I put him back in the icebox an' close it like it was. Then I get outa the storeroom, lock the door with the spider an' mix myself a hard one in the bar. I get over the bar an' scram out the way I come in.
I go back to the car an' drive towards Palm Springs.
It's a hot night; but it wasn't so hot for Sagers.
CHAPTER 2
THE LOW DOWN
A
nyhow I have got the letters.
When I am about ten miles from Palm Springs I slow down. I light a cigarette an' I do a little thinkin'. It looks to me as if it is no good makin' any schmozzle about Sagers bein' bumped off, because if I do it is a cinch that I am goin' to spoil the chance of my gettin' next to this counterfeit bezuzus.
I suppose whoever it was ironed Sagers out will take him out some place an' bury him some time before dawn. As a bump off it was a nice piece of work, because if Sagers had told 'em what I said he was to tell 'em, that he was blowin' outa here an' goin' back to Arispe to get the dough that this guy was supposed to have left him, then that is goin' to account for his disappearance, an' who the hell is goin' to worry about one dancin' partner more or less. Anyway it looks like I had better have a few words with the Chief of Police around here an' tell him about the Sagers bump off, an' get him to lay off things while I am flirtin' around with this proposition.
When I get into the main street I pull the car up under a light an' I take the letters outa my pocket an' I read 'em. There are three letters altogether. The handwritin' is good. Nice regular sorta letters with nice even spaces between the words, the sorta handwritin' that is swell to look at.
The first letter is addressed from a hotel in Hartford, Connecticut, and it is dated the 3rd January. It says:
DEAR GRANWORTH,
I
know that you always have thought that I am a fool, and I haven't minded this particularly, but I do insist that you credit me with a certain amount of intelligence.
Your evasions and excuses during the last two months confirm my suspicions. Why don't you make up your mind about what you are going to do, or are you so selfish that you are prepared to take what advantage you can from the fact that the comrnunity regards you as a happily married man who has no need to sow any further wild oats, whilst at the same time you continue to carry on an affair with this woman.
When you denied this previously I believed you, but having regard to the events of the last day or two, and a letter which I have received from a person who is in a position to know, it is quite obvious that you have been making a fool of me and other people for some time past.
I'm fairly good-tempered, but quite candidly I've had enough of this business. Make up your mind what you're going to do, and be prepared to let me know very shortly. I shall arrange to come back and hear your decision.
HENRIETTA.
The second letter is from the same hotel, five days afterwards, the 8th January, an' it says:
GRANWORTH,
I have received your letter and I don't believe a word of it You're a very bad liar. I am going to have satisfaction one way or the other. Unless I do get satisfaction I am going to be rather unpleasant, so make up your mind.
HENRIETTA.
an' the third is just a few lines dated four days after, on the 12th January. It says at the top New York and goes on:
GRANWORTH,
I shall arrange to see you this evening. So I've GOT to be tough!
HENRIETTA.
I put the letters back in my pocket an' I light another cigarette. It just shows you, don't it, that things are not always what they're cracked up to be. Up to now everybody believed that when Granworth Aymes died, Henrietta Aymes was outa town in Hartford, an' here is a note which definitely shows that she was fixin' to see him on the day he died, an' that she was feelin' tough.
It's pretty easy to see why Henrietta was so keen on gettin' those letters back, but what a mug she was to keep 'em. Why didn't she burn 'em? Anyhow it looks to me that if I have any trouble with her, maybe I can use these letters as a means of makin' her talk, because I am beginning to think that this Henrietta is not such a nice dame as she trjes to make out. In fact I am beginnin' to develop a whole lot of ideas about her.
I get out my note book an' I look up the address of the chief of Police here. He is a guy named Metts, an' he has got a house just off the street I am parked in. I reckon he is not goin' to be so pleased about being dug up at this time of the night, but then I have always discovered that policemen ain't pleased with anythin' at any time.
I drive around an' park the car on the opposite side of the street. Then I go over an' ring a night bell that I find. About five minutes later he opens the door himself.
"Are you Metts?" I ask him.
He says yes an' what do I want. I show him my badge.
"My name's Caution," I say.
He grins.
"Come in," he says. "I heard about you. I had a line through the Governor's Office that probably you'd be handlin' this thing. I suppose you'r down here about that phoney Registered Dollar Bond business."
"You said it"' I tell him.
I go in after this guy an' we go to a nice room on the ground floor where he gives me a big chair an' a shot of very good bourbon. Then he sits down an' waits. is an intelligent lookin' cuss, with a long thin face an' a big nose. I reckon I ain't goin' to have any trouble with him.
"Well, chief," I tell him. 'I don't want to be I nuisance to you around here. I just want to get this job I'm doin' finished as soon as I can an' scram out of it. The co-ope~an.on I want from you aia''t muck It is juwnis. When' this counterfeit Dollar Bond bt*itw broke an' I was elected to handle it, I got through an' pg t guy in tile 'G' Office at Los Angeles put over here workin' under cover, name of Sagers. He's been working out at tbe Haciwda Altmira as a dancin' partner.
"I blew in tonight with a phoney tale about his comm' into some money so as to relieve him, but somebody got wise to the job. When I went back to this dump later I found his body in a sack in the ice safe Some guy had given him the heat in five places. He's still there. I'm reportin' that to you officially because a murder around here is your job; but I don't want you to do anythin' about it yet. I'll advise Washington that Sagers is due to have his name put on the memorial tablet at headquarters, an' we'll just leave it like that for the time being, because if you start gumshoein' around tryin' to find out who bumped him off we're just goin' to get nowhere. OK?"
He nods his head.
"That looks like sense to me," he says. "That's OK by me. I'll get out an official report as from you on Sagers' death, an' we'll file it and sit on it till you say go."
"Swell, Chief," I told him. "Now the other thing is this. Who was the guy who sent the information through to Washington about that Dollar Bond bein' phoney? Was it you? If it was where did you get your information from? Was it the bank manager? How did it happen?"
He pours himself out a drink.
"I'll tell you," he says. "I got it from the bank manager. When this Aymes woman came out here, she opens a checking account at the bank. The bank manager, who is an old friend of mine, told me she opened this account with 2000 dollars: She draws on this checking account until there is only ten dollars in it, and then one day she blows down to the bank an' sticks a five thousand US Registered Dollar Bond over the counter to the receivin' teller an' asks him to pay it into her account
"Well, that bond is a nice piece of printin'. He looks at it an' it looks good to him, and it is only an hour afterwards when the manager is havin' a look at it that he twigs it is counterfeit.
"He rings up Mrs Aymes an' tells her that the bond is as phoney as hell. She just seems a little bit surprised, that's all, an' accordin' to him she didn't seem to take very much interest. She says OK an' she hangs up. Next day he writes her a line an' says he'll be glad if she'll look in at the bank.
"She blows in. Then he tells her that this business is a little bit more serious than she might think. He tells her that he has got to report that a counterfeit bond has been paid into his bank, an' that the best thing that she can do will be to tell him just where she got the bond from an' all about it. She says OK she got the bond from her husband an' she got it with a packet of 200,000 dollars' worth of US Registered Dollar Bonds that he bought in New York for good money an' gave to her.
"When the manager asks where he bought 'em, she says he bought 'em from the bank, an' when the manager says that it's not easy to believe that because banks don't sell counterfeit bonds, she says that's as maybe but that's all she knows. With that she gets up and is just about to go out when he asks her where her husband is as he reckons that somebody will be wantin' to ask him some questions.
"She turns round an' she smiles a little bit, an' she says she reckons it will be durn difficult to ask her husband questions because he committed suicide in New York on the 12th January this year. Naturally this staggers the manager for a bit, but he says to her that she ought to be good an' careful because it is a federal offence to change bonds that are screwy, an' that he reckons she had better bring the rest down to see what they look like.
"So she drives off an' she comes back with the rest of this stuff - 195 thousand dollars' worth of Registered Dollar Bonds in denominations of fifty thousand, twenty thousand, ten thousand, five thousand, an' one thousand dollars, with the usual interest bearing coupons that go with them.
"In the meantime Krat, the manager, has been on to me about this an' after she has left the stuff at the bank, I go over an' look at it. The whole durn lot is counterfeit, but the job has been done so well that you have to have one helluva look before you see it.
"Well, there is the story. The same day I put the report through to the State. I suppose they pass it on to Washington an' you get the job. What are you goin' to do? Do you think she was in on this game? Do you think that she an' this husband of hers got this stuff made before he killed himself?"
"I wouldn't know, Chief," I say. "Nothing matches up in this deal. I've handled some screwy jobs in my time, but I don't think I've ever got one quite like this, an' maybe it won't be so hot for her before I am through with it."
"One of them interestin' things, huh?" he says.
"Yeah," I tell him. "An' how! It's one of them funny ones - you know, nothin' matches up, but as a case it's durned interestin'. Here's how it goes:
"This guy Granworth Aymes an' the dame Henrietta Aymes have been married about six years. He is a gambler. He plays the market an' sometimes he makes plenty dough an' sometimes he's scrabbin' around for the rent. They do themselves pretty well though; they live in the Claribel Apartments, New York, an' they are heavy spenders an' put up a good front. They are supposed to be plenty happy too, in fact this Claribel Apartments dump is just another little love nest, an' you know how they usually end up?
"OK. Well, at the end of last year this Granworth Aymes gets a hot tip. He plays it up well an' believe it or not the deal comes off. He muscles in on a big stock-pushin' racket an' he walks out of it with a quarter of a million dollars profit. The boy is now in the money.
"Well, it looks like he has a meeting with himself an' he comes to the conclusion that he's had enough of bein' up an' down on the market an' for once he is goin' to be a sensible guy an' salt down some of the profits. So he pays fifty thousand dollars into his checkin' account at the bank and with the other two hundred thousand bucks he buys himself that much worth of US Registered Dollar Bonds. He brings 'em along to his downtown office an' he makes 'em up into a parcel an' seals it down an' he calls his lawyer on the telephone an' tells him to legally transfer the Dollar Bonds to his wife Henrietta Aymes. He says that if it's her money then they'll be all right in the future because she is a careful dame, an' will stick to the dough an' not let him go jazzin' it around.
"The lawyer guy gets a bit of a shock at hearin' Granworth talk like this, but he is pleased that he is gettin' some sense, an' he draws up a deed of gift to Henrietta Aymes an' the deed is registered an' the lawyer then hands the bonds over to Henrietta, an' the bonds he handed over was OK, they wasn't phoney, they was the real stuff.
"All right. Well, Granworth is on top of the world, ain't he? He's got a swell wife - because they tell me that this Henrietta is one swell baby-he's got fifty thousand dollars in his checkin' account. He don't owe no money an' everything is hunky dory.
"An' it looks like Granworth is learnin' some sense. He plans to buy some more insurance. He is insured on an annuity policy at this time with the Second National Corporation an' he waltzes along an' he says he wants to take out additional insurance. He wants to pay a down premium of thirty thousand dollars. They examine him for health an' they find him OK. They give him the new policy, but there is just one little snag.
"Two years before this guy Granworth Aymes has tried to bump himself off. He tries to commit suicide by jumpin' in East River. He'd been havin' a bad time an' was broke an' didn't like it. He was fished out by a patrolman.
"Havin' regard to this little thing the Insurance Corporation make a proviso in his policy. The proviso says that, havin' regard to the fact that he has tried to commit suicide on a previous occasion, in the event of future suicide on his pan the policy is nullified. They will pay on anything else but not suicide.
"Got that? Well, everything goes along OK an' he makes a bit more dough on the market, an' on the 12th January this year he does another little deal that nets him twelve thousand. He has got forty thousand dollars in his checkin' account at the bank, no debts, a wife with two hundred thousand Dollar Bonds an' is in the best of health accordin' to the Insurance examination of a few months before. So what? So just this. He goes an' commits suicide. Can you beat that?