“Here are your credentials,” said Fitz, “and yours, too, King.”
“Does the gentleman from Evansville know what his job is?” asked Val.
“Oh, sure,” said Ellery. “Fitz told me. Keep an eye on you, give you fatherly advice. Don’t worry about me—baby.”
“How,” said Val, “are the gentleman’s morals?”
“Who, me? I’m practically sexless.”
“Not,” retorted Val, “that it would do you any good if you weren’t. I just wanted to avoid possible unpleasantness.”
“Go on, get going, both of you,” said Fitz benevolently.
“I’ll have my first story,” said Val, “ready for the rewrite desk tonight, Fitz.”
“Not in this man’s trade, you won’t,” grinned Fitz. “We’ve got a daily paper to get out. Besides, it’s all written.”
“What!”
“Now don’t fret yourself,” soothed Fitz. “You don’t have to pound out the grind stuff. I’ve got people here who can make up a better human-interest yarn out of their heads than you could out of facts. You’ll get your byline and your grand just the same.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Part of your value to me is your name. The other part is that clue you’re battin’ about. Don’t worry about the writing, Val. Follow up that clue, and if you pick up any special slants, ’phone ’em in. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Mr. King,” said Val, eying the apparition. “For whom are you working—Fitz or me?”
“The answer to a dame,” said Mr. King, “is always yes.”
“Hey!” shouted Fitz.
“Now that you’ve learned your catechism,” said Val with a kindly smile, “come along, Mr. King, and learn something else.”
“T
HE
first thing I crave,” said Hilary “Scoop” King as they paused on the sidewalk before the
Independent
building, “is lunch. Have you eaten?”
“No, but we’ve got an important call to make—”
“It can wait; most everything can in this world. What would you suggest?”
Val shrugged. “If you’re a stranger here, you might like the Café in El Paseo.”
“That sounds hundreds of miles away, to the south.”
“It’s in the heart of the city,” laughed Val. “We can hoof it from here.”
Ellery politely took the outside position, noting that a black sedan was following them slowly. Val led him up Main Street through the old Plaza, pointing out the landmarks—Pico House, the Lugo mansion plastered with placards displaying red Chinese ideographs, Marchessault Street. When she took him into El Paseo, it was like turning a corner into old Mexico. Booths ran down the middle of the street displaying black-paper
cigarillos
, little clay toys and holy images, queer cactus plants, candles. The very stones underfoot were alien and fascinating. Along both sides of the narrow thoroughfare were
ramadas
, ovens of brick and wooden tables where fat Mexican women patted an endless array of
tortillas
. At the end of the street there was a forge, where a man sat pounding lumps of incandescent iron into cunning Mexican objects. Ellery was enchanted. Val indicated their destination, La Golondrina Café, with its quaint over-hanging balcony.
“What are those scarlet and yellow dishes I see the
señoritas
carrying about?”
They sat down at one of the sidewalk tables and Val ordered. She watched with a secret mischievousness as he bit innocently into an
enchilada
. “
Muy caliente!
” he gasped, reaching for the water-jug. “Wow!”
Val laughed aloud then and felt better. She began to like him. And when they got down to the business of serious eating and he chattered on with the fluency of a retired diplomat, she liked him even more. Before she knew it, she was talking about herself and Rhys and Pink and Winni Moon and Walter and Solly Spaeth. He asked guileless questions, but by some wizardry of dialectic the answers always had to be factual in order to be intelligible; and before long Val had told him nearly everything she knew about the case. It was only the important events of Monday afternoon—Rhys’s alibi, Walter’s taking of Rhys’s coat, the fact that Walter had really been inside his father’s house at the time of the crime—that Valerie held back. Consequently there were gaps in her account, gaps of which her companion seemed casually aware—too casually, thought Val; and she sprang up and said they would have to be going.
Ellery paid the check and they sauntered out of El Paseo. “Now where?” he said.
“To see Ruhig.”
“Oh, Spaeth’s lawyer. What for?”
“I have reason to believe that Ruhig had an appointment with Spaeth on Monday afternoon for five or five-thirty. He told Glücke he got there after six. You won’t blab!”
“Cross my heart and hope to die a pulp-writer,” said Ellery. “But suppose it’s true? He could merely have been late for the appointment.”
“Let’s hope not,” said Val grimly. “Come on—it isn’t far to his office.”
They made their way past the fringe of Chinatown into the business district, and after a while Ellery said in a pleasant voice: “Don’t be alarmed, but we’re being followed.”
“Oh,” said Val. “A big black sedan?”
Ellery raised his brows. “I didn’t think you’d noticed. All the earmarks, incidentally, of a police car.”
“So that’s what it is! It followed me all morning.”
“Hmm. And that’s not all.”
“What do you mean?”
“No, no, don’t look around. There’s some one else, too. A man—I’ve caught a blurred glimpse or two. Not enough for identification. He’s on our trail like a buzzard.”
“What’ll we do?” asked Val in panic.
“Keep right on ambling along,” said Ellery with a broad smile. “I hardly think he’ll attempt assassination with all these potential witnesses around.”
Val walked stiffly after that, glad that she had given in to Fitzgerald, glad that Hilary “Scoop” King, leading citizen of Evansville, was by her side. When they reached the Lawyers’ Trust Building she dodged into the lobby with an exhalation of relief. But Mr. King contrived to pause and inspect the street. There was the black sedan, snuffling like a trained seal across the street; but the man on foot was nowhere to be seen. Either he was hiding in a doorway or had given up the chase.
Mr. Ruhig’s office was like himself—small, neat, and deceptively ingenuous. It was apparent that Mr. Ruhig did not believe in pampering his clients with an atmosphere. There was a gaunt, worried-looking girl at the switchboard, several clerks and runners with flinty, unemotional faces, and a wall covered with law books which had an air of being used. There was no difficulty getting in to see the great man. In fact, he came bustling out of his office to meet them. “This is a pleasant surprise,” he cried, bobbing and beaming. “Shocking about your father, Miss Jardin. What can I do for you? If it’s advice you want, I’m completely at your service, although I’m not in the criminal end. Gratis, of course. I feel like an old friend of the family.” And all the while he eyed Ellery with a puzzled, unobtrusive interest.
“Mr. Ruhig, Mr. King,” said Val crisply, sitting down in the plain office. “I hope you don’t mind Mr. King’s being with me, Mr. Ruhig. He’s an old college chum who’s volunteered to help.”
“Not at all, not at all. What are friends for?” beamed Mr. Ruhig. Apparently the Joseph’s coat reassured him, for he paid no further attention to Mr. King.
“I’ll come right to the point,” said Val, who had no intention of doing any such thing. “I’m not here as Rhys Jardin’s daughter but as an employee of the
Los Angeles Independent
.”
“Well! Since when, Miss Jardin? I must say that’s an unlooked-for development.”
“Since this morning. My father and I need money, and it was the only way I knew of earning a great deal quickly.”
“Fitzgerald,” nodded Ruhig approvingly. “Great character, Fitzgerald. Heart as big as all outdoors. Hasn’t stopped agitating for Mooney’s release in ten years.”
“Now that I’ve got a job, I’ve got to earn my keep. Has anything come up on your end, Mr. Ruhig, that might be construed as news?”
“My end?” smiled the lawyer. “Now that’s putting it professionally, I’ll say that. What would my end be? Oh, you mean the will. Well, of course, I’ve filed it for probate. There are certain unavoidable technicalities to go through before it’s finally probated—”
“I suppose,” said Valerie dryly, “Wicious Winni is simply prostrated with grief over the necessity of taking that fifty million dollars.”
Ruhig clucked. “I should resent that remark, Miss Jardin.”
“Why should you?”
“I mean the—ah—disparaging references to Miss Moon.” He clasped his hands over his little belly and smiled suddenly. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Suppose I start your newspaper career off with a bang, eh? Then you’ll feel a little more charitable towards Anatole Ruhig.”
Mr. King lounged in his chair studying Mr. Ruhig. Beneath that bland exterior he fancied he saw a considerable equipment for sculduggery. No, Mr. Ruhig was not doing anything out of pure kindness of heart.
“I was going,” went on the lawyer paternally, “to call in the press this afternoon and make a general announcement, but since you’re here I’ll give you an exclusive story. That ought to put you in solid with Fitzgerald! You know,” he coughed and paused to take a drink of water from the chipped bronze carafe on his desk, “Miss Moon on the death of Solly Spaeth lost a dear friend—a dear friend. One of the few friends she had in the world. A dear friend.”
“That,” said Val, “is putting it mildly.”
“Now I’ve always admired Miss Moon from afar, as you might say—the dry man of the law worshipping at the feet of unattainable beauty, ha-ha! But with Spaeth’s death attainment, so to speak, becomes possible. I’m afraid I’ve taken advantage of dear Winni’s grief-stricken condition.” He coughed again. “In a word, Miss Moon has consented to be my wife.”
Val, torn between astonishment and nausea, sat silent. Spaeth not even buried, and that horrible creature already accepting the advances of another man! “If I were you, Val darling,” said Mr. King in an old-college-chummy way, “I’d pick up that telephone and relate this momentous intelligence to your editor.”
“Didn’t I tell you it was news?” beamed Ruhig.
“Yes, yes,” said Val breathlessly. “May I use your ’phone? When are you going to be married? I mean—”
A cloud passed over Mr. Ruhig’s rubicund features. “Obviously there is a certain decorum that must be preserved. We haven’t thought of a—ah—a date. It will not even be a formal engagement. Merely—what shall I say?—an understanding. By all means use the ’phone.”
Mr. King ruminated while Val seized the instrument. Such a public announcement now would hardly endear Mr. Ruhig, already disliked, to a citizenry whose money Mr. Ruhig was proposing to marry. Obviously, then, Mr. Ruhig in making it had an important object in mind. What?
“Oh, damn,” said Val into the telephone. “Fitz isn’t in now. Give me…” She bit her lip. “Give me Walter Spaeth!… Walter? Val…. No…. Now, please. I’ve called Fitz but he isn’t in, and you’re the only other one…. It’s a story…. Yes! Anatole Ruhig has just told me confidentially he and Winni Moon are going to be married, date uncertain…. Walter!” She jiggled the telephone, but Walter had hung up.
Mr. Ruhig breathed on his fingernails. “And now—” he said in the tone of a man who would like to prolong a delightful conversation but must regretfully terminate it.
Val sat down again. “There’s something else.”
“Something else?”
“I’m sort of checking up the day of the murder.”
“Monday? Yes?”
“Did you say,” asked Val, leaning forward, “that you got to
Sans Souci
a little past six Monday?”
Mr. Ruhig looked astonished. “My dear child! Certainly.”
He was going to deny it. He had to deny it. Or perhaps it all wasn’t true. Val inhaled like a diver and took the plunge. “What time did Spaeth set for your appointment with him?”
“Between five and five-thirty,” said Mr. Ruhig instantly.
Ellery, quietly watching, felt a backwash of admiration. No hesitation at all. Between five and five-thirty. Just like that.
“But you just said you—you got there after six!”
“So I did.”
“Then you were
late
? You didn’t get there between five and five-thirty at all?”
Mr. Ruhig smiled. “But I did get there between five and five-thirty…. How did you know?” he asked suddenly.
Val gripped her alligator bag, trying to keep calm. As for Mr. Hilary King, he saw the point. Mr. Ruhig was an old hand at questions and answers. If he was being questioned about the exact time of his arrival, then he knew Val had reason to ask the question. If she had reason, it might be based on evidence. If there was evidence, truth was safer than fiction. Mr. King’s admiration for Mr. Ruhig waxed. “Let’s get this straight,” said Val. “You got to
Sans Souci
when?”
“At five-fifteen, to be exact,” replied Mr. Ruhig.
“Then why didn’t you tell Inspector Glücke—”
“He didn’t ask me when the
appointment
was for. And I merely said I drove up a bit after six, which is true. Except that it was the second time I drove up, not the first.”
“A minor technicality,” commented Mr. King.
“The legal training,” said Mr. Ruhig with a modest downward glance. “Answer the question as asked, and don’t volunteer information.”
“Then you were in the house during the crime,” cried Val, “and Atherton Frank lied about no one coming in but—”
“My dear child, you’ll learn as you grow older never to jump at conclusions. I drove up the first time at a quarter after five, but that doesn’t mean I entered the grounds.”
“Oh,” said Val.
“Ah,” said Mr. King.
“Frank wasn’t around,” continued the lawyer conversationally. “You might question the one-armed gentleman, because he testified he was on duty all afternoon. But when I got there at five-fifteen the gate was locked and he wasn’t in his booth, so I drove off and returned a bit after six, at which time Walewski was on duty. That’s all.”
“Is it?” murmured Val.
“As a matter of fact,” said Ruhig, “I’ve been debating with myself whether to tell the Inspector about Frank’s absence or not. It puts me in rather a spot. I forgot to mention it Monday night, and when I recalled it later it occurred to me that Glücke might become—uh—troublesome over my lapse of memory. However, I think now I’d better tell him.”