Kept Women Can’t Quit

Chapter 4

The garage was padlocked. Mrs. Charlotte reluctantly gave me the key and told me it was the last key she had and be sure not to lose it. The previous occupant had taken the key with her when she left. She’d turned in the key to the apartment but had kept the key to the garage.

I assured Mrs. Charlotte I’d have a duplicate key made at my own expense and give her back her key.

I drove out to the garage, fitted the key to the padlock, snapped back the hasp and opened the door.

The only ventilation was through a little louvered window in the side wall just below the roof. The place was fairly dark and smelled musty.

I turned on the light.

There was a collection of junk from several previous occupants; an old casing, a jack handle, an ancient hub cap, some empty oil cans, some greasy coveralls, a water-stiffened piece of chamois skin, old and worn, and a brand-new trunk in the middle of the floor.

I examined it carefully. It was of a standard, expensive make and It was securely locked.

I gave the matter thoughtful consideration. The trunk was sitting in the exact center of the floor where anyone entering the garage couldn’t help but see it. Evelyn had left Mrs. Charlotte a note stating she was leaving, that her rent was paid up, that Mrs. Charlotte could re-rent the apartment. She had placed the key to the apartment in the note but she hadn’t returned the key to the garage.

Quite obviously, then, Evelyn intended to give the key to the garage to some person to come and get the trunk and take it to her, or ship it to her. She had given this person the key to the garage and, so there could be no question, had left the trunk in the middle of the floor where it couldn’t possibly be missed.

I left the garage, locked the padlock, jumped in the agency heap and cruised down the street until I came to the first good-looking hardware store I could find.

I bought the very best padlock in the store. It was guaranteed to be unpickable. There were two keys which came with the padlock.

I hurried back to the garage, unlocked the old padlock, made sure the trunk was still there, put the new padlock on the door, drove down the block and called Mrs. Charlotte.

When I had her on the phone I said, “This is Mr. Lam, Mrs. Charlotte. I’m going to have to store some rather valuable papers in the garage and I don’t like the idea of the previous occupant having a key which hasn’t been turned in, so I’m going to put a new padlock on the door. I’m having extra keys made for you.”

“Why, that’s very thoughtful of you, Mr. Lam,” she said. “I have a call in for the maid. I’m trying to get the apartment cleaned up before evening.”

“Don’t worry too much about it,” I said. “My wife will get the worst of it out of the way. I’ll be seeing you later.”

“You’ll be in this evening?”

“I’ll probably have to go to San Francisco,” I said. “I’m waiting on a call now, but I’ll let you know. My wife will be there.”

I stopped in at a baggage store, bought myself a trunk of the same make and size as the one in the garage, went to my apartment and packed it full of clothes.

I wrote myself a letter addressing myself as George Biggs Gridley. The letter read:

I signed the letter with the initials “L. N. M.” and placed it in the side pocket of a sports coat I packed in the trunk.

After I’d closed the trunk, I packed a suitcase and a handbag, taking everything I’d need to keep me going for a week. Then I drove back to the Breeze-Mount Apartments and lugged the suitcase and handbag into the elevator.

Elsie had gone through the wastebasket and had a few crumpled papers smoothed out on the desk.

“Find anything?” I asked.

“There are some telephone numbers on these pieces of paper,” she said. “One of them, I think, is a San Francisco number.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

I copied the numbers into my notebook. “Anything else?”

“Rancid cosmetics, ends of lipsticks, various and sundry articles of female litter,” she said, “and that’s about it.”

“Okay,” I said. “The landlady’s trying to get hold of the maid so you can have the place cleaned up. Call a taxicab. When the cab comes, go to your apartment, pack up a suitcase with whatever you’ll need for two days and hurry back.”

She started to say something, then changed her mind, went to the closet and put on her coat.

“Give me the key,” I said. “You can close the door when you go out.”

“What will I do when I come back?”

“If I’m not here the key will be at the desk,” I told her.

I hurried down to the car, drove it into the driveway, unlocked the new padlock on the garage and took the trunk which was in the center of the floor and moved it far back into the shadows. Then I backed my car halfway into the garage, opened the back, rustled out my trunk and left it right in the middle of the floor where the other trunk had been. Then I drove the car out of the garage, locked the garage with the new padlock, parked my car near the curb and went back up to the apartment.

“Okay, Elsie,” I said, “you can leave as soon as the cab comes.”

“I’ll have to stop by a supermarket and grab some groceries,” she said.

“Sure thing,” I told her. “Get some coffee, cream, sugar, eggs, salt, bread, bacon — stuff of that sort — and get the place provisioned up. The manager may start checking. Get the taxi driver to carry your stuff to the elevator. If I’m here I’ll come and carry it in the rest of the way. Otherwise, you’ll have to rustle it in by yourself.”

“If you’re not here, will you get in touch with me and let me know where you are?”

I took down the number of the telephone and said, “Sure. I’ll be in touch with you. Now, you go ahead and get your stuff.”

The manager phoned to say the cab had arrived.

“Well,” Elsie said, putting on her coat, “as a dutiful wife, I’ll follow instructions. I hadn’t imagined being married to you would be like this, Donald. I’ll be back as fast as I can make it.”

After Elsie had left I sat there hoping the phone wouldn’t ring. I knew that if it did ring I’d have to let it ring. If a man’s voice answered, it would frighten away the quarry. On the other hand, if no one answered the phone, the call would be repeated later. But the manager of the apartment knew I was in. According to my plans she had to know I was there.

I pulled up a chair by the window, propped my feet on another chair and went over the sequence of events in my mind.

The telephone started to ring. I let it ring. It seemed an interminable time before the bell ceased making noise.

I got up and began pacing the floor, impatient with myself for letting Elsie go, yet realizing there was nothing else I could have done under the circumstances.

After fifteen or twenty minutes the telephone rang again and this time it continued to ring and ring and ring. I finally walked over, picked up the phone and said, “What number are you calling, please?”

“For heaven sakes, where have you been?” Mrs. Charlotte said. “I knew you were up there. I—”

“I couldn’t come to the phone right away,” I said. “What’s the trouble?”

“A man is here who wants to get into the garage,” she said. “He is instructed to pick up a trunk.”

“He got a letter to that effect?” I asked.

“He has the key to the garage; that is, the key to the old lock. Evelyn Ellis gave it to him. He tried to get in and found that the lock had been changed. You told me you were going to change it but you didn’t tell me you had changed it. I don’t have a key.”

I said, “I’ll be right down and let him in. I’m sorry.”

“I can come up and get the key. I just wanted to be sure—”

“No,” I said, “I’ll come down and open it for him. What does he want to take out?”

“It seems that Miss Ellis, the former tenant, left a trunk there and she sent him to pick up the trunk. That’s all he wants.”

“Oh, well,” I said, “if that’s the case, come up in the elevator and I’ll give you your key and then you can let him in.”

I walked down to the elevator and waited until Mrs. Charlotte came up.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have left you the key when I changed the padlocks.”

“You should have,” she snapped. “This is rather inconvenient all around.”

“I’m sorry.”

I handed her the key to the padlock.

She went down in the elevator.

I hurried down the stairs and stood where I could see the desk.

The man who was standing, talking with her, was the man whose photograph Hazel Downer had given me. He seemed exceedingly nervous.

Mrs. Charlotte walked out to the garage with him to unlock the padlock.

I slipped into the lobby, tossed the key to the apartment on her desk, then sprinted out to the agency car, started the motor and waited.

Mrs. Charlotte escorted the guy across to the garage and opened the door. He thanked her, stepped inside, looked around, walked back to the street, got into a big sedan and backed the sedan in the driveway until the rear of the car was just inside the garage. Then he got out and opened the trunk of the car and put my trunk, which I had left standing invitingly in the center of the floor, into the car. The lid of the car trunk wouldn’t go all the way down but he tied it with rope so it wouldn’t fly up. Then he drove out of the driveway and I swung in behind him long enough to get a good look at his license number. It was NYB 241.

After that, I dropped quite a ways behind and didn’t crowd him until we got into traffic heavy enough so that he wouldn’t notice I was following.

He drove to the Union Depot, parked the car long enough to get a porter to unload the trunk, then drove on to a parking space. I parked my car, drove back and saw him buy a ticket on the Lark to San Francisco. He came out, picked up the porter, went to the baggage room and checked the trunk.

I drove back to the apartment house, opened the garage padlock with my key, backed the agency car in and picked up the trunk I had moved back into the dark corner of the garage. I made time down to the Union Station, bought a ticket on the Lark to San Francisco and checked the trunk. Then I parked my car in the depot garage and called the apartment.

Elsie answered. Her voice sounded thin and a little frightened.

“What’s new?” I asked.

“Oh, Donald,” she said. “I’m so glad you called. I’m scared.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Some man called. He didn’t ask who I was or anything. He simply said, ‘Tell Standley he has until tomorrow morning to get me that ten grand. Otherwise, it’s just too bad.’

“I tried to ask who was talking but the party at the other end of the line just hung up.”

I said, “Now look, Elsie, don’t get frightened. You’re all right. Sit tight. Answer the telephone. Don’t tell anybody that you’re Evelyn Ellis. Simply say that you will try to get a message to Miss Ellis. If anyone starts pinning you down, tell them that you are the party that moved into the apartment after Evelyn Ellis moved out, but that you have reason to believe she’s coming back to pick up messages. If they ask what your name is, act as if they’re trying to flirt and tell them that that isn’t important. Don’t tell anyone any more that you’re a friend of Evelyn Ellis or that you know her. Get what information you can, but if it comes to a showdown, simply say that you’re the new tenant. And if anybody gets rough, tell them that they’d better talk with Mrs. Charlotte, the manager.”

“Donald, are you coming back out here?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’m going to be out for a while.”

“How long?”

“All night.”

“Donald!”

“Did you want me there... all night?”

“No... I’m... I don’t want to be alone.”

“All married people have to make adjustments,” I said.

“This is one hell of a honeymoon,” she said and hung up.

I went to a drugstore, bought a light nylon handbag, bought shaving things, toothbrush and a few toilet articles, then went out to Olvera Street and had a nice Mexican dinner. After that, I strolled down to the Union Depot, got aboard the Lark, took care not to go through either the club car or the diner to avoid being seen, entered my bedroom, closed the door and went to sleep.

I didn’t go in for breakfast because I didn’t want to be trapped in the dining car. When the train got into San Francisco I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. I carried my own light overnight bag and didn’t go near the baggage wagons where the red-cap porters distribute the baggage.

I grabbed a cab, went to the Golden Gateway Hotel and registered under my own name, then told the clerk, “I expect to be joined by George Biggs Gridley. He isn’t here yet, but I want him near me. I’ll register him in and pay for the adjoining room. You can give me the key and I’ll turn it over to Gridley when he comes in. I’ll pay for the first day in cash. Later on, if we stay more than one day, we can make credit arrangements.”

I took out my billfold.

The clerk was all smiles.

He gave me two adjoining rooms.

I looked up a drive-yourself car agency, rented a station wagon, drove back down to Third and Townsend, turned in my baggage check and got the trunk.

It was a reasonably heavy trunk and there was something about the balance that bothered me. It seemed to have the weight all in the bottom.

I drove up to the hotel, unloaded the car, drove into a parking place, came back and had the trunk taken to the room I’d rented under the name of George Biggs Gridley. I thought that was a nice name.

I called the bell captain, said, “I’m in a hell of a jam. I’ve lost the key to my trunk. I’ve got to get it open.”

He said, “The porter keeps a whole bunch of keys. He can probably handle it. I’ll send him up.”

I waited about five minutes and the porter came in with a key ring that looked as though it had a hundred keys on it of assorted shapes and sizes.

It took the porter less than thirty seconds to find a key that clicked back the lock on the trunk.

He took the two dollars I handed him and grinned. “It’s a cinch,” he said. “These locks depend mostly on the shape of the key. They don’t put anything very elaborate in them in the way of tumblers. It’s just a question of finding something that fits.”

When he had left I opened the trunk.

It was filled to the brim with woolen blankets. In the bottom of the trunk, wedged in by blankets so they wouldn’t jiggle around, were some cards and books that were full of cabalistic figures.

I sat on the floor and studied the cards and the books. I couldn’t make heads or tails of them. All I knew for sure was that they dealt in large sums of money, but there were no names, no words of any sort; just combinations of figures. Over in the right-hand column there would be figures: 20-50-IC-2C-5C-7C-2G-1G-.

Apparently the C’s represented hundreds and the G’s thousands — that much I felt I could use as a starter.

Then there were cards. These cards each contained a number at the top and a series of notations.

I selected one at random. It read 0051 364. Below these numbers was 4-5-59-10-1-; 8-5-59-4-1+.

I studied several of the cards. The number at the top quite frequently ended 364. The numbers on the lower part of the cards were always separated by minus signs but the end would sometimes be plus, sometimes minus.

I pulled everything out of the trunk and started looking it over.

It was quite a while before I found the false-bottom compartment.

I wouldn’t have found it then if I hadn’t turned the thing up and tapped around with my knuckles.

A movable board was held in place by concealed screws. This board slid out after I had removed those small screws, so carefully concealed that it was almost impossible to find them. The heads had been covered with cloth of exactly the same pattern as the lining of the trunk.

The compartment below was filled with thousand-dollar bills.

I counted them. There were exactly fifty-two one-thousand-dollar bills. I counted twice to make sure, then I took out fifty of the bills, carefully replaced the remaining two in the secret compartment, slid the board back into place and replaced the screws.

Then I carefully replaced the blankets in the trunk. I ran a handkerchief over the things I had touched to be sure I left no fingerprints on the inside of the trunk.

I went down to the cashier’s office. “I’m Mr. Lam,” I said. “I have to check out. My bill is paid.”

She looked it up, said, “But you checked in only a short time ago, Mr. Lam.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I had to change my plans.”

She frowned. “Did you wish a refund?”

“Heavens, no. I’ve used the room. That’s all right. I just wanted to have the records straight.”

She gave me a receipt and a smile.

“All right. You’re checked out. I’m sorry you couldn’t stay longer.”

“So am I. I’ll be back, however.”

I walked over to the mail desk.

“A message for George Biggs Gridley?” I asked, showing the key to Gridley’s room.

“No messages, Mr. Gridley.”

I frowned. “Please check again.”

She did. There were no messages. That bothered me a lot. By right Gridley’s phone should have been hot by this time.

I went back to the trunk, took out the books and cards, put them in a heavy pasteboard carton, sent them by express to myself in Los Angeles, then drove to the Happy Daze Camera Company.

I went inside. It was run by a Japanese. He came to meet me, bowing and scraping.

“I want to see a good used camera,” I said. “And I want a box of double-weight five by seven enlarging paper.”

He got the paper first.

I opened the box of paper while he was getting out the cameras to show me. I slipped out about fifteen sheets of photographic paper, kicked these sheets under the counter and slipped the fifty one-thousand-dollar bills in where the photographic paper had been.

The man who was waiting on me was evidently the manager of the place. There was another Japanese who was older and who had been watching me curiously, but an attractive woman came in and occupied his attention up at the new camera counter at the front end of the store.

I noticed her out of the corner of my eye but kept my attention on the manager, who was scurrying around trying to clinch the sale.

I picked out one of the cameras he brought over. “How about a case for this?” I asked.

He bowed and smiled and scurried away again.

I made sure that the fifty thousand dollars in bills fitted snugly into the package of enlarging paper and put the black paper wrappings back around the paper, and the cover back on the box.

When the manager came back with the case for the camera I haggled for a few minutes about price, then said, “All right, I’ll take it. Now then, I want all this shipped at once.”

“Shipped?”

“Shipped.”

“Where to, please?”

I gave him one of my cards. “I want this sent to my personal attention at Los Angeles and I want it sent at once by air express. I want someone to get in a cab and personally take it to the air express office. Mark the package ‘Rush and Special Handling.’ ”

I pulled out a wallet and started counting out money.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Very good. Right away.”

“You’ll send a special messenger down to the airport?”

“Right away,” he promised. “I call a cab, right away.”

“Pack it up nicely,” I said, “in excelsior so it won’t be damaged in transit.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”

“I mean immediately, right now. I want that camera in Los Angeles by evening. It has to be sent down with special handling charges. You understand?”

“Will do. Very good.”

He called out something in Japanese to the man at the other end of the store who was waiting on the woman.

That man answered him without looking around.

I looked over at the counter. The young woman had her back turned toward me and was inspecting a camera. The Japanese assistant seemed annoyed that he was being interrupted in making a sale.

“All right,” I said. “You get it down there. Remember now, it’s important.”

I took the receipt which he gave me and walked out.

The woman was still looking at cameras. I tried to get a glimpse of her face but she wasn’t interested enough in me to even look up from the camera she was inspecting. She sure had a figure — from the back.

I went to a phone booth and called Elsie at the apartment.

“Hi, gorgeous!” I said. “How was the first night of the honeymoon?”

“Donald,” she said, “I won’t stay here unless you stay with me. I’m so frightened. I—”

“What happened?”

“Twice during the night the phone rang,” she said. “I picked up the receiver and before I could say hello a man’s voice said, ‘Tell Standley he has until ten o’clock tomorrow morning,’ and then before I could say anything the party hung up both times.”

I said, “All right, Elsie. Tell Mrs. Charlotte that I’ve been called to New York and want you to join me. Tell her she can have the perishable provisions. Call a cab. Load in your baggage and go to the office. Say you’ve been sick. Avoid talking with Bertha.”

“Oh Donald! I was hoping you’d get back here — I didn’t sleep a wink... Tell me, are you all right?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m sitting pretty. Now listen, Elsie, at noon a certain party is going to call up — Abigail Smythe — and remember the y and the e.”

“Yes,” she said. “What do I do about that?”

“Now, this,” I told her, “is going to be tricky. You tell her to go to the airport in her car and be there at three o’clock this afternoon. Tell her to try to see that she isn’t followed, if possible.

“Tell her I’m arriving at three ten on United Air Lines. Tell her to find out if my flight is on time, bring her car up and put it in the three-minute parking zone. Tell her to unlock the trunk and raise the lid as though she had gone to get some baggage. That will give her all the time we’ll need. At precisely three twenty-five I’ll get a cab. I’ll give the cab driver the address but will fumble around with my notebook before I get the address for him. That will give her time to see just what cab I am taking. Tell her to follow the cab.

“No matter where the cab goes or what it does, she’s to follow the cab. She doesn’t need to be subtle about it. Just follow the cab. That’s all she needs to know and all she needs to do.

“You got that?”

“I’ve got it,” she said.

“Good girl,” I told her, and hung up.

I drove to the airport, turned in my rented car, caught the Los Angeles plane and disembarked right on time.

At three twenty-five I walked out to the sidewalk by the corner of the sun deck in front of the upstairs restaurant, looked around as though trying to orient myself, then went across to a taxicab, got inside and fumbled around with a notebook, pretending to look for an address.

After a moment the cab driver said, “Well, I’ll start and you can find the address while we’re moving.”

“It’s okay,” I said, “I know the general neighborhood, but I can’t recall the street and number. You’ll have to just follow instructions. I’ll tell you where to go.”

“Good enough,” he said.

The cab swung out into traffic and I settled back against the cushions. I didn’t look behind until after we had got out on the boulevard where there was some relatively open country. Then I saw a crossroad ahead and said to the cab driver, “Turn off to the right on this road.”

“This next one?”

“That’s the one.”

The cab driver said, “Okay,” pulled over to the right-hand lane of traffic and made a turn.

It wasn’t until after we had made the turn that I looked around.

Hazel Downer, in a sleek-looking sports job, was right behind us.

I had the cab driver drive along until I was certain no one else was following, then I said, “This isn’t the street after all. Turn around. We’ll have to go back. I guess it’s the next one.”

The cab driver made a U-turn.

Hazel made a U-turn right behind us. The cab driver said, “Hey, buddy, do you know you’re wearing a tail?”

“How come?” I asked.

“I don’t know. She’s been behind us ever since we left the airport.”

“Pull in to the curb,” I said. “I’ll take a look.”

“No rough stuff,” the cabbie warned.

“Sure,” I said. “Just find out how come, that’s all.”

The cab pulled in and stopped.

I walked back to Hazel, said, “Anybody been following you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Okay,” I said. “Wait here.”

I walked back to the cab and said, “That’s a coincidence! I didn’t recognize her. That’s a friend of the woman I was going to meet. She came down to the airport, saw that I didn’t recognize her and was about half-mad. She was going to let me run up a cab bill before she blew the horn and took me off the hook. How much is the meter?”

“Two ten,” he said.

I gave him five dollars and said, “Okay, buddy, thanks a lot.”

He looked at me and grinned. “I was going to tell you, you weren’t fooling me a damned bit; but now I’m going to tell you, you don’t even have to try.”

He drove off.

I took my light handbag, walked back to Hazel’s car and said, “Okay. Wait until the cab gets well ahead, then make another U-turn and go back out this street.”

I got in beside her.

It was one of those low jobs with a surprising amount of leg room and Hazel was showing lots of nylon. She had wonderful gams.

She made a token motion of pulling her skirt down, laughed nervously and said, “It’s no use, Donald. I just can’t drive this damned car without giving an exhibition.”

“Suits me,” I said.

“I thought it would,” she said. “Is the cab far enough ahead now?”

“No. Let him get out of sight in traffic so he won’t know that we made another turn. He’ll think we’re following along behind him — just in case anyone should ask him.”

“My, but you’re suspicious!”

“Sometimes it pays,” I told her. “All right. Make another U-turn now and go back to the east.”

She swung the car. “Do you know where this road goes?”

“Comes out around Inglewood someplace,” I said. “Just keep going.”

We followed the road, finally came to a place where there were some houses, then more houses, then a crossroad, then more houses. I said, “Start hitting the crossroads. I’ll watch the road behind us.

“Can we go someplace where we can talk?” I asked after another few minutes.

“To my apartment,” she said.

“Don’t be silly,” I told her. “They’re watching your apartment like hawks.”

“Donald, I don’t think they are.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been coming and going and there hasn’t been anyone around. I’ve driven the car places several times and each time have made absolutely certain that no one was following.”

“How did you do that?”

“The same way you did. I’d get in the car and drive out on a lot of side roads where I could spot any traffic coming behind.”

“You sure you didn’t ditch a shadow by going through a traffic signal just as it was changing or something?”

“No, Donald. I deliberately tried to make myself a sitting duck in case anyone was following.”

“Just the same,” I said, “we’re not going to take a chance on your apartment. Where else can we go?”

“What about your apartment?”

“They may be watching that, too.”

She said, “I have a friend. I can phone her. I think she’d let us use her apartment.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get to a phone.”

We swung back onto a boulevard. She stopped at a phone booth, called, came back, said, “It’s all right. My friend will leave the door unlocked and she’ll give us an hour and a half. That should be all the time we need.”

“Should be,” I said. “Where is this place?”

“Not too far. We’ll be there in ten minutes. She thinks I’m having an affair with a married man and she’s dying with curiosity.”

I hitched around in the seat and kept looking behind us.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well what?”

“Am I or am I not?”

“What?”

“Having an affair with a married man?”

“How would I know?”

“Oh, all right, I’ll come right out with it. Donald, are you married?”

“No. Why?”

“Nothing.”

“But you are,” I said.

She started to say something, then checked herself.

We got to her friend’s apartment house, parked the car and took the elevator to the fourth floor. Hazel Downer walked unerringly down to the apartment and opened the door.

There was a long-legged grace about her that made it a pleasure to watch her move.

It was a nice apartment, one that really cost money.

I waited for Hazel to seat herself.

She chose the davenport, so I went over to sit beside her. “All right,” I told her, “now let’s get to the real truth.”

“About what?”

“About the money.”

“But I gave you the real truth about the money.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I want to know the real truth. I’m not going to lead with my chin.”

“But we went all through this yesterday.”

“No, we didn’t,” I said. “You gave me a run-around yesterday about an uncle and all that. Now I want the real lowdown.”

“Why, Donald? Do you know where the money is?”

“I think I can get it for you.”

She leaned forward, her eyes starry, her lips half parted. “All of it?”

“Fifty thousand.”

“Donald,” she said, “I... Donald, you’re wonderful! You’re terrific!”

She looked up at me, holding her chin up, wanting to be kissed. I kept my eyes on the window and just sat there, waiting.

“Donald,” she sighed, “you do things to me.”

“That’s fine,” I told her. “Right now you’re stalling for time so you can think up a good story. Evidently this is the only stalling technique you know. I certainly thought you would have taken advantage of the time since yesterday to have thought up a dilly.”

“I have,” she said, and laughed.

“All right, let’s hear it.”

“Standley gave me this money.”

“For what?”

“Do I have to draw you a diagram?”

“For fifty thousand bucks you do.”

“Standley is a gambler, big-time stuff. He always felt he might be wiped out or held up — or even rubbed out.”

“Go on.”

“He kept some money in the bank, but he wanted to have money where he could get at it at any hour of day or night — in cash.”

“And so?”

“So from time to time he’d give me thousand-dollar bills. He said they were mine. In that way if he went broke no one could claim this money was his, but I could stake him — if I wanted to.”

“Phooey,” I said, “they’d simply claim the money was his and that—”

“No, Donald, whenever he’d give me these bills he’d take my manicure scissors and cut off just the very smallest piece on the corner... and finally I got fifty of these bills... and then he ran out on me... and I suppose this latest paramour of his is holding the stake.”

“But he gave you title to the money, so the—”

Heavy knuckles sounded on the door.

“Better see who that is,” I said.

She made a gesture of annoyance. “It’s some tradesman or somebody who wants to see my friend. Just a minute.”

She jumped to her feet, switched her skirt into place, walked over to the door with her characteristic long-legged grace, opened it and was pushed back almost off her feet as Frank Sellers shoved his way into the room and slammed the door behind him.

“Hello, Pint Size,” Sellers said to me.

“Well, I like this!” Hazel Downer said angrily. “You have your nerve barging in like this. You—”

Sellers said, “Now then, let’s cut out the monkey business, you two.”

“I don’t care to have you talk to me that way,” Hazel Downer said. “You—”

I interrupted. “Look, Hazel, do you know a good lawyer?”

“Why, yes,” she said.

“Telephone him and tell him to come over here fast,” I said.

Sellers said, “That isn’t going to do either one of you any good. I warned you about this, Donald. I’m going to bust you wide open — and I’m not going to administer an anesthetic while I perform the operation either.”

“Get that lawyer on the phone,” I said to Hazel Downer, “and start working fast.”

Sellers sat down in a chair, crossed his legs, pulled a cigar out of his pocket, bit off the end and spit it into an ash tray. He scraped a match into flame.

Hazel moved toward the telephone. Sellers made a grab at her, circled her with his arm.

“She’s calling a lawyer,” I said. “A citizen has that right. Try stopping her and see what it gets you.”

“Take your hand off my body,” Hazel said.

Sellers hesitated, then took his arm away. “All right, go ahead and call your lawyer. Then I’m going to show you both something.”

Sellers lit his cigar. Hazel made a low-voiced phone call and hung up. Sellers took the cigar out of his mouth, looked Hazel Downer over as she returned to the davenport.

“Well, Bright Eyes,” he said, “you really got yourself in a mess now.”

“Do you have a charge against me?” she asked.

“So far,” Sellers said, “receiving stolen property and criminal conspiracy. I think we can go a step farther and convict you of being an accessory after the fact, attempted extortion, and perhaps a few other things.”

Sellers turned to me. His eyes were burning with suppressed rage. “You double-crossing bastard!”

“What do you mean, double-crossing?”

“I warned you to leave this one alone,” he said.

“You warned me,” I said. “You aren’t the legislature. You aren’t passing the laws. I didn’t double-cross you. I didn’t promise you I’d lay off. I’m running a legitimate business.”

“Says you!”

“Says I,” I said.

Sellers said, “Well, if you folks are finished with the phone I’ll put through a call myself, just to let Headquarters know where I am.”

He went over to the phone, dialed the number of Headquarters, said, “This is Sergeant Sellers. I’m at—” He drew back to look at the number on the telephone, “Hightower 7-74103. It’s an apartment but I don’t know who rents it yet. I’m with Hazel Downer and Donald Lam. I think we’re going to button up the rest of that armored truck case. If you want me, get me here.”

Sellers hung up the phone, came over to where I was sitting on the davenport and stood looming above me, looking down at me ominously.

“I hate to do it on account of Bertha,” he said. “Bertha is a good gal; greedy but square — and she plays fair with the police.

“You’re a two-timing chisler. You always have been. You play both ends against the middle. So far you’ve always come out smelling like a rose. This time it’s going to be different.”

I looked past him to Hazel. “Did you get him?”

“Yes.”

“Is he coming over?”

“Yes.”

“Is he good?”

“The best.”

“How long will it take him to get here?”

“He’s coming right away.”

“How long?”

“Ten minutes. He’s right here in this neighborhood.”

“Do something for me,” I said. “Don’t say a word until your lawyer gets here. Don’t answer any questions. Don’t even say yes or no.”

Sellers said, “That won’t help her, Lam. You don’t know what I know.”

“What do you know?” I asked.

Sellers took a notebook out of his pocket, said, “Hazel Clune, alias Hazel Downer. Living in open and notorious cohabitation with Standley Downer. Standley has a record.”

“A record!” Hazel exclaimed.

“Don’t be so coy,” Sellers said. “He’s a con man and a promoter. He’s served time in two Federal prisons. He’s out on parole at the present time and we can violate him any time we want.

“So far I can’t prove that Standley was a pal of Herbert Baxley, but they were in Leavenworth at the same time, so they know each other all right. So Standley and Herbert Baxley got together and figured out a scheme for lifting a hundred grand out of this armored truck. After they got the money they split it two ways and—”

The phone started ringing.

Sellers frowned at it a moment, then said, “I’ll just answer that and save you the trouble. This may be for me.”

He went over to the telephone, picked it up, said cautiously, “Hello,” then settled himself and said, “Yeah, talking — go ahead.”

For almost a minute a voice made sounds in the receiver. Sellers frowned, at first incredulously, then reached up with his right hand and took the cigar out of his mouth as though that would help him hear better. He said, “You’re sure? Give me that again.”

Sellers put the cigar on the telephone stand, pulled a notebook from his pocket and made notes. “Once more,” he said. “I want to get those names.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ve got Downer and Lam right here. I’ll bring them in. Hold everything until I get there. Don’t notify the press for a while. I want to sit on this myself.”

He hung up the telephone, then suddenly, with a quick motion of his hand, jerked out his revolver and pointed it at me. “Up,” he said.

There was something in his eyes that I had never seen before.

I got up.

“Turn around.”

I turned around.

“Walk over to the wall.”

I walked over to the wall.

“Face the wall, stand back three feet, spread your feet apart, then lean forward and put your palms against the wall.”

I did as he ordered.

Sellers said to Hazel Downer, “Get over there against the wall.”

“I won’t do any such thing,” she said.

“Okay,” Sellers said. “You’re a woman. I can’t frisk you, but I’m warning you, this is business. Either one of you make a false move and you’re going to stop lead.”

He walked over to the davenport.

I tried to see what was going on but my arms were up so that I could only get a flurry of motion. I saw skirts kicking up, an expanse of leg, a high-heeled shoe kicking, heard a metallic click and a woman’s scream and then Hazel Downer said, “Why, you — you beast! You’ve handcuffed me!”

“You’re damn right I’ve handcuffed you, Sellers said. Make another try with those spike heels and I’ll sap you over the head. I may not be able to search you, but I can sure as hell draw your fangs.”

He walked over to me, shoved one foot up against my leg. His hands started running over me in a swift search.

“Keep your hands against the wall, Lam,” he said. “Don’t move. If you do, you’re going to get hurt.”

His hands went over me, searching every inch of my clothes.

“All right,” he said, “you’re clean. Now, stand back there and take the things out of your pocket. Put them on that table.”

I did as I was told.

“Everything,” Sellers said. “Money, keys, everything.”

I put everything on the table.

“Turn your pockets inside out.”

I followed his instructions.

Knuckles sounded on the door.

Sellers jumped back until he was against the wall. He turned his gun on the door. “Come in,” he called.

The door opened. A man in the late thirties, smiling affably, entered the room, then jerked to a standstill as he saw Frank Sellers’ gun pointed at him, saw me standing there with my pockets wrong side out and Hazel Downer sitting on the davenport, her wrists handcuffed behind her back.

“What the devil!” he exclaimed.

“Police,” Frank Sellers said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Madison Ashby,” he said, “an attorney at law.”

“Her lawyer?” Sellers asked.

“Yes.”

“She’s sure going to need one,” Sellers said. And then, after a moment, added, “Bad.”

“Maddy,” Hazel said “will you please make this baboon get these things off my wrists and find out what this is all about?”

Sellers made a little gesture with the gun. “Sit down,” he said to Ashby. Then he nodded to me. “Sit down, Lam. Keep your hands in sight.”

Sellers remained standing, holding the gun.

“May I ask what this is all about?” Ashby inquired.

Sellers ignored his inquiry, turned to me. “So you went to San Francisco, Pint Size,” Sellers said. “And you took a trunk.”

“That’s a crime?” I asked.

“Murder’s a crime.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Right now,” he said, “I’m talking about a man named Standley Downer, who was murdered in the Caltonia Hotel in San Francisco. Your trunk was standing open in the middle of the floor and the clothing and stuff that was in the trunk were scattered to hell and gone all over the room.”

Sellers read the startled surprise in my eyes.

“Go on,” he said, “put on an act. You’re a smart little pint-sized bastard, and a hell of a good actor. You did a swell job of that. You—”

He stopped as Hazel’s scream, sounding shrill and hysterical knifed through the room.

Sellers turned to her. “Well, now,” he said, “that’s a nice performance. You pulled just the right timing on that, just the right delay to think what to do, just the right timing to save Donald here from having to answer questions and giving him a minute to think.

“Now then, sister, I’ve got news for you! You were in San Francisco last night, too. You were calling on a babe named Evelyn Ellis at this same Caltonia Hotel. This gal was registered in the Caltonia under the name of Beverly Kettle. She was in Room 751. You told her you didn’t give a damn about Standley Downer that she could have him for keeps, but that you wanted what he’d taken from you and if you didn’t get it there’d be lots of trouble.

“You called her several naughty words and she—”

Hazel started to interrupt him to say something.

“Shut up,” Madison Ashby snapped at her.

Sellers turned to look at him with sober eyes. “I could kick you the hell out of here,” he said.

“You could,” Ashby said, “and just on the chance that you might want to do it, I’m going to advise my client what to do. Say nothing, Hazel. Absolutely nothing. Don’t even give him the time of day. Don’t admit anything, don’t deny anything, just say nothing except that you won’t talk until you have had a chance to confer with your lawyer in private.

“And now,” he said, turning to Frank Sellers with a little bow, “since you seem to be concerned about my being here, I’ll be on my way.”

“The hell you will,” Sellers said. “You’re just a little too eager, my lad. You’re anxious to get out and get on the telephone and tip somebody off to something. You’re going to stay right here.”

“Got a warrant?” Ashby asked.

Sellers backed up, pushed him to one side, walked over to the door, turned the bolt. “I’ve got something that beats that,” he said.

“This is violating my legal rights,” Ashby said.

“I’ll let you go after a while,” Sellers said. “Right now I’m holding you as a material witness.”

“A material witness to what?”

“To the fact that Hazel here screamed when I was trying to get an answer out of Donald Lam.”

“That wasn’t why she screamed,” Ashby said. “For your information, Standley Downer is her husband. A woman has a right to scream when she’s just learned that her husband has met a violent death and she is left a widow.”

Sellers said, “Husband, my eye! For your information, this babe is Hazel Clune. She’s been going by the name of Downer since she and Standley Downer teamed up.

“For your further information, this Hazel Clune, or Hazel Downer, as she’s calling herself, is mixed up to her eyebrows in the robbery of an armored truck. She’s been playing around with a crook named Herbert Baxley. She’s sore because Standley skipped out with fifty grand from the armored truck job. I guess that she regarded it as community property.”

Hazel took a quick breath, again started to say something.

“Shut up,” Madison Ashby said. “You say a word to anyone before I’ve talked with you and I won’t touch your case with a ten-foot pole.”

Sellers grinned. “Which case?” he asked.

“A case against you for locking her in a room, for falsely accusing her of crime, for defamation of character and slander, so far. I don’t know what will come up later on.”

Sellers looked at him moodily and said, “You know, I could develop quite a dislike for you.”

“Dislike me all you want to,” Ashby said. “I’m protecting my client.”

Sellers swung back to me. “How the hell did Standley Downer get hold of your trunk?”

Ashby caught my eye, shook his head.

“How would I know?” I asked.

Sellers worried his cigar for a minute, then holstered his gun, walked over to the telephone, dialed a number and said, “Let me talk with Bertha Cool.”

He held on to the phone for a moment, then said, “Hello, Bertha. Frank Sellers... Your partner double-crossed you and double-crossed me.”

I could hear Bertha’s voice making raucous sounds on the telephone.

“You’d better get over here,” Sellers said. “I want to talk with you.”

Bertha’s voice was a scream which poured sound out of the telephone and made her words audible all over the room. “Where’s here?”

Sellers gave her the address. “Now, look,” he said, “your boy, Donald, has been cutting corners. I don’t know how much damage he’s done. He’s been to San Francisco. I don’t think he killed a guy up there, but the San Francisco police think he did. What’s more, he picked up some loot. On that I’ll ride along with anybody. You’d better get over here.”

Sellers hung up the phone, sat down and watched me speculatively as though trying to read my mind.

I looked at him with a poker face.

“Wouldn’t it be funny,” Sellers said, “if this guy Standley Downer had the fifty grand from that armored car job with him? Wouldn’t it be just too funny for words if he’d put it in a trunk someplace, left his ladylove here flat on her beautiful fanny and took off for San Francisco?”

There was silence in the room.

“And wouldn’t it be funny,” Sellers went on, “if you got real, real smart, found out what was going on, and decided to cut yourself a piece of cake? You could have juggled trunks on the guy. You’re a fast worker.”

Hazel turned wide startled eyes in my direction.

“Now, the question is,” Sellers went on, “how the hell this Standley guy got your trunk if you didn’t get his, and if you got his where is it now?

“Now, I’m going to tell you something, Pint Size. You’ve been up to San Francisco. You came back on the plane and this babe came down to the airport just to meet you. You instructed her to keep running around in her car to see if she was being tailed.”

“You can prove that?” I asked.

Sellers rolled the cigar from one end of his mouth to the other, then reached up with his left hand, removed the cigar from his mouth and laughed, a harsh, bitter laugh. “You damned amateurs,” he said. “You don’t keep up with what’s going on.”

Sellers walked over to the window, looked down and then motioned to me to come to the window.

“Take a look,” he said.

I followed the direction of his finger.

A car in the parking lot had a bright orange cross painted on the top of it.

“Ever hear of a helicopter?” Sellers said. “We’ve had this babe under observation. I can tell you every move she made. We followed her from the air and when we wanted to do some close work we came down close with the helicopter. Most of the time we could use binoculars and get all the information we wanted.

“When she headed for town yesterday we had a helicopter covering her all the way. She did a lot of zigzagging so as to lose any shadows. Then she beat it to the airport and caught a Western jet for San Francisco. Then she went to call on Evelyn Ellis.

“After she’d cussed Evelyn out, she went down and stuck around in the lobby for a while, apparently waiting for Standley to walk in.

“She sat there for two hours. The clerk didn’t want her hanging around the lobby. He knew she was carrying a hatchet for someone. Finally she went to the desk and tried to get a room for the night. The clerk told her he was full up. She hung around a little while longer and then the clerk told her that unescorted women were not permitted in the lobby after ten o’clock at night.

“That’s where the San Francisco police let us down. They let her give them the slip.

“The next time we picked her up was when she took an early-morning plane for Los Angeles. We picked up her car at the airport. She made a lot of fancy maneuvers to make certain she wasn’t being followed, then hightailed it to her apartment. She was there until shortly before your plane came in, then she drove out to the airport to meet you.

“Now then, Miss Clune or Mrs. Downer, or whatever you want to call yourself, I don’t want to jump at conclusions. I’m just telling you that Standley Downer was murdered in San Francisco and I’m asking you where you spent the night.”

Hazel said, “If I thought—” Abruptly she caught herself. “No comment,” she said. “I do not intend to make any statement until I have had an opportunity to talk with my attorney in private.”

“Now, that’s a great way for an innocent woman to do,” Sellers said. “You want us to think you didn’t have anything to do with any murder and yet you won’t even tell us where you were last night until after you’ve talked with an attorney. Is that going to look good in the papers?”

“You tend to your own business in this case,” Ashby said, “and we’ll attend to ours. We’re not trying any case in the newspapers. We’ll try it in court.”

Abruptly Sellers whirled back to me, started to say something, then got another idea, walked over to the telephone, dialed a number and held the receiver so close to his lips that we couldn’t hear what he was saying. He was talking in a low voice which came to us as a rumble of sound but no more.

Sellers said after a moment, “Okay, I’ll hold the line. You find out.”

Sellers waited with the telephone at his ear, the fingers of his right hand drumming on the telephone table, as he sat in frowning contemplation minute after minute.

The silence in the room could have been cut with a knife.

Abruptly the telephone started making little rasping noises. Sellers held the receiver close to his ear as he listened, then began mouthing the cigar.

After a moment he took the cigar out of his mouth, said, “All right,” and hung up the telephone.

There was an expression of shrewd satisfaction on his face.

Another two or three minutes passed.

Sellers went back to the phone and made another call in a low voice, said, “Okay, call me back.”

He hung up and sat in the chair for two or three minutes until the phone rang, then picked it up, said, “Hello... no, she isn’t. However, I’ll take a message for you. Give me your name and—”

It was easy to tell from the expression on his face that the party at the other end of the line had hung up.

Sellers gave an exclamation of disgust, slammed the phone back into the cradle.

Four minutes passed. The telephone rang again. Sellers picked it up and said, “Hello.”

This time the call was for Sellers. It was good news. A slow smile spread over his face. “Well, well, what do you know!” he said. “Well, what do you know?”

Sellers hung up the telephone and looked at me thoughtfully.

Abruptly the door started rattling. Somebody grabbed the knob from the outside and twisted it, jerked the door, then pounded on the panels.

“Who’s there?” Sellers asked.

Bertha Cool’s voice came from the other side of the door.

“Let me in.”

Sellers grinned, shot back the bolt and opened the door. “Come on in, Bertha,” he said. “This is the Hazel Downer that I told you about. I told you I didn’t want you monkeying around with her. Your partner has got you into a mess, but good.”

“What’s he done?” Bertha asked.

“For one thing,” Sellers said, “your sweet little partner is mixed up in a murder.”

“Who’s dead?” Bertha asked.

“The man who was posing as Hazel’s husband,” Sellers said. “Hazel started living with him without benefit of clergy but with the benefit of everything else, including a damned good allowance. Then she started two-timing with a man named Herbert Baxley. Herbert Baxley’s a stick-up artist. It may have been one of those cute little threesomes that you run onto in the mobs, where everybody is all hunky-dory-two men and a woman. On the other hand, it may have been business between Baxley and Downer.

“My present guess is that Standley Downer had fifty grand as his half of that armored truck job. It all begins to add up. When Herbert Baxley got a little alarmed he went into a phone booth and called a number. We thought he was calling Hazel, but it looks now as though he was calling Standley.

“We’re running down a red-hot clue that a cute little trick by the name of Evelyn Ellis may have been the apex of another triangle. I’ve got men covering that now. When I get a report on that I may be able to find out where Donald picked up Standley Downer’s trunk.”

“His trunk?” Bertha asked.

“That’s right,” Sellers said. “Your little smart partner here somehow managed to palm off his trunk on Standley Downer.”

Bertha turned to look at me with her hard, glittering eyes. Her face was a little more florid than usual but there wasn’t the flicker of expression except in her hard eyes.

“What about that trunk, Donald?” she asked.

Sellers intervened. “Donald went to his place yesterday, Bertha. He was in a hell of a hurry. He threw some things in a trunk and beat it, carrying the trunk with him. A man that answered Donald’s description bought a ticket on the Lark last night and checked a trunk. Now you start putting two and two together.”

“You accusing him of murder?” Bertha asked.

“Why not?” Sellers said. “Standley Downer had some obligations with the fifty grand he’d picked up on that armored car job. He went to San Francisco. He intended to pay off some of his pressing obligations and then pick up Evelyn Ellis and go places and do things. He registered in the Caltonia Hotel. He had a suite. Evelyn was in that same hotel under the name of Beverly Kettle. Downer must have had this suite because he expected people would be calling on him. He undoubtedly had some business to attend to or he would have simply asked for a room. Actually, he’d wired ahead for a suite.

“When Standley Downer got to his suite, he found out he had the wrong trunk. The people who were expecting to collect from him thought his explanation was a little corny. They pulled everything out of the trunk, ripped out the lining, threw the clothes all over the joint... and in the middle of all that was Standley Downer who had had a very flat thin carving knife stuck in his back — with no trace of the weapon. The murderer took that away with him.

“Now then,” Sellers went on, “Donald is a smart little boy. He wouldn’t come walking back into the arms of the police with any money on him. But a check with the air express companies shows that Donald bought some photographic goods in San Francisco. That package was sent down at Donald’s request by air express with special handling instructions. So we called back to San Francisco and checked the photographic company that made the shipment and what do you know? A guy that answered Donald’s description was in there this morning and bought a thirty-five millimeter camera, gave his card and insisted that the camera be packed and shipped by air express within an hour of the time he bought it, with special handling charges.

“Now, you know what we’re going to do, Bertha? We’re going right to your office and we’re going to wait until that package comes in, and—”

“A package came in just as I left,” Bertha said. “I wondered what the hell it was and started to open it and then your telephone call came in and I dropped everything and beat it over here.”

“Where’s the package now?” Sellers asked.

“Being wrapped to send back,” Bertha said. “Nobody’s buying cameras with partnership funds while I’m running the joint.”

Sellers did some rapid thinking, turned to the other two, said, “All right, play it smart if you want to. It isn’t going to buy you anything. If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to. I searched Hazel Downer’s apartment awhile back. I’m going to search it again. This time it’s going to be a real search.

“As soon as reinforcements show up, Donald, Bertha and I are going to take a little walk. We’ll hold Hazel until we see what develops.”

“You’ve got nothing on her,” Ashby said. “I can get a writ.”

“Keep your nose clean and you may spring her without a writ and in half the time,” Sellers said. “Standley Downer wasn’t murdered until this morning. I can tell within a couple of hours whether San Francisco wants her held or not.”

“Where are we going?” Bertha asked Sellers.

“Down to your office,” Sellers said.

“Then what?”

“We’re going to look in Donald’s little camera package,” he said.

Bertha turned to me. “What the hell did you want a camera for, Donald?”

“To take pictures with,” I told her.

Sellers chuckled, “You come with me and I’ll show you what he wanted it for, Bertha.”

Knuckles pounded on the door.

Sellers opened it. Two men stood on the threshold.

Sellers grinned and said, “This is Ashby. He’s her attorney. This is Hazel Clune, alias Hazel Downer. Serve the search warrant on her and take this place to pieces, then go to her apartment and take it to pieces — I mean really take it to pieces.

“Come on, Donald. You and Bertha and I are going down to your office.”