Shills Can't Cash Chips

Chapter Seven

Lorraine Robbins answered my ring almost at once. She was dressed in a neat suit and was all business.

“Hello, Donald. Come in. What gives?”

I said, “This Miramar Apartments. Does everyone in Colinda live here.”

“No, why?”

“I know some other people who live here.”

“Who?”

“Oh, it isn’t that important,” I said smiling, “but I just wondered why everyone seemed to have this address.”

“It’s the town’s swankiest working girl’s apartment house,” she said. “It’s new, modern and the service is fine. They really keep it warm in the winter and they have air-conditioning in the summer. Yet the rates aren’t up in high C. It’s quite a job getting in here. They have a waiting list as long as your arm.

“Now, what’s bothering you, Donald? Do you want to sit down?”

I seated myself and she went over and sat in a chair across the room and kept her knees together and her skirt down.

I said, “I have to see Mr. Holgate tonight and I want you to be there.”

“You want me to be there!” she said indignantly. “If Mr. Holgate wants me to—”

“Take it easy,” I told her. “This is a matter of considerable importance.”

“To whom? To you or to us?”

“To all of us.”

“What’s it about?”

I said, “That automobile accident. Do you think there’s any possibility Mr. Holgate could have been lying about it?”

She said, “In the first place Mr. Holgate doesn’t lie. And in the second place there was nothing for him to lie about. He admits liability and his story of the accident coincides with yours.”

“Well,” I said, “I have reason to believe there’s a detective agency working on the thing.”

She laughed and said, “Of course there is, silly. There’s an insurance company involved and they’re trying to find out the nature and the extent of the injuries of this girl that was hit. Oh, that’s the one you were thinking about! Her address is here in the Miramar Apartments, too. That is, it was. I don’t think she’s here any more.”

“Well,” I told her, “I think there’s something very much out of the ordinary going on and I’m somewhat alarmed.”

“Just what gives you that idea and why are you coming to me with it?”

I reached in my pocket, took out an extra clipping I had cut from the newspaper and said, “I suppose you folks are responsible for this.”

“For what?”

“Offering to pay two hundred and fifty dollars for persons who had seen the accident.”

She came across the room to take the clipping out of my hand almost before I had a chance to start over toward her. She grabbed the clipping, looked at it, then looked at me.

“We didn’t put that ad in, Donald. We don’t know anything about it.”

I said, “My car’s down here. Let’s go talk to Holgate.”

“I’ll have to try and locate him,” she said. “I’ve got a couple of night numbers.”

I said, “He’s out at the subdivision.”

“How do you know?”

“I drove past on my way in. The place was all lit up. I thought for a minute of going in and telling him to wait there, that we were coming out as soon as I could pick you up. Then I felt that it wouldn’t be but ten or fifteen minutes longer to pick you up and—”

“Well, he may have left the place. You should have stopped in and told him to stay there. Wait a minute and I’ll call and—”

“No,” I told her, looking at my watch. “There isn’t time for that. We’re going out there. He’s out there. I’m sure he is.”

For a moment there was another flicker of suspicion.

“Donald,” she said, “you’re playing a game. I don’t know what it is. If this is an excuse to get me out there and we find the place is all dark and you think you’re going to get me in the office and make passes or cuddle up on one of those davenports out there, you just have six more guesses coming.

“When a man makes a pass at me, I want it to be a forward pass. I don’t like this lateral pass stuff.”

“Okay,” I told her, “come on.”

She switched out the lights in the apartment, and said, “I’m ready.”

We went down to my car and I drove in silence. I could see her looking me over carefully. Eventually she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Some difference.”

“What’s different?” I asked.

“When I was driving you out to the place,” she said, “you were looking at me and speculating as to just how far I’d go.”

“Well?” I asked.

“Now,” she said, “you’re doing the driving and I’m looking at you and trying to speculate on how far you’ve been.”

“I’ve covered a lot of territory,” I said.

“Darned if you haven’t, and believe me your story had better be good or you’re going to find yourself in some mighty hot water.

“If you think you’re going to shake Holgate down for two hundred and fifty bucks, you’re due to have a surprise. He knows nothing about that ad and he wouldn’t pay you a dime.”

“I don’t want a dime,” I said.

She shook her head. “I wish I knew just what you do want. You’re playing games... I was prepared to like you when I met you and dammit, I still like you.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” she said. “It’s just the chemistry of the situation. Frankly, I either like them or I don’t. I’ve always been like that. I can tell when I get my first exposure to masculine magnetism whether I like or whether I don’t like. With you, I liked and I still like, but I’m going to be awfully damned certain where you’re expecting to plant your feet before I tell you to jump.”

“Fair enough,” I told her.

Again we were silent.

I turned off the main road and she could see the lights in the buildings at the subdivision.

“Well,” she said, settling back in the seat, “that’s a surprise.”

“You didn’t expect it?”

“No. Frankly, I didn’t. I thought you were going to get me out here and suggest we go inside and try and locate Mr. Holgate on the office phone.”

“I told you the place was lit up. I could see it from the road.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” she said. “There aren’t any cars here.”

“Well, the lights are on. Someone’s here.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “Whoever is here would have a car if he was still here.”

“Well, he wouldn’t leave without turning off the lights, would he?”

“No.”

“Well, then, he’s here.”

I swung the car around and parked it in front of the door, trying to put it in almost exactly the same spot where I had left it earlier in the evening.

Lorraine jumped to the ground and hurried to the door of the reception room.

She opened the office, walked inside, gave a quick glance at things, then suddenly came to a stop. “Who’s been using my typewriter?” she asked.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“That electric typewriter,” she said. “The cover’s off and the motor’s running.”

She went over and put her hand on the machine. I promptly put my hand on the machine and said, “It’s been running for some time. It’s warm. Perhaps you didn’t shut the motor off this afternoon when you quit work.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Somebody’s been in here and has been using that typewriter.”

She turned and strode toward Holgate’s office, put her hand on the knob of the door, stopped, knocked in a perfunctory manner and then opened the door and walked in.

I was right on her heels.

“For God’s sake!” she said.

We stood there surveying the wreckage. I said, “Here’s a broken compact and — what is this, a powder cake?”

I picked up a piece of the cake.

“That’s right. It fell out of the compact.”

She took the piece I handed her, sniffed it, looked at it thoughtfully, said, “Probably a blonde.”

I moved over to the shoe. “Here’s a woman’s shoe. Now, what would this mean?”

I picked it up and handed it to her.

“Probably some girl was trying to find a weapon,” she said. “She took off the shoe and used the heel.”

“Assault?” I asked.

“Not with Holgate.”

“How about his partner, Chris Maxton?”

“What do you know about Maxton?”

“What do you?”

“I don’t know about his conduct with girls, if that’s what you’re leading up to.”

I said, “Well, there’s evidently been quite a fight here. Someone must have come in through the window.”

“Why through the window?”

“It’s open.”

“Why not out through the window?”

“Well,” I said, “that’s a thought. Let’s see.”

I sat on the windowsill, then turned and dropped down to the ground, waited there a few moments while she was over inspecting the files that were strewn on the floor. Then I crawled back in the window and said, “A person could get out through the window all right, but why would they do that?”

“Don’t ask me,” Lorraine said. “I want to know what’s happened here and I want to know what’s happened to Mr. Holgate.”

“And the woman,” I said.

“Well, if she lost the fight,” Lorraine said, “you can pretty much figure what happened to her. In any event, she’s gone.”

“Any papers missing?” I asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” she said. “There’s one paper I’m looking for in particular.”

“What’s that?” I asked, walking to the lavatory.

She didn’t say anything for a while but kept looking through the jackets until she found a manila filing envelope, one of the kind that had a flap and a cord that tied it shut.

She opened the flap, looked inside, then handed the jacket to me. “You take a look,” she said.

“But there’s nothing in here,” I told her.

“Look on the outside of the jacket.”

I looked and found in neat feminine handwriting the designation, “Affidavit of Donald Lam, witness to Mr. Holgate’s accident.”

“That’s what’s missing,” she said.

Lorraine reached for the telephone.

“Hold it,” I said.

“Hold what?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Notify the sheriff’s office.”

“Why?”

“Why!” she exclaimed. “Good God, look at this wreckage!”

“All right,” I said. “What’s been taken?”

“I told you. Your affidavit.”

“I’ll make you another one.”

“What are you getting at?”

I said, “Nothing of value has been taken, at least as far as you know. The place is a wreck, a chair has been smashed, there are a lot of files to clean up.

“You notify the sheriff’s office and immediately they come out here and start taking fingerprints. Then the newspapers are notified and there’s a lot of publicity. You’re working for the firm of Holgate and Maxton. Do you think they’d want that publicity?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s find out before we blow any whistles.”

She thought that over and said, “Donald, you may be giving me some pretty darned good advice. Any more suggestions?”

I said, “Let’s try to figure out who would want that affidavit bad enough to get in here and smash things up, and who do you suppose had the fight?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

I said, “It is Holgate’s office. There was a fight.”

She said, “That’s obvious.”

I said, “A fight means two people have alternate objectives and they resort to violence to protect their positions.”

“Go on,” she said.

“It’s fairly obvious that one of the persons engaged in the fight must have been Holgate. This is his office. He was either in here when the intruders came in, or the intruders came in and then he came in. Holgate hasn’t seen fit to notify the authorities. Therefore, there’s no reason why we should.”

“You’ve been over that. I’m sold on that idea.”

I said, “I’m trying to find out what the fight was about and what there is about my affidavit that was important enough for somebody to break in and try to locate it.”

She said, “Donald, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anybody else. But I want to ask you a question and I want a frank answer.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Tell me and then ask the question.”

“No,” she said, “I’m going to ask the question and then I’m going to tell you.”

“All right,” I told her, “have it your way.”

“Donald, are you absolutely certain about that automobile accident?”

“Why, yes,” I said. “The thirteenth of August.”

“What time?”

“About three-thirty in the afternoon, give or take a few minutes.”

“Are you certain about the time?”

I watched her face. “I — well, I could be a little mistaken. But you know how it is when you’re making an affidavit. You don’t dare say that it was about this or that or the other, or that you might be mistaken. If you do that, some attorney will take you on cross-examination and tear the daylights out of you.”

She nodded.

“So,” I said, “what’s wrong with the time?”

She said, “There’s a mistake somewhere.”

“How do you know?”

She said, “I happen to remember the thirteenth of August because it’s my birthday. We had a small office party and a few cocktails that afternoon.

“Now it’s true that Mr. Holgate was out during most of the afternoon but he came in shortly after four and joined us for a few minutes, long enough to have a couple of drinks, and then hurried away. He must have had an appointment of some sort. He kept looking at his watch.

“Now the point is that I saw his car at about four-thirty when he drove away and his car wasn’t smashed at all.”

“You mean the accident is a fake?” I asked, “that the car wasn’t smashed and—”

“No, no,” she said. “It’s the time element, that’s all. And I’m not too certain that— Donald, you saw the accident and I want to know whether you could have been mistaken.”

“I could have been mistaken,” I told her.

“Thanks. That’s all I want to know.”

I said, “We’d better close this window and turn out the lights, hadn’t we?”

“And lock up.”

I nodded.

“I guess so,” she said. She walked around the office, looking things over. “What a holy mess!”

“No use trying to straighten it up tonight,” I said. “And in case Mr. Holgate should want to have the authorities notified, we should leave things very much the way they are.”

“That’s right.”

I said, “What about the other office? It’s dark.”

“That’s Mr. Maxton’s private office.”

“Better take a look in there, hadn’t we?”

“I suppose so.”

“You have a key to it?”

“There’s a key in the safe in the outer office.”

“And you have the combination to the safe?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s take a look, just to be on the safe side. The safe doesn’t seem to have been tampered with.”

We went out to the other office and then she stood regarding her typewriter with frowning concentration. “I just can’t understand what happened,” she said. “I can’t understand who could have been using that typewriter.”

“Does Mr. Holgate type?” I asked.

“He can hunt and peck.”

“Then somebody must have been here who could do some typing or Holgate was trying to type a document.”

“I can’t imagine who else could have been typing.”

“The woman’s shoe,” I reminded her.

She nodded.

I said, “That gives us a little more to work on. Holgate was here with the woman. He was perhaps selling her a lot. She was a typist. In any event, a sale was made and she wanted something written up. Holgate asked her if she could use the typewriter and she said she could so he said to use yours.”

Lorraine pursed her lips. “That adds up, Donald. Stay with it. You’re doing fine.”

“And,” I said, “he pointed out your typewriter to her, she took the cover off, turned on the current, put the paper in the machine and started typing.”

“Then what?”

“Then,” I said, “she had finished with the typing and she brought the paper into Holgate’s office for his signature and then was when the intruder came in and started an argument with Holgate. The argument got to the point of a struggle and the girl took off her shoe and tried to rap this man over the head.”

Lorraine frowned and shook her head.

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“Who won the fight?” she asked.

“Quite obviously the other person,” I said.

“All right then, what became of Mr. Holgate and the girl, whoever she was?”

“That,” I said, “is something we’ve got to find out. The man got the paper he wanted. That left Holgate with the girl. He decided that before he notified the authorities, in fact before he did anything, he wanted to go someplace and do something and the girl went with him.”

“All right,” she said, “carry it a step farther. In that case, the fight must have been over that affidavit of yours.”

“Apparently it had something to do with the affidavit, but I don’t think whoever went through those papers was looking for the affidavit.”

“Well, it’s one of the things that’s missing.”

I said, “Let’s try this one for size... The girl came in. Holgate wanted something done in connection with that affidavit. Perhaps he wanted it copied, perhaps he wanted something in connection with it. He went to the riling case, got the affidavit out of the envelope, and the girl went out to the outer office to start copying and—”

Lorraine snapped her fingers.

“Something clicks?” I asked.

“It clicks in a big way,” she said. “That’s what happened. They were working on that affidavit of yours.”

“Then the affidavit wasn’t the important thing,” I said. “The affidavit left the office. It could have left with Holgate and the girl. What the intruder was looking for was something else.”

She said, “If the intruder had a chance to do that much searching, he must have had an opportunity when he was more or less undisturbed. That would mean he’d won the fight.”

“Sure, he won the fight,” I said. “He had to, if we’re building it up that way.”

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go take a look in Maxton’s office and then if everything’s all right there we’ll close this place up and go find Mr. Holgate. Can you stay with me for a while, Donald?”

“For a while,” I said.

She said, “What did you want to see him about?”

I said, “Frankly, I was worried about the time element. I wasn’t certain when you come right down to it, not absolutely certain, it was three-thirty. I got to thinking it might have been later. I wanted to ask him about it so I could be dead certain.”

She said, “The time is wrong. But I know the accident happened because I saw his car.”

“When?”

“When it was in the garage being fixed. It was laid up for — oh, I guess a week. They had to get a new radiator and some parts for the front of it.”

“When did he tell you about the accident, on the fourteenth?”

She said, “He mentioned it rather casually and — well, he didn’t seem to pay too much attention to it. He wrote the insurance company and reported it, and I suggested to him that he’d better notify the police. That was the afternoon of the fourteenth.”

I said, “I’d hate to get off on the wrong foot. I fixed the time as three-thirty because that’s when Dudley Bedford told me the accident took place according to the police records.”

“Just who is Dudley Bedford, Donald?” she asked.

“All I know is that he’s the boy friend of a girl I’ve met.”

“How well do you know her?”

“I’ve just seen her a couple of times.”

“Do you expect to see more of her?”

“Probably.”

“How much more?”

“That,” I said, “depends.”

“Is it a girl named Doris Ashley?”

“Yes.”

“And Bedford’s her boy friend?”

“I think so. Why do you ask?”

“Because,” she said, “Bedford has been in touch with Mr. Holgate, and Mr. Holgate didn’t tell me what the conversation was about. Usually he does. It’s part of the way he runs the office. He’ll tell me all about the various people who come in, give me his impressions of them, let me know what their business is and all that, so I’ll know how to handle myself if they should call up when he isn’t in; whether to break my neck trying to locate him or whether to just brush them off.

“But with Bedford, Mr. Holgate just didn’t tell me a thing and of course I didn’t ask.”

“Well,” I said, “I think we’d better look in Maxton’s office, then go find Holgate. Let’s close up the place here, turn off the lights and see what we can do.”

She opened the safe, took out a key. We opened the door to Maxton’s office and switched on the light.

The place was neat and orderly.

“Not a thing touched here,” she said.

She stood for a moment in thoughtful contemplation, then switched off the light and closed the door.

The spring lock clicked.

She went to the safe, replaced the key, closed the safe door, spun the combination, walked over to her typewriter, switched off the motor and put the plastic cover over the machine.

Then she went into Holgate’s office, closed and locked the windows and switched off the lights. We went out, got in my car, and she had me drive to Holgate’s apartment.

No one answered the door. The place was dark.

We tried a couple of clubs where he frequently played cards and drew a blank.

“The guy has to be someplace,” I said.

She said, “All right, Donald. He’s someplace but we don’t know where that someplace is. It’s late and I’m going to bed. We’ll sleep on it and see what we can find out in the morning.”

I looked at her, and her face was just too innocent. I knew damned well she wasn’t going to bed and going to sleep. I also knew damned well she wanted to get rid of me in order to look in some other place where she thought Holgate might be found. She didn’t want anybody to know where that place was. She was a good secretary.

I rode along with the gag, took her back to her apartment, said good night and drove away.

I circled the block, came back and parked and hadn’t been there more than two minutes when a car came out of the parking lot driving fast.

I got close enough so that when the car went through the lighted intersection I could see it was Lorraine driving. She was all alone in the car.

I didn’t try to follow.

I went back to the Perkins Hotel.

There was a note for me to call Doris no matter what time I came in.

I put through the call and a moment later heard Doris’ voice on the line.

“Hello,” she said cautiously, noncommitally.

“How’s tricks?” I asked.

“Donald!” she exclaimed, recognizing my voice. “I thought you were supposed to stay there in the hotel and be where we could reach you with messages.”

“Well,” I said, “I got sidetracked. It’s something I’ll have to tell you about later. What’s the trouble, anything?”

“I was hoping you’d get in touch with me this evening, Donald, before it got too late.

“Too late for what?”

“For respectability.”

“Do we have to be respectable?”

“I do — in this apartment house.”

“Why don’t you move?”

She laughed and said, “Seriously speaking, Donald. I thought I was going to see more of you.”

“You are.”

“When?”

“Tonight?”

“It’s too late, Donald. They lock the outer door.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“That would be fine. When?”

“The earlier the better. I called you tonight. You didn’t answer.”

“You called me?”

“Yes.”

“Just once?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I’m not certain about the time. It was at what you’d call a respectable hour.”

“Oh, Donald! That must have been when I ran down to the corner to get some cigarettes! Oh, I’m sorry! I was... hoping you’d call. A girl shouldn’t say that. It sounds— Oh, hell, Donald, do we have to stand on convention?”

“No. Can I come out?”

“Not tonight, Donald. I’d get put out.”

“All right, we were talking about tomorrow, early.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “I have to go to the airport to meet a friend tomorrow. Why don’t you drive out to the airport with me?”

“Your friends,” I said, “are sometimes a little violent. I still have a sore jaw.”

“That,” she said, “I’m very angry about that, and believe me, he knows it. No, this isn’t a man friend, this is a girl friend. Really I shouldn’t let you see her. She’s a raving beauty, a blonde with a wonderful figure. She’s been back east for a while and she’s coming in on the early plane and wants me to meet her.”

“Do I know her?” I asked.

“I hope not,” she said. “I guess you’ve heard about her, though. She’s Vivian Deshler — you know, the girl who was hurt in that automobile accident.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, feeling my way cautiously. “That’s the accident I saw on the thirteenth of August.”

“That’s right.”

I said, “I’ve been wondering about the time element of that accident, Doris. Your friend may have given me the wrong time. I think the accident may have been an hour and a half later than—”

“Donald, don’t let anyone fool you. The accident was at three-thirty.”

“How do you know?”

“A friend and I saw Vivian’s car at four o’clock. You could see the dent in the rear. She drove out here right after the accident.”

“You’re sure of the time?”

“Of course.”

I said, “Okay, Doris. Why don’t I pick you up about eight o’clock? We can have breakfast, then drive to the airport.”

“Eight o’clock?”

“Yeah. Is that too early?”

“Heavens, yes. She doesn’t get in until ten-forty-five. Come to the apartment at eight-thirty, Donald. I’ll have some coffee on and we can have coffee here. Then we can go to the airport and see if the plane’s on time, have a little breakfast and then meet her when she comes in.”

“You have yourself a breakfast date,” I told her. “You’re sure it’s too late for me to see you tonight?”

“Yes, Donald. Some other night perhaps.”

“Some other night for sure,” I said, and hung up.

I rang Bertha Cool.

“Donald, Bertha,” I said. “What’s new?”

“Where are you?”

“Perkins Hotel, Colinda.”

“I got hold of a night number for Lamont Hawley,” she said, “and I gave him a going over. The guy’s completely flabbergasted. He had absolutely no idea any other detective agency was on the job. He swears he didn’t try to play one against the other, that all of his dealings with us were on the up and up.

“He seemed tremendously concerned and told me I should tell you to watch your step, that there were things in this case he couldn’t understand.”

“That,” I said, “is an understatement.”

“He said that he only got us on the job when he felt that there was, as he expressed it, more to it than met the eye.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I told him plenty,” Bertha said grimly. “I told him that if he knew there was more to it than met the eye, he wasn’t playing fair with us when he got me to fix the fees and that he was going to have to increase the ante.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He never batted an eyelash,” Bertha said. “He told me he’d add another thousand dollars to our fees because he hadn’t been, as he expressed it, entirely frank.”

“With no more trouble than that, he added another thousand bucks to the ante?”

“What the hell do you mean, with no more trouble than that?” Bertha said angrily. “You should have heard what I told the s.o.b. I went to town.”

“Did he ask you how you knew another detective agency was on the job?”

“I told him we’d seen the reports,” Bertha said.

“And naturally he wanted to know how you had seen them?”

“Sure.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him that was none of his business, that we didn’t have to explain our methods to anyone; that we were hired to get results, that we’d pass on information but how we got that information was our own affair.”

“Well,” I told her, “I’m supposed to be here in Colinda tonight but confidentially I’m going home and spend the night in my apartment. I want to get a good night’s sleep.”

“You don’t think you’d get it there?”

“I feel there might be interruptions,” I said, “and I want to gain a little time before I have to cope with those interruptions. Also I have an idea I can use a little sleep because it may be the last sleep I’ll get for a while.”

“All right,” Bertha said, “I’m going to bed myself. I was waiting for your call. You’ve been long enough. What the hell have you been doing?”

“Working on the case.”

“I’ll bet you had some cutie helping you,” Bertha said.

“Why, Bertha!” I exclaimed. “How you talk!” and hung up before she could get in another dig.

I left the hotel, drove the car back to my apartment where I had a private garage, put the car in the garage, closed the door, went up and went to bed.

It was one thing to tell Bertha I was going to have a good night’s rest. It was another thing to try and get it.

It was after three o’clock in the morning before I finally got to sleep. The damned case simply didn’t make sense, no matter how I looked at it.

Holgate and some woman had been having a conference when somebody broke in. There must have been two of those somebodies. Holgate was a big, powerful man. He and a woman between them could have subdued any single individual — unless, of course, that man had a gun, and if he had had a gun there wouldn’t have been the evidences of a fight all over the place. Someone would have got shot.

I tossed around in bed, first on one side, then on the other, trying to get to sleep.

I woke up at six feeling just a little more tired than when I had gone to bed and a hell of a lot more frustrated.