Traps Need Fresh Bait

Chapter 12

I steered clear of the office the next morning, drove around casually, and located my shadow.

As nearly as I could tell, there was only one shadow. It was a routine job.

I waited until after nine o’clock, then telephoned Orville Maxton.

“Donald Lam talking, Mr. Maxton,” I said.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Give me a little information about the board of the subdivision and improvement commission you are on.”

“Nothing doing. I’ve talked too much about that already, and I’m not talking any more.”

“I don’t want the conventional type of information,” I said. “I want something different.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as your private opinion of Dale Finchley.”

“Who are you — a reporter?”

“No, I’m a suspect.”

“A what?” he shouted into the telephone.

“A suspect.”

“How come?”

“That’s what I’d like to find out,” I said. “The police are making trouble for me.”

“How well did you know Finchley?”

“Not at all, but I think I’m beginning to find out about him.”

There was a cautious silence at the other end of the line; then the voice said, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“About fifteen minutes,” I said.

“I don’t need any wisecracks.”

“That wasn’t a wisecrack,” I told him. “I want to talk with you about fifteen minutes. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to; you don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to. The police haven’t given you a clean bill of health, but they’re trying to pin the crime on me. We might have something in common.”

There was silence at the other end of the line; then the voice said, “I’ll give you fifteen minutes. Come on over. How long will it take you to get here?”

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll be there.”

“All right, come in ten minutes, and you’ll have fifteen — unless I think you’re trying to cut corners. And if you are, you’ll get thrown out.”

“Fair enough,” I told him.

Actually, Maxton’s office was only about two blocks from where I was telephoning. I walked the distance and gave my name to the receptionist in his office.

She looked at me curiously, said, “Go on in, Mr. Lam. He’s expecting you.”

Orville Maxton was a football player type of individual — broad-shouldered, chunky, thick-necked, with heavy brows, a short tough-looking nose, a square jaw, and big hands.

He sized me up with gray eyes which gave the impression of pin-point pupils.

“Sit down, Lam,” he said.

I sat down.

“What do you want to know?”

I said, “You’re a member of a board; you were about to award contracts; Finchley was acting as the board’s attorney. Was there any particular reason for Finchley to have all of those bids ready to submit to the board?”

“Sure there was. We were going to award a contract. We wanted to know with whom we were dealing and the amount of the bids.”

“And you had a meeting scheduled?”

Thick, stubby fingers drummed on the desk. “The meeting was to be called.”

“By whom?”

“By Finchley.”

“When?”

“He said he had one more bid which he thought might be the best of all — that it had been delayed somewhat, but it was coming in... Look here, Lam; I’ve told all of this to the police.”

“You didn’t tell them where you were at the time of the murder.”

“You’re damned right I didn’t! It’s none of their business! You talk about cooperating with the police; how much cooperation do you get from the police?

“They come and ask you all sorts of private questions, and then they call in the newspaper reporters to tell what smart cookies they are — and the first thing you know you read about your private affairs all over the front page of the newspaper!”

“I take it you are referring to your own private affairs?”

“You can take anything you damn please, anywhere you damn please. Now, tell me about yourself.”

I said, “I’m a private detective.”

“The hell you are!”

“I was working on a case for a woman who had been led into a bigamous marriage. When her husband found out she knew he had another wife living here in Los Angles, he ducked out and cleaned out all of her lifetime savings when he left.

“I managed to trace him to Los Angles. I wanted to put the bite on him.

“I’m keeping my client under cover. For reasons which I can’t discuss at the moment, the police feel that she might — just might be the mysterious woman who was in the Finchley house at the time of the murder or the one who was seen leaving the Finchley house shortly after the murder.”

“You act as if you were talking about two women.”

“I think I am.”

Maxton did some more drumming on the top of the desk with his fingertips. His hands were nervous, but his face was steady as a granite cliff.

“What else?” he asked me after a while.

I said, “The police don’t like it when a private detective holds out on them. I’m not in a position to take the police into my confidence at the moment. I’m trying to keep my client under cover. The police are making things hot for me. The best way I can ease the pressure is to find some clue that I can turn over to them and trust to luck they’ll go baying off on the scent and leave me alone.”

“So you came to me.”

“I came to you.”

“With the idea that the police are following you and trying to find out what you’re up to and that this will start them following my trail?”

“With the idea,” I said, “that I can get some information.”

“Do the police know you’re here?”

“I think so. They’re having me followed. At least I think they are.”

“I want to keep out of this,” he said. “I have private reasons for keeping out of it.”

He was the sort of a bull-necked, barrel-chested individual who was strongly vital. He wasn’t the type who teams up with one woman and remains true to her for very long at a time.

He looked at me, and I didn’t say anything.

“Private, personal reasons,” he said, “I’m not telling them to the police; I’m not telling them to you; and I don’t care to have my private life spread all over the front pages of the metropolitan press.”

“Fair enough,” I told him. “Now will you answer a question?”

“What?”

“Do you have any reason to believe that, back of his front of respectability, Dale Finchley was a very shrewd, very clever manipulator?”

He shot a question at me so that the words had almost a physical impact. “Do you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

He was thoughtfully silent. “Would you give me your information without getting information from me? In other words, would you just put yourself in my hands and let me play the game my way?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

I said, “You wouldn’t put your information in my hands and let me play the game the way I want to.”

“No,” he said, “I wouldn’t. But I could use a smart private detective.”

I said, “Suppose copies of all those bids were available to a Johnny-come-lately bidder, who could put in his bid on the job with the assurance that he knew exactly what the other people were bidding. How much would that be worth to that contractor?”

“Anywhere from half a million to a million, provided he had detailed copies of the calls for subcontracts and the specifications for future work prepared by our engineers, together with their estimates — all in all, quite a mass of data.”

I said, “I think I can show you something if you have an hour to spare.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“If I get in a fight, I’d like to have your influence behind me.”

“I daresay you would. Lots of people would.”

“But I’d leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions.”

“I wouldn’t be obligated?”

“Not for a minute.”

He reached for his hat and said, “How long?”

“About an hour,” I said. “Now listen,” I told him. “I’m being shadowed. Probably you’re being shadowed. We’ve got to do some fancy stuff on ditching those shadows.”

“You have any ideas?” he asked.

“Shadowing is my business,” I said. “I know how to shadow, and that means I know some pretty good gags for getting rid of shadows.”

“I’m willing to be educated.”

“The first thing,” I said, “is to act innocent until you get ready to jerk the rug out from under the shadow. Now, you and I are having a friendly conference. You’re a tenant here in the building. Presumably you have some influence. You ring up the janitor of the building and tell him you want him to bring up a freight elevator and hold it at the seventh floor. We’re on the ninth floor.

“We go to the elevator,” I said. “Shadows are probably watching the entrance, and another shadow may be up here somewhere in the corridor. This is the ninth floor. We get in the elevator; we drop down two floors to the seventh floor; we hurry to the freight elevator; the janitor takes us down to the basement; we go out in the alley. We go down the alley until we find an unlocked back door of a store building; we go in that door; we come out the front; we pick up a taxicab; we go to a drive-yourself place and rent a car.”

“That seems like a lot of trouble to get rid of shadows.”

“It takes a lot of trouble to get rid of a good shadow.”

“You think they’ll fall for it?”

“The man on the ninth floor,” I said, “will expect the shadow in the lobby of the building to pick us up when we go out. If we act as though we didn’t know we were being shadowed, we can probably get by with it.”

Maxton picked up the telephone, said to his secretary, “Get me the manager of the building.” Then after a moment he said, “This is Orville Maxton. I want the janitor to take a freight elevator up to the seventh floor. That’s right, a freight elevator. That’s right, the seventh floor. I want him to wait there until we come. I’ll give him two minutes to get into position.”

He listened for a moment, grinned, said, “Thank you,” then hung up.

We waited about two minutes. The phone rang. Maxton answered it, said to me, “The freight elevator is in position.”

“Let’s go,” I told him.

We sauntered out of his office together, down the corridor and into the elevator.

A man who had been standing at the water fountain walked casually into a real-estate office.

The elevator door closed. Maxton said, “Out at seven, please.”

We got out at the seventh floor. Maxton led the way down the deserted corridor to a freight elevator.

A Swedish janitor asked apprehensively, “What’s the trouble? Something missing? Something I did wrong?”

“No trouble, Ole,” Maxton said, and handed him five dollars. “Let’s go down all the way to the alley entrance.”

“Yah,” Ole said, and the freight elevator rumbled down.

Maxton looked at me and grinned. “You know, Lam,” he said, “I’m beginning to like you. I think you know your job.”

“Thanks,” I told him.

We got out in the alley, found the back door of a sporting-goods store that was open, went in, walked through the store talking to each other as though completely engrossed in conversation, walked past a couple of clerks who wanted to sell us something but didn’t want to interrupt, went out on the sidewalk, got a taxi-cab, went to a drive-yourself agency, picked up a car, and drove to 1369 Hemmet.

I parked the car, took the key from my pocket and unlocked the door.

“What kind of a setup is this?” Maxton asked.

“That,” I said, “is something you can tell me.”

I went into the dining room.

There wasn’t as much as a trace of furniture in the place.

“Well?” Maxton asked.

I turned and led the way out. “Come on,” I told him.

“What’s the idea of coming out here?”

“I wanted to show you something.”

“Well, show it to me.”

“It’s gone.”

“Where?”

“That,” I said, “is something I’d like to find out.”

“Can you tell me what it was?”

“Furniture of a sort.”

“What kind of furniture?”

“A battery of five duplicating machines,” I said. “The latest electronic duplicators.”

He looked at me and blinked thoughtfully, then said after a moment, “I don’t get it.”

I said, “You’ve been in Finchley’s residence from time to time.”

“Certainly. He did a lot of business from his residence, and I’ve done a lot of business with Finchley.”

I said, “How far is Finchley’s place from here?”

He looked thoughtful, then said, “Why, it’s only a matter of four blocks.”

I didn’t say anything more but led the way out of the house, our footsteps echoing loudly across the deserted living room and the reception corridor.

I locked the door behind us, went over to the adjoining house on the east.

“Can you tell me,” I asked, “what time the moving van came to the house next door?”

“I certainly can,” the woman who answered the door said indignantly. “It was two-thirty this morning.”

“You didn’t happen to notice the name on the moving van, did you?”

“I did not. I don’t get up and try to notice things at two-thirty in the morning. I tried to get back to sleep.”

“Were they noisy?”

“They never said a word, but that big van lumbered up there and stopped and men got out and went in and came out carrying things. And the house is supposed to be empty. And I’ll tell you this much: they had blankets of some sort over the side of the van so you couldn’t read any names.”

“At two-thirty this morning?”

“Yes. Now, tell me, why do you want to know?”

I said, “I’m thinking of buying the place and I wanted to be sure that everything was out of it.”

“Well, everything was supposed to be out of it, but they certainly took a truckload of stuff. Not one of those great big vans, but a covered van just the same.”

“Thank you very much indeed,” I told her.

I turned to Maxton. “All right,” I said. “We go back to the office of the rental agency, turn the car in, and take a cab back to your office building. We go in the alley entrance, and your Swede janitor takes us up in the freight elevator. With luck, the shadows will never know we went out.”

Maxton said, “Lam, I’m beginning to put this stuff together.”

“That’s fine.”

“You’ve told me something that is beginning to ring a bell — some very, very valuable information.”

“I was hoping you could use it.”

“I can use it, but I don’t know just how.”

We went through our routine and took the elevator up to the ninth floor.

The man who had been loitering around the drinking fountain and who had entered the real-estate office was no longer visible as we came in.

“Where’s your car?” Maxton asked.

“Down in a parking lot a couple of blocks from here. I walked.”

“And you think you were tailed?” Maxton asked.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”

Maxton said, “Where can I get hold of you if I need you, Lam?”

I gave him one of my cards.

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, said, “You may be a hell of a sight smarter than you look.” And then he added after a moment, “and you don’t look exactly dumb.”

He grinned. For the first time since I had met him, I got a good look at his teeth.

His big hand squeezed on mine. “Thanks a lot, Lam,” he said. “I think maybe things are going to work out all right. You and I are in the same boat. I’ve got to turn up a new clue sooner or later in order to keep the police from making a big issue out of where I was at the time the murder was committed.”

“You know where you were?”

“Of course I know where I was! And only one other person knows, and I’m not particularly anxious to have the identity of that other person disclosed to the reading public.”

“O.K.,” I told him. “You can reach me if you need me.”

I went back to the elevator, slipped the operator five bucks and said, “Basement.”

The cage took me down to the basement. I grinned at Ole, waved him a friendly greeting, and calmly walked out the back door as though Maxton had fixed it all up for me.

I went back to the drive-yourself agency, rented another car, went out and made enough crazy turns to make certain I wasn’t being followed, then went to the apartment where I’d left Daphne Creston.

Some sixth sense warned me something was wrong when I gently fitted the key to the door.

I opened it a crack. “Everybody decent?” I asked.

There was no answer. I stepped inside.

The place looked as though it had been struck by a cyclone. The bed covers had been pulled off the bed and were on the floor. The mattress had been jerked off and was standing in a corner. Drawers had been pulled out of the bureau, clothes taken from the closet and tossed on the floor.

I heard the sound of motion coming from the kitchenette, then the clatter of pans.

I jerked open the door.

Katherine Elliott was there in the kitchen in front of a cupboard, jerking out pots and pans, then searching the corners with a flashlight.

I stood there in the doorway.

After a moment she looked up, saw me, stifled a scream, then straightened.

“Hello, Katherine,” I said.

“You!” she said, and her face really showed startled surprise.

“Who did you expect?”

“How did you find me here?”

I grinned at her and said, “I followed you.”

“No, you didn’t. Nobody could have followed me.”

“You don’t know a good shadowing job when you see one,” I told her. “Find what you’re looking for?”

“You,” she told me, “can go to hell! And I may be able to help send you there. You’re a murderer!”

“And,” I told her, “you’re alone with me!”

Suddenly the idea dawned on her. She let the panic show on her face.

I moved toward her.

She flattened herself against the wall, eased toward the back door, suddenly went out and down the service steps.

I made a bolt for the front door — not bothering even to close the door behind me. I couldn’t wait for the slow, rattling elevator. I took the steps two at a time, got out on the sidewalk and started checking the automobiles that were parked in front of the place.

The third had a registration slip showing that it was the property of Katherine Elliott.

I stood close to the car, drew my .38-caliber revolver and put two bullet holes through the body of the car — one of them just above the gas tank in the rear, the other one along the side of the car, where it left an unsightly gash by the back door.

I shoved the revolver in my holster and made a run to my rented car, jumped in and drove off just as some curious pedestrian — hearing the sounds of the shots — started looking around, wondering whether they were shots or whether a truck had backfired.