and said, “I’ll have to make inquiries,” and Smith said, “Certainly.”
Bertha said, “Pose as a distant relative.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
Smith knitted his brows thoughtfully, and said, “I don’t know exactly. You can find that out when you get there.”
“Any children?”
Smith said, “No.”
I looked across at Bertha Cool. She opened a drawer In her desk, took out a key, unlocked a cash box, and handed me fifty dollars. “Keep expenses down, Donald,” she said. “It may be a long chase. We’ll have to make the money go as far as possible.”
Smith put his finger-tips together, rested his hands on the front of his grey, double-breasted coat, and said, “Exactly.”
“Any leads to work on?” I asked.
“What more do you want?” Bertha asked.
“Anything I can get,” I said, my eyes on Smith.
He shook his head.
“Know anything about her, whether she had a commercial education, whether she could do any work, who her friends were, whether she had any money, whether she was fat, thin, tall, short, blonde, or brunette?”
Smith said, “No. I can’t help you on any of that.”
“What do I do when I locate her?” I asked.
“Notify me,” Bertha said.
I pocketed the fifty dollars, scraped back my chair, said, “Pleased to have met you, Mr. Smith,” and walked out.
Elsie Brand didn’t bother to look up from her typing as I crossed the outer office.
The agency car was an antiquated heap with tyres worn down pretty close to the fabric. It had a leaky radiator, front wheels that developed a bad shimmy at anything above fifty, and so many rattles the engine knocks were almost drowned out. It was a hot day, and I had trouble getting over the mountains. It was hotter in the valley, and my eyes began to feel like hard-boiled eggs. The hot glare from the road cooked them right in their sockets. I couldn’t get hungry enough to make stopping worth while, but grabbed a hamburger along the road, ate with one hand, and drove with the other. I made Oakview at ten-thirty that night.
Oakview was in the foothill country, and it was cooler up there, with moisture in the air, and mosquitoes. A river came brawling out of the mountains to snake smoothly past the foothill country around Oakview, and spread out on the plains below.
Oakview was a county seat which had gone to seed. They rolled up the sidewalks at nine o’clock. The buildings were all old. The shade trees which lined the streets were old. The place hadn’t grown fast enough to give the city fathers an excuse to widen the streets and rip out the trees.
The Palace Hotel was open. I got a room and rolled in.
Morning sun streaming through the window wakened me. I shaved, dressed, and got a bird’s-eye view of the town from the hotel window. I saw a court-house of ancient vintage, got a glimpse of the river through the tops of big shade trees, and looked down on an alley full of old packing-cases and garbage cans.
I looked around for a place to eat breakfast, and found a restaurant that looked good on the outside, but smelled of rancid grease on the inside. After breakfast I sat on the steps of the court-house and waited for nine o’clock.
The county officials came straggling leisurely in. They were mostly old men with placid faces — browsing along the streets, pausing for choice morsels of gossip. They gave me curious stares as they climbed past me up the steps. I was a stranger. They knew it and showed they knew it.
In the county clerk’s office an angular woman of uncertain age stared at me with black, lacklustre eyes, listened to my request, and gave me the great register of 1918 — a paper-backed volume starting to turn yellow. Its fuzzy-faced type indicated a political plum had been handed to a local newspaper.
Under the L’s, I found: Lintig: — James Collitt, Physician, 419 Chestnut Street, age 33, and Lintig: — Amelia Rosa, Housewife, 419 Chestnut Street. Mrs. Lintig hadn’t given her age.
I asked for the 1919 register and found neither name. I walked out feeling the deputy’s black eyes staring at the back of my neck.
There was one newspaper, the Blade. The lettered sign on the window showed it was a weekly. I went in and tapped on the counter.
The noise made by a typewriter came to a stop, and an auburn-haired girl with brown eyes and white teeth came from behind a partition to ask me what I wanted. I said, “Two things. Your files for 1918, and the name of a good place to eat.”
“Have you tried the Elite?” she asked.
“I had breakfast there.”
She said, “Oh,” and then, after a moment, said, “You might try the Grotto, or the Palace Hotel dining-room. You want the files for 1918?”
I nodded.
I didn’t get any more glimpses of her teeth, just two tightly-closed lips and opaque brown eyes. She started to say something, changed her mind, and went into a back room. After a while she came out with a board clip filled with newspapers. “Was there something in particular you wanted?” she asked.
I said, “No,” and started in with January 1, 1918. I glanced quickly through a couple of issues, and said, “I thought you were a weekly.”
“We are now,” she said, “but in 1918 we were a daily.”
“Why the change?” I asked.
She said, “It was before my time.”
I sat down and started poring through the papers. War news filled the front page, reports on the German drives, the submarine activities. Liberty Loan committees were making drives to reach their quotas. Oakview had gone “over the top”. There were mass meetings, patriots making speeches. A returned Canadian veteran, disabled, was making a lecture tour telling the story of the war. Money was being poured into Europe through a one-way funnel.
I hoped what I was looking for would make a big enough splash to hit the front page. I went through 1918 and found nothing.
“Could I,” I asked, “keep this temporarily, and see 1919?”
The girl brought me the file without a word. I kept on going through the front pages. The Armistice had been signed. The United States was the saviour of the world. American money, American youth, and American ideals had lifted Europe out of the selfishness of petty jealousies. There was to be a great League of Nations which would police the world and safeguard the weak against the strong. The war to end war had been won. The world was safe for Democracy. Other news began to filter into the front pages.
I found what I wanted in a July issue, under the headline: Oakview Specialist Sues for Divorce — Dr. Lintig Alleges Mental Cruelty.
The newspaper handled the affair with gloves, mostly confining itself to the allegations of the complaint. Poste & Warfield were attorneys for the plaintiff. I read that Dr. Lintig had an extensive practice in eye, ear, nose, and throat, and that Mrs. Lintig was a leader of the younger social set. Both were exceedingly popular. Neither had any comment to make to a representative of the Blade. Dr. Lintig had referred the reporter to his attorneys, and Mrs. Lintig had stated she would present her side of the case in court.
Ten days later, the Lintig case splashed headlines all over the front page: Mrs. Lintig Names Co-respondent — Society Leader Accuses Husband’s Nurse.
I learned from the article that Mrs. Lintig, appearing through Judge J. E. Gillfoil, had filed an answer and cross-complaint. The cross-complaint named Vivian Carter, Dr. Lintig s office nurse, as co-respondent.
Dr. Lintig had refused to make any comment. Vivian Carter was absent from the city and could not be located by telephone. There was some history in the article. She had been a nurse in the hospital where Dr. Lintig had interned. Shortly after Dr. Lintig had opened his office in Oakview, he had sent for her to come and be his office nurse. According to the newspaper account, she had made a host of friends, and these friends were rallying to her support, characterizing the charges contained in the cross-complaint as utterly absurd.
The issue of the Blade next day showed that Judge Gillfoil had asked for a subpoena to take the depositions of Vivian Carter and Dr. Lintig; that Dr. Lintig had been called out of town on business and could not be reached; that Vivian Carter had not returned.
There were scattered comments after that. Judge Gill-foil charged that Dr. Lintig and Vivian Carter were concealing themselves to avoid service of papers. Poste & Warfield indignantly denied that, and claimed that the accusation was an unfair attempt to influence public opinion. They claimed their client would be available “in the near future”.
After that the case drifted to the inside pages. Within a month, deeds were recorded conveying all of Dr. Lintig’s property to Mrs. Lintig. She denied that a property settlement had been made. The attorneys also registered denials. A month later, a Dr. Larkspur had purchased from Mrs. Lintig the office and equipment of Dr. Lintig and had opened an office. Poste & Warfield had no comment to make other than that “in due time, Dr. Lintig would return and clear matters up satisfactorily.”
I turned through the issues after that, and found nothing. The girl sat on a stool behind the counter watching me turn the pages.
She said, “There won’t be any more until the December second issue. You’ll find a paragraph in the local gossip column.”
I pushed the file of papers to one side and said, “What do I want?”
Her eyes looked me over. “Don’t you know?”
“Yes.”
She said, “Then just keep right on the blazed trail.”
A gruff, masculine voice from behind the partition said, “Marian.”
She slid off the stool and walked back of the partition. I heard the rumble of a low-pitched voice, and after a while a word or two from her. I retrieved the file of papers and turned to the December second issue. In the gossip column was a paragraph to the effect that Mrs. James Lintig planned to spend the Christmas holidays with relatives “in the East” and was leaving by train for San Francisco where she would take a boat through the Canal. In answer to queries about the status of the divorce action, she had stated that the matter was entirely in the hands of her lawyers, that she had no information as to the whereabouts of her husband, and branded as “absurd and false” a rumour that she had learned of her husband’s whereabouts and was planning to rejoin him.
I waited for the girl to come back out. She didn’t show up. I went to a corner drugstore and looked in the telephone directory under Attorneys. I found no Gillfoil, no Poste & Warfield, but there was a Frank Warfield having offices in the First National Bank building.
I walked two blocks down the shady side of a hot street, climbed rickety stairs, walked down a corridor slightly out of plumb, and found Frank Warfield with his feet on a desk littered with law books, smoking a pipe.
I said, “I’m Donald Lam. I want to ask a few questions. Do you remember a case of Lintig versus Lintig which was handled by—”
“Yes,” he said.
“Can you,” I asked, “tell me anything about the present whereabouts of Mrs. Lintig?”
“No.”
I thought back over Bertha Cool’s instructions, and decided to take a chance on my own.
“Do you know anything about the whereabouts of Dr. Lintig?”
“No,” he said, and then added, after a moment, “He still owes us court costs and retainer fees on that original action.”
I said, “Do you know whether he left any other debts?”
“No.”
“Have you any idea whether he’s alive or dead?”
“No.”
“Or about Mrs. Lintig?”
He shook his head.
“Where could I find Judge Gillfoil, who represented her?”
His pale blue eyes made a watery smile. “Up on the hill,” he said, pointing in a north-west direction.
“On the hill?”
“Yes, the cemetery. He died in 1930.”
I said, “Thank you very much,” and went out. He didn’t say anything as I pulled the door shut.
I went back to the clerk’s office and told the suspicious-eyed woman that I wanted to see the file in the case of Lintig versus Lintig. It didn’t take ten seconds to dig it up.
I looked through the papers. There was the complaint, the answer, the cross-complaint, a stipulation giving the plaintiff ten days’ additional time within which to answer the cross-complaint, another stipulation giving him twenty days, a third stipulation giving him thirty days, and then a notice of default. Apparently, summons had never been served on Vivian Carter, and for that reason the case had never been brought to trial, nor did it appear that it had ever been formally dismissed.
I walked out feeling the suspicious hostility of her eyes on the back of my neck.
I went back to the hotel, sat in the writing-room and scribbled a note to Bertha Cool on hotel stationery:
B. Check through the passenger lists on ships leaving San Francisco during December 1919 for the East coast via the Canal. Find the one that carried Mrs. Lintig. Check the names of other passengers, and see if you can locate some fellow-traveller. Mrs. Lintig was full of matrimonial troubles, and may have spilled the beans to some fellow-passenger. It’s a long time ago, but the lead may give us pay dirt. The trail looks pretty cold at this end.
I scribbled my initials on the report, put it in a stamped, addressed envelope, and was assured by the clerk it would catch the two-thirty train out.
I tried the Grotto for lunch, and then went back to the Blade office. “I want to run an ad,” I said.
The girl with the thoughtful brown eyes stretched a hand across the counter for the ad.
She read it, re-read it, checked off the words, then vanished into the back room.
After a while a heavy-set man with sagging shoulders, a green eye-shade pulled low on his forehead, and tobacco stain at the corners of his lips, came out and said, “Your name Lam?”
“Yes.”
“You wanted to put that ad in the paper?”
“Uh huh. How much is it?”
He said, “There might be a story in you.”
I said, “There might, and then again there might not.”
“A little publicity might help you get what you want.”
“And again it might not.”
He looked at the ad, and said, “According to this, there’s some money coming to Mrs. Lintig.”
“It doesn’t say so,” I said.
“Well, it might just as well say so. You say that a liberal reward will be paid to anyone who can give you information as to the present whereabouts of Mrs. James C. Lintig, who left Oakview in 1919, or, in the event she is dead, as to the names and residences of her legal heirs. That sounds to me as though you were one of these heir chasers — and that fits in with some of the other things.”
“What other things?” I asked.
He turned, focused his eyes on the cuspidor, streamed yellow liquid explosively. He said, “I asked you first.”
“The initial question,” I said, “of which you seem to have lost sight, was the cost of the ad.”
“Five bucks for three insertions.”
I gave him five dollars of Bertha Cool’s money, and asked for a receipt. He said, “Wait a minute,” and went back behind the partition. A minute later the brown-eyed girl came out, and said, “You wanted a receipt, Mr. Lam?”
“I did, and I do.”
She hesitated over the receipt, holding her pen over the date line, then looked up at me. “How was the Grotto?”
“Rotten,” I said. “Where’s the best place for dinner?”
“The hotel dining-room if you know what to order.”
“How do you know what to order?”
“You have to be a detective,” she said.
I let that pass, and after she saw that it had passed, she said, “You go in for a little deduction, and reason by elimination. In other words, you need a licensed guide.”
“Do you,” I asked, “have a licence?”
She glanced over her shoulder towards the partition. “It isn’t quite as bad as that.”
“Aren’t you a member of the Chamber of Commerce?”
“I’m not. The paper is.”
I said, “I’m a stranger in town. You can’t tell. I might be looking for a good manufacturing site. It would be a shame for me to get a false impression of the city.”
Behind the partition the man coughed.
“What do the local people do for good cooking?”
“That’s easy. They get married.”
“And live happily ever afterward?”
“Yes.”
“Are you,” I asked, “married?”
“No. I eat at the hotel dining-room.”
“And know what to order?”
“Yes.”
“How about eating with a perfect stranger,” I asked, “and showing him the ropes?”
She laughed nervously. “You aren’t exactly a stranger.”
“And I’m not exactly perfect. We could eat and talk.”
“What would we talk about?”
“About how a girl, working in a country newspaper office, might make a little extra money.”
“How much extra?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’d have to find out.”
She said, “So would I.”
“How about the dinner?” I asked.
She glanced swiftly over her shoulder towards the partition, and then said, “It’s a date.”
I waited while her pen fairly flew over the receipt blank. “It’ll start day after tomorrow. We’re a weekly now,” she said.
“I know,” I told her. “Shall I call for you here?”
“No, no. I’ll be in the hotel lobby about six o’clock. Do you know anyone in town?”
“No.”
She seemed rather relieved by that.
“Any other newspaper in town?” I asked.
“No, not now. There was one back in 1918, but it folded in ’23.”
“What about the blazed trail?” I asked.
“You’re on it,” she said, smiling.
Back of the partition, the man coughed again, this time, I thought, warningly.
I said, “I’d like to get the file for ’17, ’18, and ’19.”
She brought them out, and I spent most of the afternoon checking the society columns, getting the names of the persons who had attended social gatherings at which Dr. and Mrs. Lintig had been present. I arranged the names in columns and checked those which were repeated frequently enough to give me an idea of the social circle in which the Lintigs had moved.
The girl back of the counter spent part of the time on the stool, watching me; part of the time behind the partition, clacking away on the typewriter. I didn’t hear the masculine voice again, but I remembered that warning cough and didn’t try to talk with her. The name on the receipt she had given me was Marian Dunton.
Around five o’clock I went back to the hotel and freshened up. Then I went down to the lobby and waited for her. She came in about six.
“How’s the cocktail bar?” I asked.
“Pretty good.”
“Would cocktails make our dinner taste better?”
“I think they would.”
We had a dry Martini apiece, and I suggested another one. “Are you,” she inquired, “trying to get me tight?”
“On two cocktails?” I asked.
“Experience has taught me that two make a swell beginning.”
“Why should I want to get you tight?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said with a laugh. “How could a girl working in a newspaper office in Oakview make some extra money?”
“I’m not certain yet,” I said. “It depends on the blazed trail.”
“What about it?”
“How far it’s been blazed, and who blazed it.”
“Oh,” she said.
I caught the bartender’s eye and indicated the two empty glasses. While he was fixing the second cocktail, I said, “I’m listening.”
“It’s an excellent habit,” she told me. “I try to cultivate it.”
“Ever make any money at it?” I asked.
“No,” she said, and then, after a moment: “Have you?”
“A little.”
“Do you think I could?”
“No. I think you could make more money by talking. How does it happen you’re the only pretty girl in town?”
“Thank you. Have you taken a census?”
“I have eyes, you know.”
She said, “Yes, I’d noticed that.”
The bartender filled the glasses. She said. “The cashier at the picture show says the travelling salesmen all ask her why she’s the only pretty girl in town. Perhaps that’s just the urban approach.”
“I don’t think much of it,” I said. “It doesn’t seem to get one anywhere.”
“Why don’t you try another one?”
“I will,” I said. “In 1919 this town supported an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist. It doesn’t look as though it would support one now.”
“It wouldn’t.”
“What happened?”
She said, “Lots of things. We never list them all at once. It sounds too depressing to strangers.”
“You might give me the first instalment.”
She said, “Well, the railroad had shops here. It changed the division point and moved the shops, and there was a depression in ’21, you know.”
“Was there?” I asked.
“So they tell me. Business fumbled the ball, but recovered it before the politicians grabbed it.”
“What,” I asked, “are the Blade’s political affiliations?”
“Local,” she said, “and in favour of the incumbents. There’s quite a bit of county printing, you know. We’d better finish the cocktails and get to the dining-room before the local talent highgrades the best of the food.”
We finished the cocktails, and I escorted her into the dining-room. After we were seated, I toyed with the menu and asked, “What do we eat?”
“Well,” she said, “you don’t want corned beef hash. I wouldn’t take the chicken croquettes because they had the chicken Wednesday. If there’s veal potpie, it was left in over from Thursday. You’re pretty safe on roast beef, and they do have good baked potatoes.”
“A baked potato,” I said, “with lots of butter would make up for a lot of other things. How did you happen to go to dinner with me?”
Her eyes grew large and round. “Why, you asked me.”
“How did I happen to ask you?”
She said, “Well, I like that!”
I said, “I happened to ask you because you brought the subject up.”
“I did?”
“Indirectly, and you brought it up because the man who tried to pump me, and couldn’t, went back of the partition and suggested to you that it might be a good idea.”
She let her eyes grow very large and said, “Oooh, Grandma, what big ears you have!”
“And he made that suggestion because he wanted some information, and he intimated that he had some information that he might give me in exchange for information I could give him.”
“Did he really?”
“You know he did.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m not a mind-reader.”
A waitress came and took our orders. I noticed her looking around the dining-room. “Worried?” I asked.
“About what?”
“Whether Charlie will see you dining with me before you have a chance to tell him that it was a business assignment the boss gave you.”
“Who’s Charlie?”
“The boy friend.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
“I don’t know any Charlie.”
“I know, but I didn’t think you’d tell me about him so we might as well call him Charlie. It’ll save time and simplify matters.”
She said, “I see. No. I’m not worried about Charlie. He’s really quite broad-minded and tolerant.”
“No firearms?” I asked.
“No. It’s been almost six months since he shot anyone, and even then it was only a shoulder shot. The man wasn’t in the hospital over six weeks.”
“Admirable self-restraint,” I said. “I was afraid Charlie might have a temper.”
“Oh, no. He’s very patient — and kind to animals.”
“What does he do?” I asked. “I mean for a living.”
“Oh, he works here.”
“Not the hotel?” I asked.
“No, no. Here in town.”
“Does he like it here?”
The bantering look left her eyes. She jabbed her fork into her roast beef, and said, “Yes.”
I said, “That’s nice,” and she didn’t say anything for a minute or two.
The dining-room was fairly well filled. I didn’t figure the hotel rooms furnished the a good deal of it was steady trade. Several of the diners showed an interest in Marian Dunton and her escort. I figured the girl was pretty well known to the local trade. I asked her a few more questions about the town and got short, informative answers. She wasn’t trying to kid me any more. Something had put a damper on her spirits. I tried to figure whether it was someone who had come into the dining-room about the time the light went out of her eyes. If that was the case, I could divide responsibility between two middle-aged men who seemed utterly engrossed in the food and their own conversation, and the family party who looked like automobile tourists, a middle-aged man with a bald head and faded grey eyes, a chunky woman, a girl about nine, and a boy about seven.
After we’d had dessert, I offered her one of my cigarettes. She accepted. We lit up, and I took out the list of names I’d made and handed it to her. “How many of these people are still in town?” I asked.
She studied the list for a few minutes, and then said grudgingly, “You are smart. I mean you really are.”
I waited for her to answer my question. After a while she said, “You have fifteen names here. Not over four or five of them are still in town.”
“What happened to them?”
“Oh, they went the way of the railroad shops. Those people made up the younger set when Dr. Lintig lived here. I’ve known some of them. Quite a few left when business started to get bad. We had another setback in 1929. A canning factory that was here folder up.”
“How those who’re left? Do you f know them?”
“Yes.”
“Where could I reach them?”
“You could find the names in the telephone book.”
“Couldn’t you tell me?”
“Yes, but I’d prefer you got the information from the telephone book.”
“I see,” I said. I folded the list and put it back into my pocket. There was a movie with a second-run picture that I’d seen. I suggested we go, and she accepted. From the way she acted, I was pretty certain she’d already seen the movie. Afterwards, we had ice cream, and over the ice cream I took out my list again.
“Suppose you check the persons who are still here,” I said. “It would save wear and tear on the telephone directory.”
She thought that over for a while, then took the list and checked four names. She said, “That’s an intelligent way of going about it, but I don’t think it’ll get you any place. I don t think anyone in town knows where she is.”
“Why do you seem so positive?”
“It attracted a lot of attention, you know.”
“That was back before the depression,” I said. “A lot of things have attracted attention since then.”
She acted as though she wanted to tell me something, but felt that she shouldn’t. I said, “Go ahead. Give me a break.”
She said, “ You don’t give me any.”
I said, “If I could find Mrs. Lintig, it might be very much to her advantage. She might fall heir to a large estate.”
Marian Dunton laughed, and said, “And then again, she might win a sweepstakes.”
I grinned.
“Won’t you tell me why all this activity about Mrs. Lintig?”
I kept the interest out of my eyes. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Are you working for someone, or are you on your own?”
I said, “Well, if I could find her, there might be something in it for me.”
“How about me,” she asked, “if I found her?”
“If you know where she is, and would jar loose with a little information, there might be something in it for you.”
“How much?”
“I wouldn’t know until I asked some questions. Do you know where she is?”
“No. I wish I did. There’d be a story in it. I gather news for the Blade, you know.”
“And you’d get your wages raised?” I asked.
She said, “No.”
I said, “I might be able to put you in touch with someone who would pay for the information — more than the Blade would.”
“The Blade would pay nothing.”
I said, “Then I’m sure we’d make the highest bid.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to find out. How about the others?”
“What others?”
I seemed surprised. “Why,” I said, “the others who were looking for her.”
She said thoughtfully, “I guess I shouldn’t have made that crack about the blazed trail.”
I said, “No. The man who’s running the paper didn’t like that crack.”
She focused her eyes on a big glass mug that had evidently been a beer glass at some time in the history of the place. Turning the glass stem slowly in her fingers, she asked, “How long have you lived in the big city?”
“All my life,” I said.
“Like it?” she asked.
“Not particularly.”
“I should think you’d be thrilled to death.”
“Why?”
“Being out in the thick of things,” she said, “instead of a little backwater hick town where you know everyone and everyone knows you. You can really live your life in a city. There are thousands and thousands of people, unlimited opportunities for contracts and friendships, shows to see, department store windows, decent beauty shops — and restaurants.”
I said, “There is also chiselling, traffic signals, parking limits, one-way streets, grind and noise and confusion, and as for friendships — well, if you want to be really lonely, try a big city. Everyone’s a stranger, and if you don’t have just the right kind of contacts, they remain strangers.”
She said, “It would be better that way than to see the same old faces day after day, to be living in a place that’s eaten up with dry rot, where people know more about your business than you do.”
“Do people,” I asked, “know more about your business than you do?”
“They think they do,” she said.
“Cheer up,” I told her. “You have Charlie.”
“Charlie?” she asked. “Oh, yes, I get you now.”
“If you went to a big city,” I said, “you’d have to leave Charlie behind. Remember, he likes it here.”
“Are you kidding me,” she asked, “or just showing me a good time?”
“Just asking questions. How about getting me some information I could use?”
She chopped at a little dab of ice-cream with the edge of her spoon, cutting it into little particles, and then tapping those little particles until there was nothing but a liquid in the bottom of the glass dish. She said, “Let’s see if I get you right, Donald. You’re working for someone. You’re trying to get information. If I gave you any information that was worth while, you couldn’t pay for it — not until you talked with someone.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Then why should I tell you anything?”
“Just being friendly and co-operative,” I said.
“Listen. I don’t want money. That is, I don’t know anything that’s worth money, but I might be able to help. If I did, would you help me get a job in the city?”
“Frankly, I don’t know of any jobs. I might be able to introduce you to someone who would know of some.”
“If I helped you and then came to the city, would you — well, sort of show me the ropes?”
“If I could, yes.”
She stirred her spoon around in little circles. She said, “You’re playing a game with me. It’s your job. You’re here to find out something. If you think I have any information, you’ll try to get that information without telling me why you want it. Is that right?”
I said, “That’s right.”
She said, “All right. I’ll play the same kind of a game. If I can get anything out of you, I’m going to use it.”
“Fair enough.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I won’t. You’re warning me now.”
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Do you know where Mrs. Lintig is?”
“No.”
“Are there photographs of her in your newspaper morgue?”
“No.”
“Have you ever looked?”
She nodded slowly, her manner preoccupied, her eyes focused on her ice-cream spoon.
“When?”
“About two months ago.”
“Who,” I asked, “was looking for her then?”
“A man by the name of Cross.”
“You don’t remember his initials, do you?”
“He was registered here in the hotel. You could look it up.”
“What did he want?”
“The same thing you did.”
“What did he look like?”
“In the forties, chunky, mostly bald, and a continuous cigar smoker. He kept the office stunk up all the time he was reading.”
“Who was next?”
“A young woman.”
“A young woman?”
She nodded.
“Who?”
“Her name was Evaline Dell. Does that sound phony to you?”
“Lots of names sound phony.”
“Well, that sounded particularly phony.”
“That must have been because she looked phony then,” I said.
She thought that over and said, “Perhaps you’re right. There was something about her that didn’t just — I don’t know, just didn’t click.”
“What did she look like?”
“I think you’ve put your finger on it. She looked phony. She looked as though she should be loud and — well, a little brazen. She wasn’t. She was quiet and very mousy, as though she were walking on tiptoe all the time. She had a swell figure, and her clothes were up to the minute, and, believe me, they were clothes that showed off the figure. But she was just a little too nice, too mealy mouthed, too virginal.”
“And she didn’t give the impression of being virginal?”
“No. You’d better look up Evaline Dell. I think she’s related.”
“Did she say so?”
“I gathered the impression she was a daughter by a former marriage.”
“How old would that make Mrs. Lintig?”
“Not very old, around fifty. I believe Evaline Dell was just a child when her mother married Dr. Lintig — a secret child.”
“That would make her around twenty-eight or something like that now.”
“About that. No one here knew Mrs. Lintig had a daughter.”
“Did she stay here at the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“How long was she here?”
“A week.”
“What did she do during that time?”
“She was trying to find a good picture of Mrs. Lintig. She bought up four that I know of, old shots from family albums. She was sending them away somewhere. They told me here at the hotel she’d posted several photographs and was very particular to get corrugated card- board for the packing.”
“Did the hotel give you the addresses?”
“No. She mailed them from the post office, but she got the materials for packing them here. The hotel people knew they were photographs.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“That’s all.”
I said, “Thanks, Marian. I don’t know how much this will help. I hope it will help some. If it does, I might be able to get a little piece of money for you, not much, but some. The people I’m working for aren’t very generous.”
“Never mind. I’d rather play it the other way.”
“What other way?”
“You find out what you can from me, and I’ll find out what I can from you. Up to a certain point, I’ll help you. If I should come to the city and look for a job, you do anything you can for me.”
“I can’t do very much.”
“I understand. You do what you can. Will you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to be here long?”
“I don’t know. It depends.”
“Perhaps something might turn up. In case it should, where could I reach you?”
I took a card that had only my name on it, and wrote the name of the building and the number of the room in which Bertha Cool had her office. I said, “A letter sent to me there will be delivered.”
She studied the card for a minute, tucked it in her purse, and smiled at me. I helped her on with her coat and took her home in the agency car. She lived in a two-storey frame building that needed paint. There was no sign in front intimating that it was a rooming-house, so I figured she was living with a private family. I didn’t bother too much about it because I knew I could find out all about her any time I wanted to. As she herself had said, the people in that town knew more about her business than she did.
I could tell from the way she acted she hoped I wasn’t going to try to kiss her good night, and I didn’t.
I got back to the hotel a little before midnight. A cigar made the night clerk communicative. After a while I checked through the register and found the signatures of Miller Cross and Evaline Dell. I figured the addresses were phony, but made a surreptitious note of them just on general principles while the clerk was busy at the switchboard.
When he came back to the desk, we chatted for a while, and he mentioned that Miss Dell had arrived by train, that her trunk had been damaged, and she’d secured affidavits from the hotel porter and the transfer man. He hadn’t heard whether the claim had ever been settled.
I found I could send a wire from the telephone booth, and sent one to Bertha Cool:
Making slow progress. Get complete information on claim against Southern Pacific Railroad Company for damaged trunk shipped to Oakview about three weeks ago. Claim may have been made under name of Evaline Dell. Can I pay twenty-five bucks to party giving helpful information?
I hung up the telephone and went up to my room. I tried my key, and it didn’t work. While I was trying to figure that out, the door was jerked open from the inside, and a big man, whose figure loomed against the light seeping in from the window, said, “Come on in, Lam.”
He switched on the lights as I stood there on the threshold, looking up at him.
He was around six feet and weighed over two hundred. He wasn’t thin, and he wasn’t fat. He was broad across the shoulders, and the hand which shot out and grabbed my necktie was a big, battered paw. “I said, ‘Come on in,’ ” he observed and jerked.
I shot on into the room. He gave a swing with his shoulders, and I went spinning across the carpet to crash down on the bed. He kicked the door shut, and said, “That’s better.”
He was between me and the door — between me and the telephone. From what I’d seen of the service the night clerk gave at the hotel switchboard, I figured it would take at least thirty seconds to get any action on the telephone. Nor could I picture this guy standing idly by while I tried to telephone the police.
I straightened my necktie, pulled down the edges of my collar, and said, “What do you want?”
“That’s better,” he said, drawing up a chair and sitting down, keeping between me and the door.
He grinned, and I didn’t like his grin. I didn’t like anything about him. He was beefy and assured and acted as though he owned the town and the hotel.
“What,” I asked, “do you want?”
“I want you to get the hell out of here.”
“Why?”
“The climate,” he said. “It’s bad for little pipsqueaks like you.”
“It hasn’t disagreed with me so far,” I said.
“No, but it will. It’s the malaria, you know. Mosquitoes buzz around at night. They bite you, and the first thing you know you feel sick.”
“Where should I go,” I asked, “to avoid the insects?”
His face darkened. He said, “No more of that, pint-size.”
I fished a cigarette out of my pocket, and lit it. He watched me put the match up to the cigarette and laughed when he saw that my hand was shaking.
I shook the match out, inhaled a lungful of smoke, and said, “Go ahead. It’s your party.”
He said, “I’ve said it. There’s your bag. Pack it. I’m here to escort you down to your car.”
“Suppose I don’t want to be escorted?”
He said amiably, but significantly, “If you left now, you could leave under your own power.”
“And if I waited?”
“You might have an accident.”
“I don’t have accidents. My friends know that.”
“You might walk in your sleep and fall out of the window. Your friends could back track on that and never get any place.”
“I could start yelling,” I said. “Someone would hear me.”
“Sure, they would.”
“And notify the police.”
“That’s right.”
“Then what would happen?”
“I wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t, either.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll try it,” and let out a yell: “Help! Pol—”
He came out of the chair like a cat. I saw him looming over me, and put everything I had in a right to his stomach.
It never connected.
Something hit the side of my head, seemed to pull my neck loose, and the lights went out. When I came to, I was in the agency heap rolling along pavement. My head hurt, and my jaw was so sore I could hardly move it. The big man was sitting at the wheel, and when I moved, he looked over at me, and said, “Hell, what a heap! Why doesn’t your damned agency give you decent transportation?”
I put my head out of the window so the cool night air would help clear my head. The big man kept a heavy foot on the throttle, and Bertha Cool’s car, rattling its protest, swayed from side to side along the road.
It was a mountain road, winding and twisting up a canyon. After a while it came out on a level place with pine trees standing in dark silhouettes against the starlit sky. The big man slowed down the car, apparently looking for a side road.
I watched my chance and lurched across the seat. I grabbed the steering-wheel with both hands and jerked. I couldn’t turn the wheel, although the car swerved to one side of the road and then back to the other as he exerted pressure to counteract mine. He snapped up his elbow without taking his hand off the wheel, and it caught me on the point of my sore jaw, making me loosen my grip. Something like a pile driver caught me on the back of the neck, and the next I remembered I was lying fiat on my back in the dark trying to figure where I was.
I put events into some sort of hazy sequence after a while, and groped in my pocket for matches. I found one and lit it. I was inside a log cabin, lying flat on dry pine needles. I sat up on the bunk, which was covered with old, dried pine boughs, and struck another match. I found a candle and lit it, then looked at my watch. It was quarter past three.
The cabin evidently hadn’t been used for a while. It was dirty and smelled musty. The windows were boarded up. Rats had been rummaging around the place, dragging stale bread crusts out of a cupboard. A spider, hanging in a big cobweb, seemed to be staring ominously at me. Dried pine needles from the branches on my bunk had got in my hair and, as I stood up, worked down my neck.
I felt as though I’d been run over by a steam roller.
I was all alone in the cabin. I looked at the boarded windows and tried the door, expecting to find it locked. It wasn’t. Cool mountain air, filled with the tang of pine, struck my nostrils. Something black was out in front of the door. I brought out the candle and saw it was the agency car.
A mountain stream was making noises, apparently close to the cabin. I did a little exploring with the candle, and found a trail which led to the water. I wet my handkerchief in the ice-cold water and put it on my forehead, on my eyes, and then on the back of my neck. A gust of wind blew the candle out. I sat there in the dark letting the cold water do its stuff.
After a while I groped with cold, wet fingers for my matches, and lit the candle at the second try. I went back to the cabin. I didn’t have the faintest idea where I was.
I blew out the candle, closed the cabin door, and got in the agency car. The keys were in the ignition. I switched on the motor. The tank was half full of gas. The headlights showed a rugged mountain road leading from the cabin. I put the car into gear and found a paved highway within a quarter of a mile. I didn’t know directions, but I turned the car on the down grade, figuring I wanted to get towards the valley.