Kept Women Can’t Quit

Chapter 10

It was four o’clock in the afternoon when Hobart came back. “All right, Lam, we’re letting you go.”

“Where’s Ernestine?”

“I sent her home an hour ago.”

“You could have let me escort her home,” I said.

He grinned. “I could have but I didn’t. I let the plain-clothes officer who had been interrogating her this afternoon take her home. She was thrilled to death. She says television is tame compared with real life — how’s that for a thrill?”

“All right,” I said. “What plans have you got for me?”

“What plans have you got for you?” he asked.

“It depends on what I can do.”

“I don’t want you tossing monkey wrenches in the machinery. If you do, you’re going to get picked up.”

“How about Evelyn Ellis? Did you find the rest of the carving set?”

He said, “Don’t be silly. Things only work out that easy for you gifted amateurs. For your information, Evelyn says she gave out sets containing these new knives to all of the accredited buyers who stopped by the booth of Christopher, Crowder and Doyle. She says she didn’t take one for herself, that she wasn’t housekeeping at the time and wanted to know how we thought a young woman of her dimensions could conceal a carving set in a bathing suit.”

“She could have wrapped it up and carried it out under her arm,” I said. “She had a purse, didn’t she?”

“I know,” Hobart said. “We’re investigating all that. Don’t worry, Lam. You don’t need to tell us how to investigate a homicide. You wanted to know what we found and I told you what we found — nothing.”

“I can’t talk with Evelyn Ellis?”

Hobart’s face got hard. “Listen, Lam,” he said, “get this and get it straight. You’re in San Francisco. You can go to a hotel. You can go to a show. You can go to a restaurant. You can pick up a jane. You can have a good time. You can get drunk. But if you go near the Happy Daze Camera Company, if you try to call on Evelyn Ellis, or if you hang around that hotel where the murder was committed, you’re going to be thrown into the cooler. And, so help me, you’ll stay there until we get this thing lined up.”

“Did it ever occur to you,” I said, “that I’m working on a job? That I have a responsibility to a client? That someone has highjacked me out of fifty grand and—”

“Everything has occurred to me,” Hobart said wearily. “Everything has occurred to me fifty or sixty times and it keeps occurring to me. I’m trying to unscramble a mess. I don’t want your fine Italian hand lousing it up.”

“Can I go back to Los Angeles?”

“You can, but it wouldn’t be advisable. Sellers isn’t in a particularly jovial mood.”

I said, “There’s a Hazel Clune or a Hazel Downer that—”

“We know all about her,” Hobart said. “We’ve had her under surveillance. She was up here the night before the murder. She’s up here now.”

“Now?”

He nodded.

“Where?”

He started to shake his head. Then suddenly his eyes narrowed. I could see him toying with an idea. “Why do you want to know?” he asked.

“I’m doing a job for her. I can’t conscientiously charge her per diem while I’m sitting on my fanny in an interrogation room in San Francisco Headquarters.”

“What would you rather do, sleep in a cell or in a hotel?” Hobart asked. “Because I’ve changed my mind about leaving you free to run around.”

“Is that a gag?”

“It’s a question.”

“The answer,” I said, “will probably surprise you. I prefer to sleep in a hotel.”

“I think it can be arranged,” Hobart said, “but you’ll have to co-operate.”

“What do you mean, co-operate?”

“We’ll get you a room in a hotel. There will be a telephone in that room but you’re not going to use it for any outside calls. There’s a good restaurant in the hotel with room service and you can order anything sent up that you want to eat. We’ll have the newspapers in there and some magazines. You can read. There’ll be a television in there. You can watch television. You can go to bed. You can’t try to leave the place because we’ll know it if you do, and that would be too bad — for you.”

“You mean I’ll be in custody?”

“Not exactly. You’ll be in the charge of police. You’ll be left on your own, but you won’t be free to leave without permission.”

“How long do I have to stay there?”

“All night tonight, at least. Perhaps we can let you go in the morning.”

“My partner will be worried about me.”

“Your partner is worried sick about you,” Hobart said. “Your office has been frantically trying to get you every place they could possibly think of. They’ve even called here at Headquarters.”

“What did you tell them?”

“We told them we weren’t holding any Donald Lam for anything. We aren’t.”

“You are holding me.”

“But not for any particular charge. We’re just holding you because you want to co-operate with us.”

“Ernestine is going to be worrying about me,” I said.

“Ernestine is on Cloud Nine,” Hobart said. “She’s co-operating with the police now and the plain-clothes man who’s up there in the apartment with her, keeping an eye on things, is a fairly good-looking bachelor who has corner to the conclusion she’s a pretty sensible, level-headed sort of girl. In fact, they’re rather hitting it off. I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t beating your time, Lam. What’s more, he’s available and you’re not.”

“Where is this hotel?” I asked.

“The Ocean Beach,” he said. “Want to stay there or here?”

“There.”

“Okay. I’ll arrange it. It’ll take about half an hour.”

He went out, and at the end of half an hour a plain-clothes man opened the door, said, “Come on, Lam.”

I followed him out to a police car. The officer drove slowly and carefully to the Ocean Beach Hotel, which was way out on the waterfront far removed from the scene of the murder and miles from the Happy Daze Camera Company.

The officer escorted me up to the room. It was a nice, airy room.

“What are the restrictions,” I asked, “about going out?”

“You don’t go out.”

“What about a razor, toothbrush and—”

“Your bag is over there in the corner. You’ll get excellent reception on that television. There are the late papers on the table. There are only two ways out of here, the front door and the fire escape. We’ll be watching the front door. Nobody will be watching the fire escape.”

“How come?”

“Well,” he said, “it might be cold and disagreeable sitting out there and watching the fire escape and, frankly, I think the Inspector would rather like to have you go down the fire escape.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, grinning, “it would make the case look better.”

“What case?”

“The case against you.”

“I didn’t know there was any.”

“There isn’t any now, but all we need is just a little more evidence in order to have a peach of a case.”

“I see,” I said. “The Inspector would like to have me resort to flight. Is that it?”

“Well, if you resorted to flight,” the officer said, “we’d certainly have enough to hold you on a murder case. In this state, flight is an evidence of guilt — that is, it can be used in support of a prosecutor’s case.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s certainly nice of you to have told me.”

“Oh, that’s part of my instructions,” the officer said cheerfully. “We want to be sure that if you dust out of here there’s no question about it being flight. You see, I can testify now that I told you.”

“Thanks a lot,” I told him.

“The door won’t be locked,” he said. “You can bolt it from the inside if you’re nervous, but the fire escape is at the end of the hall.”

“I can’t go out the front door.”

“That’ll be guarded,” he said.

“Well, I’m glad to know all the rules,” I told him. “I at least have the dimensions of the trap.”

“The trap?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Inspector Hobart would give his eye-teeth to have me go down the fire escape and resort to flight. He’d love it.”

“He probably would at that,” the officer said, and went out.

I called room service, asked for a double manhattan cocktail, a filet mignon, rare, a baked potato, coffee and apple pie.

I was told that everything would be sent up except the cocktail. Orders were to send up no liquor.

I turned on the television and saw the last twenty minutes of a private-eye program. Then there was news and the weather forecast. After that, the meal came up. I finished the food, phoned for the waiter to take away the dishes and glanced through the newspapers.

There was a little stuff about the case of a man having been murdered in a downtown hotel, but just the usual follow-ups: The police were working on “hot leads” and expected to have a suspect in custody “within another forty-eight hours.”

It was all running according to the regular pattern — the reporters having to make a story, the police having to keep the taxpayers satisfied they were on the job.

It was well after dark when I heard surreptitious knuckles tapping on the door.

I crossed the room and opened the door. Hazel Downer stood on the threshold.

“Donald!” she exclaimed.

“Well, what do you know?” I said. “It’s a small world. Come on in and park the curves. How did you find me here?”

“I followed you.”

“How come?”

“We found that you were being held by the police. My attorney, Madison Ashby, called up from Los Angeles and said he was going to get a habeas corpus unless you were released. They promised him that they’d release you within an hour and take you to a hotel.”

“So then what?”

“I was up in San Francisco keeping in touch with him. He called me and told me, so I went down and parked in front of Headquarters. When the plain-clothes officer drove you out here I followed.”

“And then?”

“I didn’t want to be ostentatious about it, so I waited for a couple of hours, then went and parked my car, got a taxicab, loaded some baggage in the taxicab, came up here just as bold as you please and sailed past the plain-clothes man who’s on duty downstairs, registered, and got a room.”

“Use your right name to register under?”

“Of course not.”

“You were taking a chance on being recognized.”

“I don’t think so. They don’t know me up here.”

I said, “Well, well, what do you know! So you’re here in the hotel.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I’m sure glad to see you. I was afraid I was going to have a lonely evening.”

“What do we do now, Donald?”

“What would you like to do?” I asked.

“I’d like to find out what happened to the money Standley had — the money of mine.”

“What do you think happened to it?”

“I think that Evelyn Ellis got it, but I’m beginning to get all mixed up.”

I grabbed a pad of paper and wrote, “The room is bugged. Follow my lead.”

I shoved that in under her eyes and she laughed throatily and said, “Well, Donald, after all, you’ve been doing a lot of very difficult work for me and I thought it would be a good thing if we sort of brought each other up to date.”

“Well, let’s sit down,” I said, “and I’ll see if I can get a drink... oh, dammit! I can’t get a drink. They won’t serve me anything alcoholic.”

“Why? Do they think you’re a minor?”

I said, “I’m being more or less held in protective custody.”

“What happened, Donald?” she asked.

“Well, let me think,” I said. “I’ll have to kind of figure things out. Sit down over there. I’ve got to powder my nose. I’ll be right with you.”

She sat on the davenport. I put my finger to my lips and sat down beside her. I took the pad and wrote: “Follow my lead. Tell me all the wild-eyed stories you want, but don’t tell me anything you don’t want the police to know. They probably have about three separate bugs in this room. I’m going to tell you facts, but be careful what you say in reply. Don’t ask me specific questions because I may not be in a position to answer.”

After she had read the note I tore it up, tiptoed over to the bathroom door, flushed the note down the toilet, rattled the knob of the door, came back and said, “Well, it sure is nice to see you. I was looking forward to a lonely evening — that is, I anticipated a lonely evening. I wasn’t looking forward to it with any enthusiasm.”

“Can you tell me what happened, Donald?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m not going to tell you all of it because I have some things I want to keep in the background, but here’s generally what happened: I came up here looking around to try and find your lost love for you, and, of course, by the time I really got into the game he had been murdered and I was scrambling around trying to find out something about the murder.

“Now, I’m not particularly interested in the murder because I know you’re interested in the fifty thousand. Tell me, Hazel, were you fond of him?”

“Sure I was fond of him,” she said. And then added, “I’ve been fond of lots of people. When a person has fifty grand it is easier to be fond of him.”

“You’re sure he had it?”

“Oh, yes. He was loaded with money.”

“But you’re sure he had fifty grand?”

“Well, he had quite a slug of money, Donald. He promised me sixty thousand.”

“He promised you?”

“Yes, he was going to give it to me as sort of a nest egg.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, you know what happened. He began to start talking about doing this and doing that and doing the other, and getting more and more vague about what he was going to do with me. Well, it wasn’t very long before I found out about that Evelyn Ellis. You know, a woman has ways of finding out those things. I guess there’s something intuitive in our makeup.”

“And then?” I asked.

“Well, Donald, if you want me to tell you the whole truth, I made a big mistake. I didn’t play my cards right. In place of just getting in and beating that other woman’s time, I made a fool of myself.”

“What did you do?”

“Oh, I accused him of cheating on me and made a scene and all the things that it comes easy for a woman to do under circumstances like that, but which actually are the last things in the world she should do.”

“Then what?”

“Well, then I knew he was getting ready to skip out. I thought he’d leave me fairly well provided for, but the beast just walked out without leaving me anything. That’s why I got you to try and find him. If you could have found him I’d have got money out of him.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know. I told you he’d talked sixty grand to make it look big, but that’s only a figure. I probably would have got fifteen or twenty thousand. You see, I was using you and your partner in sort of a come-on. I’m afraid I’m not very honest, Donald.”

“How would you have gone about making him come through?”

“I know too much about him.”

I closed one eye in a wink and said, “Now listen, Hazel, I want to get this straight. Is there any chance that he was mixed up in that robbery of the armored truck?”

“I don’t think so, Donald. I don’t think there’s a whisper of a chance.”

“Tell me the truth. Did you know Baxley?”

“He called up once or twice. I don’t know how he got my number.”

“You had never had any dates with him?”

“Heavens, no.”

“You told me you said yes to Standley in front of an altar. Was that true?”

“No.”

“You never married him?”

“I said yes to him, but it was in an automobile, not in front of an altar.”

I wrote on the pad: “Keep talking. Never mind what you say. Keep talking.”

She looked at me speculatively and went on, “I suppose you think I’m something of a tramp and I guess perhaps I am. I don’t suppose you have any idea what it means to a girl to realize that she s forfeited her right to the one thing a woman really needs, and that’s security.

“Then Standley came along. He was good to me and the guy was loaded with money. I don’t know where he was making it, but I have a pretty good idea. He was in partnership with someone and they were running a betting service. He fell for me like a ton of bricks. He was going to do a lot for me — he said. He gave me quite a bit of money and I thought there was going to be lots more where that came from. He kept promising me complete financial security. He said he was going to make a settlement on me of sixty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty or sixty?” I asked.

“Sixty,” she said.

I said, “Keep talking.”

All the time she was talking I was writing. I wrote a message:

She read the note and kept right on with her talking, saying, “Donald, I think you’ve been perfectly wonderful. I don’t know why it is that a woman will take a look at some man and feel she can trust him. I guess sometimes it’s a bad way to feel because you get hooked, but I feel I can trust you. I’d do anything for you, anything at all.”

She backed up her statement by nodding her head.

“You don’t think,” I said, “there was any chance that Standley was in partnership with Baxley and that they robbed that—”

“Don’t be silly, Donald,” she interrupted. “Standley wasn’t that kind of a man at all. He was a gambler, and, frankly, Donald, I think he was some sort of a con man. I don’t know. He had some way of making money and it just rolled in. I’ve never seen a man who was as loaded with money as Standley Downer.

“I liked him. At first, I guess I was in love with him and I probably would have stayed in love with him if it hadn’t been for the way he acted with Evelyn.

“However, I came to know him pretty well after we’d had our so-called marriage. Standley was restless. He was a man who was never satisfied with anything except motion and change. He had to be going from one thing to another just as fast as he could. He could never settle down. He couldn’t settle down with anyone.

“What makes me mad about Evelyn is that she was just a gold digger. Oh, I know... I’m not supposed to be anything but a gold digger myself. But I can tell you, Donald, that’s been my trouble. I haven’t looked out for Number One enough. I’ve always gone along with some guy and... well, that’s the way it is — that’s the way I am.”

“How many guys have you gone along with?” I asked.

“Too many,” she said. “Not many in one way, but too many in another. No one’s going to come along and propose marriage to me and expect me to wear a white bridal veil walking down to the altar. No one’s going to propose marriage to me, period. I’ve been a kept woman and kept women can’t quit.”

“I can understand how you felt about Standley,” I said.

“I knew you could, Donald. You’re understanding.”

I nodded my head and pointed to the door.

“Well, Donald,” she said, “I’ve got to go. I just had to see you, I wanted to talk with you and... I don’t know, Donald. I want you to understand me.

“Now, I’ve got to go down to my room and write some letters and then get some beauty sleep. Will I see you in the morning?”

“Why not?” I asked. “How about breakfast?”

“Donald, I just want you to know how much I appreciate your loyalty and devotion and... and I’m going to kiss you good night.”

We went to the door. I opened the door. She said, “Good night, Donald.”

I said speculatively, “Do you have to go, Hazel?”

She laughed throatily and said, “Of course I have to go, Donald. I’m... well, I’m indiscreet, but I’m not a tramp. Anything with you would be just casual. I’m not casual, I’m... oh, I don’t know. See you for breakfast, Donald. Good night.”

She kissed me. It was quite a kiss.

I walked out and closed the door, took the key Hazel had given me, went down to her room; then, after a while, went out to the fire escape and looked out.

Everything seemed to be clear.

The fire escape was one of those iron stairway affairs that zigzagged down the side of the building. The bottom segment was on a powerful spring which held the iron ladder high enough so it couldn’t be reached from the ground. However, when a person descended the ladder, the weight of his body caused the last section of the ladder to lower.

I prowled around the hallway until I located a utility closet. It was locked but a celluloid pocket calendar about the size of a business card furnished a flexible medium which could be wormed in the crack of the door and was firm enough to push back the latch on the spring lock.

I looked around inside among the odds and ends in the closet and finally found a small coil of rope.

I went back to the fire escape, reconnoitered once more, crawled out on the fire escape, walked down the iron stairway until I came to the last section.

I felt my way cautiously down the last leg of the fire escape. Under my weight the metallic stairway slowly descended.

I knew I was being a sucker. I knew that the one thing the police wanted was to have me resort to flight. However, I had no alternative if I was going to stand a whisper of a chance of getting my hands on that fifty grand that I’d lost.

On the last step of the fire escape I passed the rope around the iron tread, tied it in a knot, then jumped down to the ground. Relieved of my weight, the spring in the iron stairway moved it smoothly back up to a point some fifteen feet off the ground.

The rope was a little short but by jumping up I could catch hold of the end.

I walked around the back of the hotel through an alley, stayed with the alley for two blocks, came out on a street which led to the beach. It was ten or fifteen minutes before I picked up a cruising taxicab.

I sent the cab driver toward town, telling him I’d have to give him the destination by sight because I couldn’t remember the street address.

Halfway to town I had him stop at a phone booth. I called Ernestine’s apartment.

A feminine voice answered.

“Ernestine?” I asked.

“Just a moment. I’ll call her.”

I figured that was either Bernice or a policewoman who had been assigned to stay with Ernestine.

A few moments later, Ernestine’s voice, sounding rather cautious, said, “Hello.”

“Don’t mention any names, Ernestine,” I said. “Are you alone?”

“No.”

“I know Bernice is there. Is there an officer there?”

“No, just Bernice and I.”

“This is Donald,” I said. “I want to see you.”

“Donald!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Donald, I do so want to see you! Can you come up?”

“I’m coming up,” I said.

“Oh, Donald, I have so much to tell you. Oh, it’s been such an exciting day! Such a simply wonderful, wonderful—”

“Save it,” I said. “I don’t know whether your phone is bugged or not. If it is, you won’t see me because they’ll have me in custody the minute I step out of the taxicab. If I get as far as your room I’m probably all right. Be ready to open the door as soon as you hear my knock, and, if possible, I’d like to talk with Bernice as well as you.”

“Oh, Bernie is terribly thrilled. She—”

“Save it,” I told her, “until I get there.”

I hung up, got back to the taxicab and didn’t seem too positive of where I wanted to go. “It’s an apartment house somewhere,” I said. “I’ll get you in the district and then we’ll have to cruise a bit until I find it. I’ll know it when I see it. I’ve been there a couple of times but I forget the name of the place.”

The cab driver was co-operative. He was also curious. If there were any spots in that district that he didn’t know about he wanted to be sure he didn’t remain too long in ignorance.

I sent him down one street, then back on another, suddenly said, “Here it is. That apartment house over there.”

The cab driver pulled up and took a good look at the place. I paid him off and went in.

I guess Ernestine must have been sitting by the door with one hand on the knob. I’d no sooner given the first preliminary tap than the door opened wide. I went in.

“Oh, Donald!” she said. “I’m so thrilled! Donald, this is Bernice. You know all about her.”

Bernice was a stunning-looking babe, a brunette with big, limpid eyes and curves that seemed to be trying to push their way through the clothes she was wearing. She certainly knew how to use those eyes and knew how to present her nylons to the best advantage.

“All right,” I said to Ernestine, “what happened today?”

She said, “Bernie will help us, Donald.”

I looked over at Bernice.

Bernice batted her eyes a couple of times and smiled, a tremulous, wistful smile.

It was easy to see that Bernice didn’t need to eat at home except when she wanted to.

I said, “Are you still willing to help me, Ernestine?”

“Anything,” she said. “Only...”

“Only what?” I asked.

“I have to co-operate with the police, too, you know.”

“Why?”

“Well, they told me I did. They’re working on a murder and... well, you know how it is.”

“Sure,” I said, “I understand.”

I turned to Bernice. “How about you?” I said.

She made with the eyes and then smoothed down the hem of her skirt and ran the tips of her fingers nervously along her stocking. “What can I do?” she asked.

I said, “I want to know a few things about Evelyn Ellis that it may be the hotel wouldn’t want you to talk about.”

“I’ve told the police all I know.”

“No, you haven’t,” I said, trying to follow the lead Ernestine had hinted at. “What about Evelyn’s sex life?”

“I wouldn’t know — except I guess there was plenty of it.”

“Come on,” I said, “this is for Ernestine. You’re going to help her by telling me some of the things you know that I want to know.”

“Well, she’s considerably over twenty-one. I would say she wasn’t entirely inexperienced — you wouldn’t expect that, would you?”

“I wouldn’t expect it,” I said. “I’m not asking you if she’s a virgin, if that’s what you mean.”

“I thought that’s what you meant.”

I said, “Bernice, quit stalling.”

“What do you want to know?”

“About the Japanese photographer,” I said.

“Oh, you mean the fellow with the rattling staccato voice — he’s a dear.”

“All right,” I said. “What do you know about him?”

“Nothing. I’ve never met him. I know, of course, the number she calls, the Happy Daze Camera Company. They take model photographs and they’ve done all of her publicity photography.”

“And there’s a friendly relationship?”

“Oh, yes.”

“How friendly?”

“I don’t think she goes overboard with him, if that’s what you mean, but... it’s a relationship that’s hard to explain. He just worships the ground she walks on. She’s his goddess, his inspiration. You know, I’ll bet that he thinks she’s a sweet, loyal, lovable girl and as pure as the driven snow.”

“There have been quite a few telephone conversations?”

“She calls him quite frequently and I hear his voice on the line.”

“What do they talk about?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t listen.”

“Now,” I said, “we’re getting someplace. I’m going to have to put through a long-distance phone call. I’ll get charges and give you the money to cover, but I want you, Bernice, to put through the call in your name. Then I’ll talk.”

“Whom do I call?” she asked.

“Carl Dover Christopher, the president of Christopher, Crowder and Doyle In Chicago. You’ll have to get him at his home number. I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble. He’s rather a wealthy man and a prominent man.”

She laughed and said, “The number, in case you want it, is Madison 6-497183.”

I tried to keep the surprise from registering. I said casually, “You’ve heard Inspector Hobart talking with him.”

She said, “I don’t know anything about that, but he’s got a terrific crush on Evelyn: You know, she was a stenographer or something in one of the importing firms and the public relations man was looking for a model who could give a lot of cheesecake and get them some publicity. You know how it is. A newspaper photographer is naturally looking for something that will catch the eye. You can’t get photographs of an exhibition of hardware and get any newspaper coverage. You have to—”

“Never mind that,” I said. “Tell me about Carl Christopher.”

“Well, I know that he met her back there and in some way he got her entered in the contest.”

“How do you know?”

“Because when he came out here on a business trip about three weeks after the convention he telephoned Evelyn. She was in Los Angeles at the time and arranged to meet him here. She came up and stayed here at the hotel, registered under the name of Beverly Kettle. That’s the first time I heard her other name of Evelyn Ellis. Mr. Christopher used to call for her as Evelyn Ellis. She asked us telephone girls to put through any calls that came for Evelyn Ellis to her room. She said Beverly Kettle was the name she was registered under but Evelyn Ellis was her stage name.”

“Was she living with Carl Christopher for a while?” I asked.

“They had rooms on the same floor of the hotel. Nobody did any peeping at the keyhole. Mr. Christopher is an important man. He’s the president of a big cutlery company, but... well, he was entertaining some customers and I guess he was being entertained himself and... anyway, I know they were friends and I know that Evelyn has called him — oh, a dozen times while she’s been here in the hotel.”

“At the company?” I asked, frowning. “Why didn’t Inspector Hobart—”

“Oh, not at the company,” she said. “She calls him at his club. That’s his home number. He lives in a club. He’s a widower and that’s his private number at the club. Miss Ellis put calls through station to station.”

I went over to sit down on the davenport.

“You want me to call him?” Bernice asked.

I thought it over a minute and said, “I want you to call him very much indeed.”

She went over to the phone, put through the call and within two minutes I heard a masculine voice with the tone of authority come booming over the line.

I said, “Mr. Christopher, this is an investigator working on that San Francisco homicide. I—”

“My God,” he groaned. “Can’t you folks give a man any peace at all? I’ve been talking with inspectors and detectives all day. I’ve told you all I know. I made it a point to look up the records personally so there’d be no—”

“That isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said.

“Well, what do you want to talk to me about?”

I said, “Have you made any special shipments of samples within the last few days because of any personal request that you might consider unusual?”

“No.”

“Has anyone called you up and asked you to send out a rush sample of—”

“No.”

I thought of Inspector Hobart and his condemnation of short cuts, his discounting brilliant detective work. I said, “All right, I’m sorry, Mr. Christopher. I’m sorry I had to bother you. I guess I was working on a bum lead.”

He said, “Well, I wish you folks wouldn’t disturb me. My God, I’m sorry I ever brought out the knife. And yet it’s a good number.”

“A ready sale?”

“Selling like hot cakes here in the East,” he said.

“But no sales on the Coast?”

“No. We’re getting a lot of repeat orders out of the East and our shipments have been limited. That’s a very special grade of steel and you don’t just turn that stuff out like the ordinary cutlery. That’s real quality.”

“You say your shipments are limited?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he said. “We don’t do manufacturing on our numbers. We sell them. This is an imported article.”

“Where’s it from?” I asked.

“Japan. The blades are made in Sweden, the handles in Japan.”

I gripped the receiver. “Where did you say?”

“Japan,” he said. “What’s the matter, haven’t you got a good connection? I can hear you perfectly.”

“Can you give me the name of the firm that does the manufacturing?”

“Not offhand,” he said. “It’s some kind of a jaw-breaking name.”

I said, “How did you happen to get onto the article in the first place? In other words, why should a knife made in Japan be brought to a cutlery company in Chicago and—”

“Because we can give them the best merchandising outlet they can possibly get,” Christopher said. “The number was first called to our attention by a Japanese importing company here in Chicago.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I remember the background on that now. That was where Miss American Hardware worked, wasn’t it?”

“I believe so. It was the Mizukaido Importing Company.”

“Big importers?”

“That’s right. They’re big importers — represent a bunch of Japanese manufacturers, mostly heavy goods. They don’t go in for the cameras, binoculars and other stuff, but cutlery mostly, and novelties and knick-knacks.”

“Thanks,” I told him. “I’m sorry. We’ll try not to bother you again.”

“Tell your men to try and get together on this stuff. What did you say your name was, Inspector?”

I gently slipped the phone back into the cradle.

“What is it, Donald?” Ernestine asked.

I said, “That’s one of the pitfalls of investigative work. You get all loused up on sequences.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

I said, “Everybody looks up the distributor who sells those knives, Christopher, Crowder and Doyle. Nobody thinks of trying to find who supplies Christopher, Crowder and Doyle with their knives or when the first samples were brought into the country.

“Moreover, I’m so dumb it never occurred to me that a person doesn’t get elected queen of the wholesale hardware convention and become Miss American Hardware and then have portraits taken in a bathing suit. The portraits come first.”

“Of course they come first,” Bernice said. “I tried out for one of those jobs once. This was a credit association meeting. All applicants had to be photographed and accompany their applications with bathing-suit photographs.”

“Did you win?” I asked.

“No.”

“How come?”

“I was dumb. I thought the bathing suit I was to be photographed in should be the bathing suit I was going to wear for the final judging. Some of the other girls were more generous.”

“You mean Bikini bathing suits?”

“I mean Bikini bathing suits,” she said. “They attracted the attention of the nominating committee — in a big way.”

I said to her, “Listen, Bernice, I’ve got to get in that hotel. I want to get in so that no one knows I’m in the hotel. You’ve been there for a while. You know the bell captain who’s on nights, I want to talk with him on the phone.”

“But why can’t you just walk right in and—”

“He’s hot,” Ernestine said. “Don’t you understand, Bernie? He’s hotter than a stove lid. If he’s going to case the joint he’s got to do it under cover.”

I looked at her and tried to keep from smiling at the way she’d picked up crook lingo from the television. All it needed was one look at her eager countenance and her sparkling eyes to see how she was so engrossed in this thing that she had completely lost sight of all of her inhibitions.

Bernice said, “This bell captain is... I’ve been out with him a couple of times.”

“That’s fine,” I told her, “he’ll do what you want.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t do what he wanted.”

“Then he’ll be sure to,” I said. “Get him on the phone. Tell him it’s a favor.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk with him.”

Bernice dialed the hotel and asked for the bell captain by name. After a moment she nodded, “His name is Chris,” she said.

I said, “Hello, Chris. I have a favor I want you to do for me.”

“Who is this talking?”

“I’m a friend of Bernice.”

“Yeah?” he asked, and his voice was suddenly cold.

“I haven’t seen her in years,” I said. “I’m from Los Angeles. I looked her up because I wanted to get your name.”

“Oh, yeah?” he said, and this time there was a note of curiosity in his voice but the cold enmity was gone.

I said, “I want to get in the hotel. I have fifty bucks that says you’re going to help me.”

“Fifty bucks is awfully damned eloquent,” he said. “What do you want?”

I said, “I want you to come up to Bernice’s apartment and bring a bell boy’s uniform. I’m going to put it on and go back to the hotel with you.”

There was silence for a moment. Then he said, “I might get into trouble over this.”

“Not if no one knew anything about it,” I said.

“Well, people have a way of finding those things out and—”

“Okay,” I said. “It’s a business proposition with me. I’m a magazine writer working on a story in connection with the murder. I can peddle the story for five hundred bucks. I’m willing to pay something for expenses but I’m not going to give you all of my profits and then turn around and give some more to the Government. If you don’t want to do it, forget it.”

“I want to do it,” he said hastily.

“All right,” I said. “Bring the uniform up to Bernice’s apartment. Can you get a uniform?”

“That’s no trouble,” he said, “but I don’t know your size. I—”

I said, “Bernice can tell you about the size.”

I turned to Bernice and said, “Bernice, you know the boys there at the hotel. Is there one of them who’s about my size and build?”

Bernice looked me over for a moment, then said, “Tell him to get a suit that would fit Eddie.”

I said, “Bernice said get a suit that would—”

“I heard her,” he said. “She’s there, huh? How long have you been there?”

“Just got in.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’m coming right up.”

Bernice seemed thoughtful and a little worried but Ernestine was so excited she could hardly sit down. She’d stay put for a minute or two, then get up and run out to the kitchen to get a drink of water.

I had a chance to do some thinking before Chris got there.

I could see why Bernice hesitated after I saw Chris. He looked Bernice over the way a cattle buyer would inspect a steer that he was thinking about putting in a feed lot. With him, Bernice was merchandise.

The uniform fitted me as though it had been tailored for me.

I gave Chris fifty bucks. He had his own car outside.

“I want to borrow a couple of suitcases,” I told Ernestine.

She dug out the suitcases: one of hers, one of Bernice’s.

“Will we get these back?” Bernice asked suspiciously.

“Of course you will, Bernie,” Ernestine said before I could say a word. “Mr. Lam is—”

I gave her a warning look.

“A reputable magazine writer,” she finished. “You’ve read his stuff in lots of the magazines. Your suitcase is just as safe with him as it would be right there in the closet.”

I loaded the suitcases with some extra newspapers and magazines to give them weight. On the way back to the hotel I said to Chris, “Now, I’ll want a passkey and—”

“Whoa, back up,” he said. “We don’t give passkeys to anyone.”

“I thought the passkey was included in the seventy-dollar—”

“Seventy. You gave me fifty.”

“The hell I did! It wasn’t seventy?”

“It was fifty.”

“Well, it should have been seventy,” I said, “and that, of course, included the passkey.”

“Say,” he said, “you’re a fast worker.”

I said, “When I go in with the suitcases you just walk around, pick up the passkey and hand it to me.”

“It’s fastened to a big metal ring,” he said. “It—”

“I don’t care what it’s fastened to,” I told him. “I want the passkey.”

“That could cost me my job.”

“Well,” I said, “perhaps I was right, after all. It only was a fifty-dollar job.”

“All right, give me the additional twenty,” he said.

I gave him the twenty.

We got to the hotel and I barged in, carrying the suitcases, with my head down and my shoulders forward as though the suitcases were plenty heavy.

Chris walked around behind the clerk’s desk, said something to the clerk, received a nod in return, and came back carrying a passkey which was chained to a wide metal loop.

He handed me the passkey and turned away.

I went to the elevators, up to the seventh floor, got off the elevator and started knocking on doors.

The first door I tried brought a big man in shirt-sleeves and in his stocking feet, to the door.

“You phone the bell captain to send these suitcases up here?” I asked.

He said, “No,” and closed the door, hard.

I tried two more rooms and got turned down on both occasions. There was no answer at the third room. I made sure no one was going to answer, then I fitted the passkey and opened the door.

The bed was made up, the towels were all neat, there was no baggage in the room. It was an unoccupied room.

I parked the suitcases and the passkey, made certain that the catch on the door was fixed so it would remain unlocked, went out into the corridor and walked down to Evelyn Ellis’ room.

I listened for a moment to make certain that she didn’t have company. I couldn’t hear any voices.

I tapped on the door.

Evelyn opened the door.

She was all dolled up in filmy stuff that made a sort of aura around a naked body as she stood in the doorway with the bright light behind her. I could see she’d fixed herself up in her most seductive garb, and she’d put in a lot of time being certain that it was sufficiently revealing. With the light behind her it was quite a sight. She evidently was expecting someone she wanted to impress.

“You!” she said, and started to slam the door.

I lowered a shoulder, charged the door, shot it out of her hand, and walked in.

She looked at me with concentrated venom. “So now you’re a bell boy! Well, Mr. Lam, you’re getting out, and getting out now,” she said. “If you don’t, I’ll call—”

“The police again?” I asked. “That would be interesting.”

“Damn you!” she said.

I said, “Sit down, Evelyn. You may as well take it easy. The Chinese have a saying, you know, about things that are inevitable and about relaxation.”

“You’d be surprised how many times I’ve heard that,” she said.

I walked over to a chair and sat down. I said, “Let’s try putting things together. Who’s your friend in the Mizukaido Importing Company?”

She said, “I could spit on you! You are the most contemptible, snooping—”

I said, “Don’t go flying off the handle before you know what I’m here for. I’m trying to help you out and tearing off your clothes won’t work this time. Whether you know it or not, you’re on the spot.”

“What do you mean, on the spot?”

I said, “My wife and I rented the apartment in Los Angeles after you moved out. I put my trunk in the garage. I can prove that you deliberately switched trunks so that you could trap Standley Downer into picking up my trunk instead of his. Then you had his trunk sent to you. You found a secret compartment in it, got fifty grand out of it, and then had no further use for Standley Downer.

“You were working with the Mizukaido Importing Company in Chicago. You met Carl Christopher. He was a big shot in the hardware industry. He took an interest in you. You started selling him things. Then Jasper Diggs Calhoun, the public relations man, got the idea of a Miss American Hardware to show cheesecake and pulchritudinous curves for a publicity background to advertise the convention.

“I imagine Mr. Christopher was either on the nominating committee or else he was the one who did the selecting.

“He selected you. It was through his influence you got the job and got the publicity. You have taken various occasions and various methods of expressing gratitude.”

“All right,” she said. “So what? I had the winning figure, didn’t I?”

“How would I know?” I asked.

She looked me over carefully, speculatively, thoughtfully. “Want to take a look?” she asked challengingly. She stood up and started fumbling with a fastener someplace. Then she paused seductively. “Well, Donald?”

“Are you trying to change the subject?” I asked.

“Are you?” she wanted to know.

It was at that moment the door, which had not been fully closed, was pushed open and Bertha Cool, attired in a gray business suit, came striding into the room.

“Never mind, dearie,” she said. “Keep your clothes on. You’re not dealing with a man now. You’re going to talk to me.”

“Who are you, and what are you doing in here?” Evelyn demanded. “How dare you come striding in here in this way? How dare you?—”

Bertha reached out, put a hand on Evelyn’s chest and gave a push. Evelyn came down on the davenport so hard I saw her head jar.

“Don’t pull that line with me,” Bertha said. “I don’t let trollops get upstage with me.”

Bertha turned to me. “I was outside the door long enough to hear your summary of the situation. Now what the hell are you after?”

“Right now,” I said, “I’m trying to find the murderer of Standley Downer. I was in a position to make some pretty good progress when you came barging in and upset the apple cart.”

“Phooey!” Bertha said. “I got here just in time. When a babe like this starts talking about what she used to win the bathing beauty contest, you’re in the first stages of a trance.

“Tell me what you want out of this bitch and I’ll get it.”

I said, “She worked for the Mizukaido Importing Company. She became friendly with Carl Christopher of the firm of Christopher, Crowder and Doyle, who are big cutlery distributors, among other things.

“Evelyn started going out with Carl. When a very interesting development in steel carving knives came along, Evelyn told the importing company she thought she could interest Christopher, Crowder and Doyle.

“She did.”

“When it came time to select a Miss American Hardware for the New Orleans convention, with a lot of newspaper publicity, some Hollywood screen tests, some television appearances and all that goes with it, Evelyn decided she’d been working long enough. She put the bug on her friend, Carl Christopher. He told her to have some bathing beauty shots made and sent in to the nominating committee. He also told her she’d better have them made on the Coast and better have a Coast address so it wouldn’t appear that he was pulling for one of his friends.

“As nearly as I can put two and two together, Evelyn went to her grateful Japanese friends in the importing company and they put her in touch with Takahashi Kisarazu at the Happy Daze Camera Company.

“Now then, I was just going to take it from there when you burst in and—”

“And a damn good thing I did,” Bertha said. “She was getting ready to give you the full treatment. Give a babe like that an hour alone with an impressionable little bastard like you and you wouldn’t be worth a damn.

“Now I’ll take over and—”

The phone rang.

Before Bertha could reach it, Evelyn had picked it up, said, “Hello... I have company at the moment—” Her voice showed sudden enthusiasm. “Why, yes, Inspector Hobart,” she said. “I’ll be only too glad to see you. There are some people here, but I think they’re just leaving. Why don’t you come on up? There is someone with you? Well, that’s wonderful... No, no, not at all. I’ll be glad to see you. Come on up.”

She stood there at the phone, smiling. I figured Bertha could take care of herself. I knew I was going to have my hands full taking care of myself. I shot out the door, dashed down the corridor, went into the vacant room where I’d planted the suitcases, locked the door, and waited.

It was a job just sitting there and waiting. I could hear my heart pounding. I heard the elevator doors clang. I heard steps in the corridor.

I waited for a while for things to quiet down, then I took the two suitcases, ran to the door marked STAIRS, dashed down three flights of stairs, then rang for the elevator and came down in my bell boy uniform, carrying the two suitcases out through the lobby to the front.

The clerk slammed his palm down on a bell and yelled, “Front!” Then yelled, “Boy! Oh, boy!... hey, you!”

I put the two suitcases down.

“Take Mr. Jackson to 813,” he said. “Unless you—”

I looked at the man who had given the name of Jackson. It was none other than my friend, Jasper Diggs Calhoun, of Los Angeles. He didn’t recognize me in the bell boy uniform, standing there with the suitcases.

I said, “I’m taking them out to a guest who’s waiting for a cab in the front,” I said.

“Oh, all right,” the clerk said. He turned to Calhoun and said, “Just a moment, Mr. Jackson. I’ll have another boy here.”

The clerk slammed his palm down on the bell. “Front!” he called.

I picked up the two suitcases, then went out to the sidewalk. Fortunately there was a cab there. I handed the suitcases to the cab driver. He stowed the suitcases, then stood there waiting expectantly for a guest to come out.

I jumped in the cab and said, “I’m delivering the suitcases to an apartment straight down the street.”

We got away from there, down the street and around the corner. There were no red lights, no sirens, no whistles, nothing.

I heaved a sigh of relief.

I told the cabbie to wait in front of the apartment house. I delivered the suitcases to the apartment and told Bernice and Ernestine that it might be just as well if they failed to remember anything that had happened. I changed my clothes in the bathroom, gave Bernice the uniform I’d worn, went back to the cab and had the driver take me out to within about five blocks of the Ocean Beach Hotel.

I walked down through the alley, reconnoitered the fire escape, grabbed the end of the cord, pulled the section of iron stairway down to its lowest position, jumped up, caught the iron rail and hoisted myself up to the stairs. I untied the light rope, wrapped it around my body and climbed the fire escape.

I got to the floor I wanted, slipped in through the window and went down to the room Hazel had rented.

I started to put the key in the lock and then heard the phone ringing, steadily, insistently.

That was something I hadn’t counted on. If I answered and the police heard a man’s voice they’d know what had happened. If no one answered they’d wonder where the hell Hazel was and probably would put two and two together.

I dashed down the corridor, tapped gently on the door of my room.

Hazel, attired only in panties and bra, opened it, started to say something, then caught herself. I dragged her out in the corridor, handed her the key to her room. “Get down there fast,” I whispered. “The phone is ringing. They’re checking up on you. Tell them you were in the bathroom.”

“I’m half naked,” she whispered. “I slipped my dress off—”

“Get started,” I said, and gave her a slap on the behind as I opened the door to my room, tiptoed inside, coughed a couple of times, then yawned sleepily.

I went to the bathroom, washed the dirt of the fire escape off my hands, and was just returning when the door surreptitiously opened and Hazel came in.

I frowned at her.

She gestured toward the scanties she was wearing by way of explanation, walked over to the closet, took a dress from the hanger and stood looking at me, hesitating somewhat. Her eyes were sultry and inviting.

Abruptly the telephone shattered the silence of the room.

I let it ring five or six times, then went over and picked up the receiver and said sleepily, “Hello.”

Inspector Hobart’s voice said, “Hello, Lam. I guess I woke you up.”

“I suppose,” I said angrily, “you want some more ideas.”

“I thought you’d like to know,” Inspector Hobart said, “that down in Los Angeles, Dover C. Inman, proprietor of the Full Dinner Pail, has just made a confession to Sergeant Frank Sellers, admitting that he and Herbert Baxley were in partnership on that armored car deal.

“The two drivers of the car had got sweet on a couple of the babes who were car hopping and Inman put it up to them to get the keys out of the pockets of the driver and the guard. I don’t need to tell you how they did it, but Inman got the waxed impressions of the keys had duplicate keys made, and when the armored car stopped for coffee, Baxley pretended to be changing a tire. He had his car parked right in back of the armored truck. He knew that there was a shipment of one hundred thousand dollars in thousand dollar bills being sent to one of the banks on the order of Standley Downer. Downer wanted to get his money in the form of cash because he was planning on going bye-bye with Evelyn Ellis. Baxley had a tip from a friend of Evelyn’s.

“Under the circumstances, Frank Sellers is feeling pretty damn good. He’s even friendly toward you. He recovered all but six thousand dollars of the money. He’s vindicated his own name, solved the armored car case, and told me to tell you he always had been a friend of yours — that you exasperated him at times by your cocksure manner, but he thought you were, to use his own words, ‘one swell little bastard.’

“So,” Inspector Hobart said, “you’re out of quarantine, Lam. You can do anything you damn please. Incidentally, as you probably know, your little girl friend, Hazel, is registered in your hotel under the name of Hazel Bickley. She’s in Room 417, which is on your same floor. You might like to give her a ring.”

“She’s here?”

“That’s right.”

“You put her in here at this hotel?”

“She put herself there,” Inspector Hobart said. “I was baiting a trap. You were the bait. Her attorney kept ringing up and pestering for your release so we gave him a definite time. That was so he could have his client alerted and she could follow you. The officer who drove you out to the hotel certainly had to act dumb to keep from ‘discovering’ her tagging along. My God, the opinion you amateurs must have of cops!”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “If Frank Sellers recovered the loot from that armored car job, what the hell happened to the fifty grand I got?”

“That’s your hard luck, Lam,” he said. “Sergeant Sellers had a theft from an armored truck. He solved that. I’ve got a murder case. I haven’t solved that — not yet.

“You’ve lost fifty grand. You haven’t solved that, and my best guess is, you’re not going to.

“We’ve all got our troubles. All God’s chillun got troubles.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “Have you seen Evelyn Ellis within the last couple of hours?”

“Nope. We shook her room down, didn’t find anything, and she’s off the list — at least for the present. Now, in case you’re planning on any nocturnal confidential conferences — and you’ll notice I’m being very tactful — with your client, Hazel Clune, alias Hazel Doner, alias Hazel Bickley, I might warn you that the room you’re in is bugged. We’ve been having you under audible surveillance ever since you went in there. We even have a tape recording of your talk with Hazel.”

“The hell!” I said.

Inspector Hobart chuckled. “I can’t say I admire your taste in television programs, Lam. You were doing so much masterminding that I thought sure you’d tune in on these Hollywood private-eye programs. I hardly expected you to suffer through all the romantic agonies of a sickening love story on television, but damned if you didn’t stay with it. I—”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “You weren’t in the Caltonia Hotel? You didn’t go up to see Evelyn Ellis tonight?”

“No, not within the last two hours.”

I said, “Look, Inspector, do me a favor. It’ll take me about thirty-five minutes to get up to that hotel. Will you go up there with me?”

“Why?”

“I’ve got something hot.”

“Another one of your brilliant ideas?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, for your information,” he said, “I’m going home and then going to bed. I’m not going to go running around the city at night just because you have some brilliant ideas you want to tell me about.”

I said, “Inspector, this is important. Please—”

“Forget it,” he snapped. “You’ve had enough brain storms for one day.”

I said, “All right. Let me tell you something. Evelyn worked for the Mizukaido Importing Company. This was before she ever became Miss American Hardware. Carl Christopher, President of the Christopher, Crowder and Doyle Cutlery Company, fell for her. She used the contact to feather her own nest and also to sell a big order for the Mizukaido Importing Company, for which she probably got a commission. The big order, in case you’re interested, was the exclusive United States distributorship of the thin carving sets made of imported Swedish steel and with a synthetic plastic handle made to resemble onyx.

“Outside of the manager of the Japanese importing company she was the first person in the United States to have one of those carving knives. She took a sample up and sold Carl Christopher on them. Now then, do you want to—”

“Hell’s bells!” he said, and slammed up the telephone.

I turned to Hazel who was standing there sweetly seductive, holding the dress in one hand.

“Get it on, kid, get it on!” I yelled at her. “We’re fighting minutes. The sonofabitch is going to short cut me and go up to Evelyn’s room.”

I jiggled the phone until the desk answered and said, “Get me a taxi and get it quick.”