Shills Can't Cash Chips

Chapter Eight

I showered, shaved, had three cups of strong, black coffee, got in the agency heap and drove to the Perkins Hotel.

There was a message in the box to call Lorraine Robbins at the Miramar Apartments.

I hesitated a moment whether to call her that early but finally decided that as a working girl, she’d be up.

I put through the call and she answered almost instantly.

“Donald?”

“That’s right.”

“Look, Donald, I’m worried about Mr. Holgate.”

“It’s too early to do any worrying yet, Lorraine. Does he have some appointments this morning?”

“Yes, he has some appointments with important customers.”

“Well,” I said, “wait until you see if he keeps those appointments. For all we know, he may be in his apartment sleeping off a convivial evening.”

“He isn’t,” she said. ‘“He isn’t anywhere.”

“What do you mean, anywhere, and how do you know he isn’t in his apartment? Perhaps he isn’t answering the phone.”

“I’ve been up to his apartment, Donald. The bed hasn’t been slept in.”

“How did you get in?”

“The manager knows me. I told him that I had some important papers that I had to deliver and asked if he’d open up the apartment for me.”

“What would you have done if you’d found Holgate with some beautiful babe?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I had a definite feeling he wasn’t with any beautiful babe. I knew what I’d find.”

“What did you find?”

“The bed hadn’t been slept in. No one was there — and of course I wasn’t foolish enough to go into the bedroom while the manager was there. Mr. Holgate has a very fine three-room apartment.”

“Everything seemed to be in order? Any indication the place had been ransacked?”

“No. Everything was in order.”

“All right,” I said, “when I left you last night, did you go right to bed?”

“Why?”

“I want to know.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know what advice to give you. You are asking me whether you should notify the police. It could be very embarrassing to your boss if the police should be notified and it turned out he was simply on a social engagement.”

“All right, Donald, I’ll be frank with you. There was one place where I thought he might be, one apartment.”

“And you got the young lady up out of—”

“Don’t be silly, I was looking for his car. If he’d been there, his car would have been parked near the apartment house. I went out and covered the place thoroughly. His car wasn’t there.”

“Then what?”

“I called his apartment two or three times during the night and of course got no answer. I’m worried.”

I said, “Wait until those appointments come up. If he doesn’t keep the appointments, and they’re important ones, you’ll know that the police had better be notified.”

“Well,” she said somewhat reluctantly, “the first appointment is at ten o’clock. I don’t like to wait until then but... well, I guess it is the best thing to do.

“Are you going to be around here today, Donald?”

“I’ll be in and out. I’ll keep in touch with you. You’ll be at the office?”

“After nine o’clock, yes.”

“I’ll either drop in and see you or give you a buzz,” I said.

I hung up, waited until eight-twenty and drove out to the Miramar Apartments. I had no trouble finding a parking place and tapped on the door of Doris Ashley’s apartment promptly at eight-thirty.

She had on a filmy negligee and as she opened the door the light from the apartment silhouetted her figure through the diaphanous, fluffy folds of the garment.

“Donald!” she said. “You’re early!”

“Eight-thirty?” I said.

“That’s what I told you, eight-thirty, but it’s only eight o’clock and—”

“Eight-thirty,” I said.

“What!” she exclaimed. “My alarm clock just went off. I set it for quarter to eight.”

I looked at the alarm clock by the bed. It now registered two minutes past eight o’clock.

I said, “What did you set it by last night?”

“The alarm? I set it at seven-forty-five.”

“No, when you wound the clock and set it, what did you set it by?”

“Why, by the television. I was watching a program and—”

“You set it half an hour slow.”

“I couldn’t have! Let me see your watch.”

She came over and stood close to me, and I held my wrist watch up so she could see it.

She took my wrist in her hands, held my arm close to the negligee, said, “Well, for heaven’s sake, what do you know!” She stood there for a moment, then said, “Donald, I’ve got to get some clothes on. There’s coffee in the percolator in the kitchenette. Will you keep an eye on it and I’ll... I’ll get some clothes on right quick. I’ll run in the closet and dress.”

She made a dash for the closet, stripping off the negligee as she opened the door.

I had occasional tantalizing glimpses of her moving past the door, attired in panties and bra, and then she was out in the apartment with street clothes and neatly shod feet.

I gave a little wolf whistle.

“Donald!” she said. “Get your mind on what we have to do.”

I said, “It’s a little difficult... Those are certainly neat shoes. What are they, alligator skin?”

“Yes. I like alligator skin. I’m very partial to it. I like alligator skin and a brown shade of stockings.”

She raised her skirt a little, looked up at me and smiled. “You like?”

“I like.”

She said, “I’m ravenously hungry. I was only going to have a cup of coffee but I think I’ve got to have some toast and just a little bacon. Do you suppose there’s time?”

“Oh, sure there’s time,” I said. “We’ll make it down okay; in fact we could have breakfast here if you wanted.”

“No, I like to eat at the airport while we’re waiting but we could have just a snack here.”

She hurried out to the kitchen.

I walked over to the closet where she had been dressing. Feminine garments were hanging in the closet and there was an open drawer filled with intimate feminine lingerie.

I found a rack of shoes at the end of the closet and hastily picked up one of the alligator shoes and looked at the place of manufacture.

It was Chicago, Illinois.

I picked up another one. That was Salt Lake City, the same shoe store that had been stamped in the shoe I had found at Holgate’s office.

“Donald, where are you?” she asked.

I hurried out of the closet.

“Coming,” I told her.

“Do you want to make the toast while I cook the bacon? I have an electric bacon cooker here that is supposed to get it just right — and there’s an electric toaster. There’s some bread in there.”

I got the bread out of the breadbox, dropped two slices in the electric toaster and pushed down the lever which made the contact.

The electric bacon broiler did its stuff, and the aroma of bacon and coffee mingled in the little breakfast nook.

“Donald,” she said, “I’m sorry about Dudley.”

“That’s all right.”

“He... he took advantage of you. I wouldn’t have had that happen — well, I know that he put you in a position where you had to say you had seen that accident.”

“I’ve got news for you, Doris,” I told her.

“What?”

“I did see the accident.”

The platter she was holding over the stove to warm all but slipped from her hands. “You what!” she exclaimed.

“I saw that damned accident,” I said. “It was just one of those peculiar, crazy coincidences that wouldn’t happen in a million years. Of course I didn’t have the faintest idea at the time that you were interested in it or were ever going to be interested in it, but — well, it happened. I saw it, that’s all.”

She hesitated a moment, recovered her self-possession, put the bacon on the platter and laughed throatily.

“Donald,” she said, “you are a card. It’s all right, Donald, you don’t have to fool me. You know, Vivian is the girl who was involved in that accident and — well, she’s probably going to ask you about it.”

“Is that why you wanted me to meet her?”

“Heavens, no. I wanted to see you, that’s all. I — Donald, why didn’t you call me more than once last night?”

“I did, but you weren’t home.”

“I told you I was getting cigarettes.”

“I called you again, and again. You didn’t answer.”

“Why, Donald, you must have had the wrong number. I was sitting right here by that telephone the whole blessed evening — and I made an excuse to get rid of Dudley.”

“He wasn’t here?”

“No.”

“You weren’t together?”

“No, and I’ll tell you something else, Donald. I don’t know that I’m going to be with him too much. I became involved with him and — well, it’s getting to a point where it’s leading to things I don’t like. Dudley is — well, he’s possessive and he’s ruthless. You’ve probably seen enough of him to realize that.”

I looked at her shoes. “You certainly have pretty feet.”

She laughed and made a playful kick. “Can’t you get your mind on anything higher than my feet?”

“You buy these shoes here?”

“No. These were given to me by a girl friend. Why do you ask?”

“Your girl friend from Salt Lake?”

She showed surprise. “She lived there for a while. Why, Donald?”

“I like shoes.”

“You’re not one of those goofs that go crazy over women’s clothes, are you, Donald — women’s panties and things like that? I’ve heard that when men are shut up in prison their desires sometimes takes strange slants. Donald, tell me about it.”

“About what?”

“What it’s like to live without women.”

“It’s hell.”

“Do you go crazy when you get out?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t act like it.”

“I’ve forgotten how to act.”

“I’ll have to give you a memory course. In the meantime we have a plane to meet.

“Now, take your bacon and put it right on the toast, Donald, and then put another piece of toast on top and make a toasted bacon sandwich. It’s a wonderful breakfast — only we’ll have another breakfast out at the airport. This will be a breakfast hors d’oeuvre, kind of a preliminary. Do you like preliminaries, Donald?”

“I love them.”

“Sometimes,” she said somewhat wistfully, “I think the preliminaries are more interesting than the...” She hesitated, trying to find the word she wanted.

“The main event?” I asked.

She laughed and said, “You certainly have a quick wit. Do you like cream and sugar in your coffee?”

“Not now,” I said. “Later on when we have breakfast at the airport. Now I’m drinking it black.”

“You look wonderful this morning, Donald. Did you sleep last night?”

“Like a top,” I said. “How about you?”

“I had a wonderful night’s rest.”

“You look fresh as a daisy.”

“Do I really?”

“You sure do.”

“Donald, I’m glad we got acquainted. I would like to do things for you — well, I feel that you have had the breaks go against you and you’ve been sort of — well, you’re shy...”

“What do you mean, shy?”

“A little while ago, when I was holding your arm, looking at your wrist watch — well, considering the circumstances most men would have crushed me to them.”

I said, “I don’t work that way.”

“You mean you don’t crush women to you impulsively?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t like to try to make passes at a woman with one eye on an alarm clock and my mind on the schedule of an incoming airplane. I like soft lights, dreamy music, an atmosphere of leisure and privacy and—”

“Donald, stop it!”

I looked at my wrist watch. “All right,” I told her. “Do we wash the dishes before we go to the airport?”

“We certainly do,” she said. “I hate to come home to a sinkful of dirty dishes. I always like to keep the apartment neat as a pin. But I just use hot water and just a slight touch of detergent. Thank heavens they have really hot water in this apartment. It’s steaming.”

She turned hot water into the sink, put in a few drops of detergent, took a dish mop, washed the dishes, rinsed them and handed them tome.

“You wipe,” she said.

I wiped.

We were ready to leave at twelve minutes past nine.

Doris gave a quick look around the apartment, said, “You’re going to like Vivian, but don’t you go falling for her, Donald. I’m not ready to share you — not just yet.”

“Vivian’s good-looking?” I asked.

“A knockout. Blonde and lots of this and that and these and those.”

“You’re going to ride with me?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“All right, my car’s down in front. Let’s go.”

She looked at the alarm clock and laughed. “Can you imagine me being so stupid?” she said.

She went over and moved the hands thirty minutes ahead.

“How’s that, Donald, right?”

“Right.”

“All right, let’s go.”

I held the door of the apartment open for her and she walked out past me, elevating her chin and giving me a provocative smile as she brushed past me in the doorway.

We went down in the elevator, got in the agency car, drove to the airport and checked on the plane Vivian was coming in on. It was marked on time.

We went up to the restaurant and had sausage, scrambled eggs and more coffee.

I found the gate that Vivian’s plane was coming in, and Doris and I walked out to meet her.

The plane arrived on time and taxied up to a stop.

Passengers started streaming out, and I spotted Vivian before Doris needed to say a word.

She was a striking blonde in a short raw silk sheath suit of shocking-pink. The unbuttoned jacket swung open to reveal a low-cut neck. The dress itself would have been sacklike on a less well-developed model. Her figure gave it what it needed.

“There’s Vivian now,” Doris said, jumping up and down with synthetic eagerness.

Vivian came through the gate, and Doris gave a little squeal of delight and ran and grabbed her in her arms.

“Vivian!” she said. “You’re looking wonderful!”

Vivian smiled, a slow, languid smile. “Hello, sweetie-pie,” she raid.

“Vivian, I’ve — I have someone here.”

She turned to me. “Donald, this is Vivian. Vivian, may I present Donald Lam, a friend of mine.”

“The latest?” Vivian asked.

“Absolutely the latest.”

Vivian looked me over, then slowly extended her hand. “Hello, Donald,” she said in a deep, velvety voice.

There was a slow, deliberate motion in the way she extended her hand that made the gesture seem significant. It was the way a trained stripteaser can take off gloves so that the action seems packed with dynamite and a bare arm from the elbow to the finger tips seems an immoral display of naked flesh.

“Donald drove me out,” Doris explained. “Heavens, Vivian, you must have left there at all hours.”

“There’s a three-hour time difference,” she said. “And I had to take a puddle-jumper with stops in Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake. It’s two o’clock in New York right now. I don’t mind telling you, darling, I left in the small hours of the morning.”

“How in the world did you ever get up?”

“That’s easy,” Vivian said smiling. “I didn’t go to bed.”

She opened her purse, took out her airplane ticket, detached the baggage stubs, started to hand them to me, then said, “Donald, why don’t you go get the car, and I’ll have a porter rustle up the baggage. You can drive up in front of the loading zone and they won’t bother you just so you raise the lid of the trunk and leave it up. You can park there twenty minutes if you have to, just keep the trunk open and stand by it expectantly.” Her deep blue eyes rested on mine. “Can you look expectant, Donald?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “When I’ve been expectant I’ve never looked at myself.”

“He says the cutest things,” Doris said.

Vivian let her eyes play with mine. “Look expectant for me now, Donald.”

“I might be disappointed.”

“You might be.”

“Donald, you go get the car,” Doris said.

Vivian said, “Don’t be in too big a hurry, Donald. It’ll take ten or fifteen minutes for them to get the baggage off and it’ll take me a minute or two to get it picked out and have a porter get it out to the car.”

“I’ll tell her all about you while you’re gone, Donald,” Doris Ashley said. “That is not all, but almost all. And I’ll also tell her, no poaching on my preserves.”

She smiled amiably at Vivian. “You may trespass, honey, but don’t poach.”

“Where’s the fence?” Vivian asked.

I went to get the car.

It was a long walk to where I had parked it and it took me a few minutes to get through the parking lot, then drive around to a place in front of the baggage unloading zone.

They’d evidently been more expeditious than Vivian had anticipated. They were waiting there with a porter, four suitcases and a handbag.

The baggage was neatly stacked on one of the hand trucks and I handed the trunk key to the porter.

I walked over and held the door open for the girls.

“We can sit in front,” Vivian said, and promptly started for the middle position in the front seat.

It was at that moment I heard the yell from the porter.

I turned around.

The porter was standing riveted, his eyes big as teacups. He let out another yell, turned and started running as fast as he could pump his legs up and down.

“Now, what the hell!” Doris said. “What did you do to him, Donald?”

I walked to the rear of the car.

I saw something in the trunk, something dark. It looked like a trouser leg.

I stepped hurriedly to the rear and got a good look.

The body of Carter J. Holgate was doubled up in a knees-to-chest position inside the trunk.

It needed only one look at him to know that he was dead.

I heard Doris Ashley’s scream in my ears and then the sound of a police whistle. After that people were crowding all around, women were screaming and a police officer was holding me by the arm.

“This your car, Buddy?” he asked.

“This is my car,” I said.

The officer said, “Keep back, you folks. I don’t want anybody around here.”

He blew a whistle.

A man in some sort of uniform connected with the airport came hurrying forward, and a moment later I heard a siren, and a radio car came speeding up, then slowed to a crawl as it pushed its way through the crowd.

Two uniformed officers jumped out, and I found myself bundled into the radio car. Two minutes later I was in an office at the airport with the officers questioning me, and a man in civilian clothes taking notes.

“What’s your name?” one of the officers asked.

I told him.

“Let’s see your driving license.”

I gave it to him.

“This your car?”

“It’s the agency car.”

“What were you doing out here?”

“Meeting a girl who was coming in on a plane.”

“What’s her name?”

I told him.

“What was the flight number?”

I gave him that information.

“Who’s the man in your trunk?”

I said, “From the look I had, I think he’s Carter J. Holgate but I can’t be certain.”

“Who’s Carter Holgate?”

“A real estate agent, a subdivider.”

“You know him?”

“Of course I know him. Otherwise I wouldn’t know who he was.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Sometime yesterday, late yesterday afternoon.”

“How did the body get in the trunk of your car?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Anything else?”

I said, “A lot else. I have been talking with Lorraine Robbins. She—”

“Who’s she?” the officer interrupted.

“Carter Holgate’s secretary.”

“Where does she live?”

“Miramar Apartments, Colinda.”

“All right, what were you talking with her about?”

“About Holgate. She was worried about him.”

“She evidently had good reason to be. What did she say?”

“He hadn’t been home all night and she was worried.”

“She living with him?”

“No. She knew he was missing.”

“How did she know he was missing?”

“We tried to locate him last night.”

“You say, we did?”

“That’s right.”

“You were with her?”

“Part of the time.”

“And what were you trying to do?”

“We were trying to locate Carter Holgate.”

“Why?”

“Because someone had broken into his office.”

“What time was that?”

“You mean when we were looking for him? I don’t know. I didn’t notice the time particularly. I know it was late. Probably after midnight.”

“How did you know someone had broken into his office?”

“Because we were in his office.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Holgate.”

“Why?”

“I had some things I wanted to discuss with him.”

“What?”

“An automobile accident.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know whether I care to make a statement about the accident at this time.”

“Look, Buddy,” the officer said, “you’re in bad. You’re a private detective. You’re smart enough to know the spot you’re in. You’d better come clean.”

“I’m coming clean.”

“Not if you hold out about an accident, you aren’t.”

I said, “What happened to the girls who were in the automobile with me?”

“Here at the airport?”

“Yes.”

“They’re being questioned.”

I said, “One of them, the blonde, was involved in the accident.”

“What’s her name?”

“Vivian Deshler.”

“What’s the other’s name?”

“Doris Ashley.”

“When did you get in touch with her?”

“This morning.”

“What time?”

“Eight-thirty.”

“Where?”

“At her apartment.”

“What for?”

“So we could drive out here and meet Miss Deshler.”

“What about Holgate’s office being broken into?”

“There was pretty much of a wreck there, as though a fight had taken place in the office.”

“That was reported to the authorities?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“His secretary thought that it might be better to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Wait to see what happened this morning.”

“Well, it happened this morning all right,” the officer said. “Now, we’ve got some work to do and some things to check. I want you to sit down here at this desk and write out just what you’ve told me. Write everything you know about the case.”

I said, “Look, do you know Sergeant Frank Sellers?”

“Sure, we know him.”

“I know him, too,” I said. “Get hold of Sellers and I’ll talk with him. In the meantime, I’m not going to do any writing.”

“You’re not going to do what?”

“Not going to do any writing.”

“You know what that means, Buddy. You’re leading with your chin.”

“All right, I’ll lead with my chin. But I’ll talk with Sellers and in the meantime I’m not doing any writing.”

“Okay, we’ll call Sellers. We’ll probably take you up there.”

An officer went to the telephone and talked in a low voice for a while. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then I was left alone in the room for what must have been twenty minutes.

Then two officers came in, bringing Doris Ashley and Vivian Deshler.

The officer got right down to business.

“You girls sit down over here,” he said.

Doris gave me a reassuring smile.

Vivian Deshler looked me over speculatively.

“Now then, Lam,” the officer said, “you saw an automobile accident in Colinda on the thirteenth of August.”

“What of it?”

“Describe the accident.”

“Well, it was just an accident where somebody ran into the rear of the automobile in front.”

“Who was that somebody?”

“Carter Holgate.”

“Who was in the car in front?”

“Miss Deshler, here.”

“You’re positive?”

“Of course, I didn’t know her at the time but now that I’ve seen her I know she’s the one.”

“All right, describe the accident.”

“Well, that’s about all there was to it.”

“Go ahead, describe it. How did it happen?”

“Well,” I said, “there was a string of cars.”

“How big a string?”

“I think there were two ahead of Miss Deshler’s car and then of course Holgate’s car was right behind hers.”

“So that would make four all together?”

“Right.”

“All right, what happened?”

“Well, they approached the intersection.”

“What intersection?”

“Seventh and Main in Colinda.”

“Where were you?”

“I was on the west side of Main Street.”

“How far back from the intersection?”

“Probably seventy-five or a hundred feet.”

“What happened?”

“I think Holgate had been trying to speed up to get around the line of automobiles ahead. When he saw he couldn’t make it, he tried to get back in line and he was going pretty fast.”

“Why couldn’t he make it?”

“Well, I guess he wanted to get in the left-hand lane so he could pass while the signal was in his favor and—”

“And he saw he couldn’t make it?”

“I guess so. I couldn’t read his mind. All I could tell was what happened from the way he drove the car.”

“The reason he couldn’t make it, then, must have been that the traffic signal was changing.”

“Could be.”

“Then he was watching the signal.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“The only other reason would have been that there were cars in front of him on the left.”

“I don’t remember any cars in front of him on the left.”

“And what happened when the signal changed?”

“The car that was approaching the intersection could have gone through on the yellow light but the driver stopped suddenly. So the car behind him stopped very suddenly, almost collided with him. Miss Deshler was driving a lighter car. She brought it to a stop, and Holgate evidently didn’t see she had stopped until right at the last minute. He slammed on his brakes hard just about three feet before he hit, but that didn’t do anything except slow down his car somewhat. He hit the Deshler car a pretty good lick and I could see Miss Deshler’s head snap back.”

The officer looked at her.

Vivian Deshler sized me up slowly and thoughtfully and then said, “He’s a liar.”

“Why is he a liar?” the officer asked.

“That wasn’t the way the accident happened at all.”

“How did it happen?” I asked.

“There were two lanes of automobiles approaching the intersection,” she said. “I was in the left lane. Mr. Holgate had been in the right lane. There were four or five cars in the right lane and only one car ahead of me in the left lane. Mr. Holgate tried to get in the left lane so he could go around the string of cars in the right lane. He was going pretty fast. He swung out to the left, right in behind me, and the signal changed and he hit me.”

“How many cars ahead of you when you came to the intersection?” the officer asked.

“None,” she said. “I was the only car on the left. There were five or six cars on the right. That’s why Mr. Holgate tried to get around the string of cars on the right and make a run for it. He must have been speeding up until just before he hit me. I could see him coming in the rearview mirror.”

“All right, Lam,” the officer said. “You didn’t see the accident. Now why did you say you did?”

Doris Ashley spoke up. “I’ll tell you why,” she said. “Because Dudley Bedford forced him to make a statement.”

“What do you mean, he forced him?”

Doris said, “I could get killed for telling you this.”

“Nobody’s going to kill you for telling us anything,” the officer said. “What happened?”

She said, “Donald Lam is a dear. He was in San Quentin. He got out and was trying to get a job where he could go straight, and Dudley Bedford, for reasons of his own, forced Donald Lam to make an affidavit that he had seen this accident.”

The officer looked at her thoughtfully. “Now,” he said, “I‘ll tell you something. Donald Lam is a private detective. He’s a member of the partnership of Cool and Lam. He’s taking you all for a ride. He’s never been in San Quentin — yet. He was trying to play on your sympathies, Miss Ashley, and I don’t know what he was trying to do with you, Miss Deshler, but...”

The door opened and Frank Sellers walked into the room.

“Hello, Frank,” I said.

“Hello, Pint Size,” Sellers said. “What the hell have you been doing this time?”

“Trying to make a living,” I said.

“You should leave murder out of it,” he said.

He turned to the officer. “What’s going on here?”

The officer said, “We just caught him in a lie, Sergeant.”

“That’s nothing,” Sellers said. “You can catch him in a dozen of them and then the little punk will squirm right out of them. And, if you’re not careful, leave you holding the sack.”

“Any time I left you holding the sack,” I told Sellers, “there was something in it that you wanted.”

“We won’t go into that,” Sellers said. He nodded to the officer. “Come on, let’s get these girls out of here. We’ll talk for a minute and you can give me the low-down. Then I’ll come back and question this guy.”

They all left the room.

It was a good twenty minutes before Sellers came back alone.

He was chewing the soggy butt of a cold cigar and he looked at me thoughtfully.

“You do do the damnedest things, Lam,” he said.

“I have the damnedest things done to me,” I told him.

“Did you see that automobile accident?”

“No.”

“Why did you say you did?”

“Because this man, Bedford, was forcing me to make an affidavit.”

“How did he force you?”

“He knocked me over, for one thing.”

“And then what?”

“Well, he had the idea I’d been in San Quentin and I rode along with the gag.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see what his interest was in the deal.”

“All right, there was another fellow, a man by the name of Chris Maxton, Carter Holgate’s partner. You made a statement to him about seeing the accident and got paid two hundred and fifty bucks for it.”

“That’s right.”

“And why did you do that?”

“I wanted to see why they were offering two hundred and fifty bucks for witnesses and who was paying the money.”

Sellers shook his head and said, “I’m surprised at a smart guy like you taking the two hundred and fifty bucks, Donald. That makes it obtaining money under false pretenses.”

“And that makes me guilty of murder?” I asked.

“No,” Sellers said, “other things make you guilty of murder.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as being in Holgate’s office, jumping out the window, running to your car, which already had Holgate’s body stuffed in the trunk, and making a getaway.”

“Who says so?”

“Your fingerprints say so.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Talking about the fingerprints you left in Holgate’s place of business,” Sellers said. “This Lorraine Robbins tried her best to cover up for you. She said she went out there with you and that was when you first discovered what had happened, but your fingerprints say you were lying to her.”

“What do you mean, my fingerprints?”

Sellers grinned and said, “It was a slick stunt, Donald. You went back the second time and pretended to discover what had happened. You were being very, very helpful with Lorraine and you got your fingers all over everything so that the fingerprints you’d left the first time wouldn’t be significant. But you overlooked one thing.”

“What?”

“The woman’s shoe.”

“What about it?”

“When that papier-mâché model of the subdivision fell off the table, it hit the shoe. You can see the mark on the leather where the shoe was halfway under it.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I said.

“And,” Sellers said, “you lifted up the papier-mâché model in order to pull the shoe out and look at it.”

I shook my head.

“And,” Sellers said, “when you did, you left the print of your middle finger outlined in the powder you had got on your finger from the broken compact on the underside of the papier-mâché model. An investigation started out there at nine this morning.”

Sellers quit talking and shifted the cold cigar butt around in his mouth.

“Now let’s see you talk your way out of that one, Pint Size.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Sellers asked at length.

I said, “You’re getting way out on a limb, Sergeant. I could have got my fingerprint on the underside of that papier-mâché at any time.”

“No, you couldn’t,” he said. “After the shoe was taken out and that papier-mâché model got down flat on the floor, there was no place to get your finger under it. You couldn’t even pick it up unless you used the blade of a screwdriver or a chisel or something of that sort to slide under it and lift it up. The thing weighs over a hundred pounds. We couldn’t lift it and you couldn’t.”

“I see,” I said. “I’m guilty as hell, is that right?”

“We don’t know. We’re investigating.”

I said, “You’re a hell of an investigator. You find my fingerprint on the underside of a papier-mâché subdivision model weighing a hundred pounds, so you immediately come to the conclusion that I broke into Holgate’s office, licked Holgate, clubbed him into unconsciousness, pulled him out of the window, dragged him across the lawn, put him in the trunk of my automobile and then went back for something. What did I go back for, another body?”

“Perhaps you wanted that affidavit you’d signed, after you found out it was cockeyed,” Sellers said.

“And if I couldn’t move one side of a papier-mâché model, just how did I pick up the two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound Holgate in my arms, jump out of the window with him, carry him across to the car and put him in the trunk?”

“We don’t know,” Sellers said. “We intend to find out.”

“It should be worth while finding out,” I told him. “If I could carry a two-hundred-and-twenty-five to two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man out of the window and put him in the trunk of my car, it would seem that I should be able to pick up one end of a papier-mâché subdivision model that only weighed a hundred pounds in all.”

“You could have had an accomplice, you know,” Sellers said. “You only needed to carry half of the load.”

“That makes it fine,” I said. “Who was my accomplice?”

“We’re looking around,” Sellers said, chewing thoughtfully on the cigar.

“All right, where does that leave me? Am I charged with murder?”

“Not yet.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet.”

“What is happening?”

“You’re being held for questioning.”

I shook my head and said, “I don’t like that. Either charge me or turn me loose.”

“We can hold you for questioning.”

“You’ve questioned me. I want to use the phone.”

“Go right ahead,” he said.

I walked over to the telephone, called the office and told the office operator to get me Bertha Cool on the line fast.

When I heard Bertha’s voice saying, “All right, what is it this time?” I said, “I’m being questioned about the murder of Carter Holgate. I’m out at the airport. Holgate’s body was found in the trunk of our automobile. I’ve got work to do. I want to—”

Bertha interrupted me. “Holgate’s body!” she screamed.

“That’s right,” I explained patiently, “his murdered body. It was found jammed into the trunk of the agency car.”

“The agency car!” she yelled.

“That’s right,” I said. “Now, Sellers is here. He’s questioning me and I’ve got work to do. I’ve told him all I know. I want him either to charge me with murder or release me. He doesn’t want to do either right at the moment. I want you to get the best lawyer in the city to file habeas corpus proceedings.”

Bertha said, “You let me talk with Frank Sellers.”

I held the phone out to Sergeant Sellers. “She wants to talk with you, Frank.”

Sellers grinned and said, “Tell her it won’t be necessary. I’m protecting my left eardrum. Tell her we’re turning you loose.”

I said into the telephone, “Sellers said it isn’t necessary. He says he’s turning me loose.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m coming to the office,” I said.

Sellers said, “You aren’t driving your car any more, Donald. That’s being impounded for evidence, bloodstains and all of that.”

I told Bertha on the telephone, “Sellers is impounding the car. I’ll get a cab.”

“A cab, my eye! Get one of those damned limousines and save four dollars.”

“This is murder,” I told her. “Minutes count.”

“Minutes be damned!” Bertha said. “Dollars count, too.”

“And,” I told her, “get our client to come to the office. I want him there.”

“And put out a chair for me,” Sellers said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Put out a chair for me. I’m going to be with you. If you’re going to get a smart lawyer to file habeas corpus, we aren’t going to lead with our chins. We aren’t going to charge you with murder before we know what kind of a case we have, but I’m going to be with you, Donald, just like a brother.”

“You tell Bertha,” I said.

“You tell her,” he told me.

I said, “Sellers is going to be with me. They aren’t ready to charge me with murder but Sellers is going to stick with me, at least that’s what he says.”

Bertha said, “Can we stop him?”

“Probably not,” I said. “That’s the way the police act. They’ll either insist on having someone with me or they’ll put me in custody and charge me with suspicion of murder. They can hold me for a while on that.”

Bertha thought that over for a minute, then said, “We’ll make that s.o.b. pay half the taxi fare if he’s going to ride with you.”

“We can probably do better than that,” I said. “I think he has a police car. You get our client there in the office. I want to talk with him.”

“And I want to listen,” Sellers said, grinning. “This is getting better and better.”

“How soon will you be here?” Bertha asked.

“Right away,” I told her. “You get the interview all set up.”

I hung up.

Sellers was still grinning.

“I told them you’d do just that,” Sellers said.

“What?”

“Threaten to get habeas corpus,” Sellers said, “to force our hand, and that we could just give you all the rope you wanted, and you’d lead us to all the people we wanted.”