The district attorney’s man took my shoulder and pushed me forward. “No,
this
guy. Is he the one who was in the hotel the night of the murder?”
I looked at Esther Clarde and didn’t move a muscle in my face. She looked at me, frowned a minute, and said, “Say, he
does
look something like the same guy.”
She squinted her eyes and looked me over, then she slowly shook her head. “Say,” she said to the officer, “don’t let anybody kid you. There’s a resemblance, all right.”
“Well, are you certain it isn’t the same one?”
“Listen,” she said, “I’ve never seen this guy in my life before, but, no fooling, he looks like the man who
was
in there. If you want to get a good description, you can take this man to work on. That fellow was just exactly the same height, and
almost
the same weight. He was a little bit broader-shouldered than this guy. His eyes weren’t quite the same color, and there’s a difference about his mouth, and the shape of the ears is a lot different. I notice people’s ears. It’s a hobby of mine. This man that was in the hotel, I remember now, didn’t have any lobes on his ears at all.”
“That’s a valuable point,” the officer said. “Why didn’t you tell us that before?”
“Never thought of it,” she said, “until I got to looking this man over. Say,” she asked me, “what’s your name?”
“Lam,” I said. “Donald Lam.”
“Well,” she said, “you sure do look a lot like the man who was in the hotel. Taken from a distance, a person might make a mistake.”
“But you’re sure?” the officer asked.
“Of course I’m sure. My gosh, I talked with the guy that was in there. He leaned up against the cigar counter and asked me questions. This man’s ears are different, and his mouth is different. He isn’t quite as heavy. I think he’s just about the same height— Where do you work, Lam?”
“I’m a private detective. This is Bertha Cool. I work for her. It’s B. Cool—Confidential Investigations.”
“Well, say,” she said, “you’d better keep out of the way of that old biddy who looked out of the room door on the fourth floor. She told me afterward that without her glasses all she could see was a blur, but she knew it was a young man, and—”
“Never mind that,” the officer interrupted.
Esther Clarde said casually, “Walter—that’s Walter Markham, the night clerk—didn’t get such a good look at him either. He was asking me only this morning about some things, trying to make sure about the color of the man’s eyes and hair. I guess I’m the only one that
did
get a good look at him.”
The D.A.’s investigator said, “Okay, that’s all.”
“How do I get back to where I was picked up?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. “Take a bus.”
“Who pays the fare?”
“You do.”
I said, “That’s not right.”
Esther Clarde said, “Well, I guess I’ve lost enough of
my
beauty sleep.” She took keys from her pocket, unlocked the spring latch on her door, and went in. We heard the bolt turning on the inside.
The whole procession trooped down the stairs. Bertha Cool was in the rear. Out on the sidewalk, I said, “Now listen, I was picked up several hundred miles from here. It cost me money to get there and—”
The officers opened the door of the police car. The district attorney’s investigator piled in. The door slammed. The car shot smoothly away from the curb and left us standing there.
Bertha Cool looked at me with eyes that were bugged out in astonishment, said softly under her breath, “I’ll be a dirty name!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
W
E WENT DOWN
to Bertha Cool’s office. Bertha Cool got rid of the lawyer, and we went into the private office and sat down. Bertha brought out a bottle of whisky from the lower drawer of her desk. “God, Donald,” she said, “that was a close squeak.”
I nodded.
“That damn lawyer wasn’t worth his salt. Served a couple of papers, and then didn’t know what to do next-like a bum card player who plays all of his aces, and then crawls under the table.”
“How did you happen to get him?” I asked.
“I
didn’t get him. For Christ’s sake give me credit for
some
sense! I’d never get a boob like that.”
“Ashbury?” I asked.
She poured out two slugs of whisky, then corked the bottle, started to put it away, and said, “Hell, I’m twice as big as you. I need twice as much to keep me going.” She added another two fingers to her glass. “Well,” she said, “here’s how.”
I nodded and we drank.
“That Ashbury is a good guy,” she said. “He rang me up as soon as the officers loaded you in the car. He figured there was a plane waiting. He told me to get hold of this lawyer, explain what was happening, and go out to the airport armed with the necessary papers so we could be on the job.”
“How did you know which airport?” I asked.
“Jesus, lover, do I look as dumb as all that? I found out what charter planes were out, what field this flyer had taken off from, and put through a telephone call to the field up north to be notified as soon as he left there; then I rounded up the lawyer, and we all went down— So you got that little blonde in your pocket, too? My God, Donald, how they fall for you is—”
“Be your age, Bertha,” I said. “She didn’t fall for me.”
“Any time you think she didn’t. I’m a woman. I can tell when I see that look in a woman’s eyes.”
I jerked my thumb toward the telephone. “What do you think I’m doing here?”
“Drinking whisky and relaxing,” she said.
“I’m waiting for that phone to ring,” I told her. “The blonde won’t do it until she’s certain no one’s on her trail.”
“You mean it’s business with her?”
“Of course.”
“How much will she want?”
“Probably not money. Something else.”
“I don’t care what she asks for,” Bertha insisted, eyeing her empty whisky glass in thoughtful contemplation. “She’s fallen for you,
hard.”
I lit a cigarette and settled back to the cushioned comfort of the chair.
The telephone rang sharply just as Bertha Cool was getting ready to say something. Bertha grabbed the telephone, jerked the receiver off the hook, put it to her ear, said, “Hello,” then, “Who is this calling? . . . All right. He’s sitting here waiting for you.”
She handed me the telephone. I said, “Hello,” and Esther Clarde’s voice said, “You know who this is?”
“Uh huh.”
“I have to see you.”
“I figured you’d want to.”
“Are you free to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come to your apartment?”
“Better not.”
“You hadn’t better come to mine. Perhaps I can meet you somewhere.”
“Name the place.”
“I’ll be at the corner of Tenth and Central in fifteen minutes. How’ll that be?”
“Okay. Now listen, if I’m being tailed when I leave here, I’ll try and ditch the shadow. If I can’t do it, I’ll take him for a run-around and be back in half an hour. If I don’t meet you at Tenth and Central in fifteen minutes, you ring me here in exactly thirty minutes. Got that?”
“Got it,’’ she said, and hung up.
I nodded to Bertha Cool.
Bertha said, “Watch your step, lover. You’re in the clear now. After what she said, she can’t ever back up on her testimony, and it wouldn’t do them much good to have the clerk identify you now. The woman who was standing in the door couldn’t see straight up without her glasses. I’ll bet she couldn’t identify me twenty feet away.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Tell that blonde to go jump in the lake. If she’s sucker enough to put all the cards in your hands, go ahead and play them.”
“That’s not the way I play, Bertha.”
“I know it isn’t. You’re too damn soft and sentimental— I don’t mean you should give her the go-by entirely. Get Ashbury to slip her a little piece of change, but don’t go sticking your neck out.”
I got up and put on my hat and coat. “I’m going to take your coupe. You can go home in a taxi. I’ll be seeing you in the morning.”
“Not until then?”
“No.”
“Donald, I’m worried about this. How about coming by my apartment later on?”
“I will,” I said, “if anything turns up.”
She reached in the desk drawer. I could tell from the slope of her shoulder and the rigid angle of her arm that she had her fingers clasped around the neck of the whisky bottle all ready to lift it out as soon as I’d left the office. “Good night, lover,” she said.
I walked out.
I made a figure eight around a couple of blocks, found out I wasn’t being followed, and started down to Tenth and Central. I spotted Esther Clarde walking along on Central, midway between Eighth and Ninth, but didn’t give her a tumble. I ran around the block twice to make certain she wasn’t being followed. When she got to Tenth and Central, I picked her up.
“Everything all clear?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Was that you in the car that went by a couple of times just now?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was. I didn’t want to seem interested. No one on
my
tail, is there?”
“No.”
“What kind of a job did I do for you tonight?”
“Swell.”
“Grateful?”
“Uh huh.”
“How
grateful?”
“What do you want?”
“I thought perhaps you could do something for me.”
“Perhaps I can.”
She said, “I want to get out of here.”
“Out of where?”
“Out of the city. Out of the country. Away.”
“From what?”
“From everything.”
“Why?”
“I’m in a jam.”
“How come?”
“You know, the police. They’ll get after me. Honestly, Donald, I don’t know what made me do what I did tonight. I guess it was because you were so decent with me— I just couldn’t rat on you to the bulls.”
“All right,” I said. “Go home and forget it.”
“No, I can’t. They’ll check up on me.”
“How?”
“With Walter.”
“The night clerk?”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“He’ll identify you.”
“Not if you tell him not to.”
“What makes you say that?”
I had been driving aimlessly. Now I pulled in to the curb, and stopped where I could look at her face while I was talking, “He’s pretty sweet on you.”
“He’s frightfully jealous.”
“You don’t need to tell him the truth. Just tell him that I’m not the man.”
“No, that won’t work. He’d be suspicious—think I had a crush on you or something. It would make him all the worse.”
“How much,” I asked, “do you want?”
“It isn’t a question of money. I want to get out of here. I want to take a plane for South America. I can take care of myself after I get there, but I need some getaway money, and I need somebody to engineer it who’s smart, someone who knows the ropes. You can do it.”
I said, “Try again, Esther.”
Her eyes rose to mine. For a moment there was glittering hatred in them. “You mean that after all I’ve done for you, you won’t do it?”
“No. It isn’t that. Try again telling me why you want to leave.”
"It’s just as I told you.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She was silent for a while, then she said, “It’s not safe for me here.”
"Why?”
"They’ll— I’ll— The same thing that happened to Jed will happen to me.”
"You mean they’ll kill you?”
“Yes.”
"Who?”
“I’m not mentioning any names.”
I said, “I’m not going into it blind.”
“I went into it blind for you.”
“Is it Crumweather?” I asked.
She gave a quick start when I mentioned his name, then shifted her eyes and didn’t look at me for five or ten seconds. She was staring down at the illuminated dials on the dashboard of the car. ‘‘All right,” she said after a while.
“Let’s say it’s Crumweather.”
“What about him?”
She said, “That business with Alta Ashbury was all planted. They intended to sell her two-thirds of the letters. The other one-third that had all the damaging things in them was to go to Crumweather.”
“What was
he
going to do with them?”
“He was going to make Alta Ashbury kick through with everything he needed to get Lasster acquitted.”
“You know about him?”
“Of course.”
“And about Alta Ashbury?”
She nodded.
“Go ahead.”
“Crumweather was going to make the last shakedown. The first two payments went to someone else.”
“And Jed Ringold gave her the third batch of letters,” I asked, “and double-crossed everyone?”
“No. That’s the funny part of it. He didn’t. He only gave her an envelope with some hotel stationery in it.”
“Did you know he was going to do that?”
“No. No one knew it. It was a racket Jed thought up for himself. He thought he could pocket the money and get out, but—things just didn’t work that way.”
“Where’s that batch of those letters now?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. Jed played along all right for a while, and then he got ideas of his own. I told him it was dangerous.”
“You were Jed’s woman?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Why, the idea of saying things like that to me!”
“You were, weren’t you?”
She met my eyes, then glanced away and didn’t say anything.
“You were, weren’t you?”
She waited a moment, then said, “Yes,” in a voice that was almost a whisper.
“All right, let’s go on from there. When the officers came up to your apartment tonight and pounded on the door and told you they were officers, and told you to open up, you were frightened stiff, weren’t you?”
“Of course I was. Anyone would have been under those circumstances.”
“You were in bed?”
She hesitated again, then said, “Yes. I’d just got to sleep.”
“You opened the door and came out into the corridor, and closed the door behind you?”
“Yes.”
“You had your keys with you?”
“Yes, in the pocket of my housecoat.”
I said, “The reason you were so frightened when you heard the police, the reason you didn’t let them go into your apartment and talk there, was because someone was in the apartment. Who was it?”
“No, no! I swear it wasn’t! I’m telling you the honest truth. It wasn’t the law. It was—something else.”
“When do you want to leave?”
“Right now.”
I lit a cigarette and didn’t say anything for quite a while. She was watching me anxiously. “Well?” she asked.
I said, “Okay, sister. I’ll have to get some money. I don’t have it with me.”
“But you can get it?”
“Of course.”
“From Ashbury?”
“Yes.”
“When can you have it?”
“As soon as Ashbury gets back. He’s up north on a mining deal.”
“He was up with you?”
“Yes.”
“When will he be back?”
“He should be back almost any time. I don’t know whether he’ll drive back or take a plane.”
“Listen, Donald, as soon as he comes back, you arrange to get some money so I can leave. Will you do that for me?”
“I’ll take care of you.”
“But what am I going to do in the meantime?”
I said, “Let’s go to a hotel somewhere and register under an assumed name.”
“How about my clothes?”
“Leave them where they are. Just disappear.”
She thought for a while, and said, “I haven’t a cent with me.”
“I have some money. Enough to cover hotel bills, incidental expenses, and getting some new clothes.”
“Donald, will you do that for me?”
“Yes.”
“Where do we go?”
I said, “I know a little hotel that’s quiet.”
“You’ll take me there? Go there with me?”
“Yes.”
“You know how it is, Donald. A woman alone at this hour of the night without any baggage— Well, you come and register with me.”
“As husband and wife?”
“Do you want to?”
I said, “I’ll tell them you’re my secretary, that you had to do a lot of work tonight, and have got to start early in the morning, and I want to get you a room in the hotel. It’ll be all right.”
“They won’t let you stay there with me?”
“Of course not. I’ll take you up to your room, and then come back down. Here’s a hundred. It will take care of you for the time being.”
She took the hundred, thought things over for quite a little while, and then said, “I guess perhaps that’s the best way. Thanks, kid. You’re white. I like you.”
I started the car and drove to the hotel I had in mind—a little place on a side street where a night clerk and an elevator operator ran the whole place after midnight.
Just before we went into the hotel she said, “Donald, if I could get hold of the rest of those letters, I’d be sitting pretty.”
“How do you figure?”
“Crumweather wants them, Alta Ashbury wants them, and the D.A. would pay money to get them so he could build up a case against Lasster.”
“The D.A. can’t pay anything.”
“He could make a bargain.”
“On what?” I asked. “Immunity?”
“Yes, if you want to put it that way.”
“With whom?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Where do
you
think the letters are?” I asked.
“Honest, Donald,” she said, “I don’t know. Jed walked up to the hotel with me. He was a little afraid that something might happen, and he’d get pinched in a blackmail racket. He had been tipped off that Ashbury was going to get a detective to find out what his daughter had been doing with her money.”
“Where did that tip come from?”
“I don’t know, but Jed knew it. I suppose it came from Crumweather. Anyway, Jed didn’t want to have the letters in his possession until the last minute. He walked up to the hotel with me, and I was carrying the letters under my coat. I handed them to him just before I went in behind the cigar counter. I know he had them when he went up in the elevator and— Well, he never came down, that’s all. The murderer must have got them.”