Traps Need Fresh Bait

Chapter 7

I went to the office. Bertha wasn’t back from lunch. I walked across the reception room into my own private office and waited for Elsie.

Bertha came in after about five minutes. I waited a minute for her to get settled, then went in to see her.

“Donald,” she said, “I wish there was some way we could get in touch with our client.”

“You mean Adams?”

“Yes. Can’t you figure out some way to reach him?”

“I’ve called him twice. I’ve also left a message for him.”

“Yesterday he was so anxious to talk with you. You know, Donald, I think that guy is trying to get us to forget the whole business, get what money back he can, and let it all go.”

“Could be,” I said.

“Are you pigeonholing the case?”

“No, I’m keeping on the job.”

“How’re you doing?”

“I’m making a little progress. It’s slow but — there’s no use bothering you with a lot of details. I’ll report to Adams when I get in touch with him. But I can’t keep calling him.

“If the guy’s trying to call off the job, let him get in touch with us and tell us what he wants.”

“That’s good logic,” Bertha said. “I get sore at these goddamned clients that can’t make up their own minds. First they blow hot; then they blow cold. Somehow this guy didn’t impress me like that. I thought he was a keen, incisive businessman.

“You could tell, though, he was keeping something back. At the time, I thought you were right that several insurance companies had banded together in order to get information about some sort of a racket that was jeopardizing their interests.”

I stretched, yawned and said, “If he rings up and asks for me, tell him I’m out.”

“I’ll let Elsie do the talking.”

“Elsie isn’t here.”

“The hell she isn’t!”

“She’s out doing a tailing job for me.”

“Donald, you can’t use that girl as an operative. She’s a secretary. You’ll get into trouble trying to...”

“I know, I know,” I said. “This is an emergency.”

“I don’t like it, Donald. You have too damn many emergencies. Keep this one to a minimum.”

“O.K., Bertha,” I said, and walked out.

I went down to my office and hadn’t been there over ten minutes when Elsie came in.

Elsie was walking on air. The starry-eyed look on her face indicated that she had been highly successful. If she had followed her own inclination, she’d have come close to me and said, “Donald, guess what?” As it was, however, she was playing the part of the cool operative.

“Get anywhere, Elsie?” I asked, knowing that my remark was what she was waiting for.

“Donald,” she said, “you’d never guess...”

“Yes. What happened?”

“I picked up the girl from your description. That was a wonderful description, Donald. I had no trouble picking her up from the way you described her clothes and her general appearance. She went from the elevator to the entrance of the building and stood there for a minute, with people streaming all around her. And then this man came up to her.

“The man was undoubtedly the one whom she was expecting. They acted as if they’d made a date over the telephone.”

“Can you describe him?”

“I can do better than that,” she said triumphantly. “He was the man who came in when we were serving you the birthday cake.”

I didn’t try to keep surprise out of my voice. “Barney Adams?”

She nodded. “That’s the one.”

“Where did they go?”

“They went to a cocktail lounge, had a quick drink, did a little talking, and that’s when I made the wrong decision”

“How come?”

“The way this girl acted, it looked as if they had agreed on something — some plan of action; and I thought you’d want to know what it was, where she was going. The man got up and went to the men’s room, and while he was in there this girl got up and started for the door. So I reached a quick decision and decided to tail her, because I knew that you and Bertha had the address of this Adams man.”

“And where did she go?” I asked.

“Right back to her office. Probably she had some telephoning to do.”

“And didn’t have any lunch?”

“No, just a drink.”

“And she left while the man was in the men’s room?”

“That’s right.”

“Had he called for a check, or did he pay for the drink when it was served?”

“Neither. The waiter was hovering around the table when I left. I think he was afraid they were pulling a fast one on the check. It was the girl who paid the check. I probably should have tried to see where Adams went, but it never occurred to me the girl was just going back to her office and, well, you see, Adams knew me by sight, and I was just afraid that he was going to find me shadowing him and... well, you know, he probably wouldn’t have placed me right at the start. He’d have done a little frowning concentration at first, thinking that I had a face that was vaguely familiar, and then... well, he’d have placed me, and then things would have been bad. So I reached the best decision I could and tailed the girl who didn’t know me. She just went back to the office, and that’s that!”

“Wait for her to come out?”

“I waited long enough to make sure she hadn’t forgotten something and had just gone up in the elevator to get it. I thought perhaps she was going to come back down and go back to the cocktail lounge to meet him. But she stayed up there, so I guess they had transacted their business and she took off. But it was strange she went while he was in the men’s room. It didn’t look as though they had said any farewells or anything.”

“Look here, had he seen you?” I asked.

“I thought of that, Donald, but I’m quite sure he hadn’t. If he had, he’s a genius. He let his eyes slide over my face once, but just the casual glance of a man who is appraising the scenery.”

“But he did see you?”

“Well, of course he saw me. I was where I could look at him; and that means that he, of course, was where he could look at me.”

“And that was before he got up and went to the men’s room?”

“Yes.”

“O.K., Elsie,” I told her, “you’ve done a job. Don’t say anything about this to Bertha. Let her know you are back in the office and will take any calls from people who are asking for me. And tell everybody I’m out.”

From the office, I went directly to the Better Business Bureau.

I took the ad from my pocket — the one I had clipped from the newspaper — and said, “I’d like to find out something about this.”

The girl who was at the counter said, “just a minute, please. I think we can help you.”

She vanished into an inside office, and a moment later a woman I knew came out.

“Why, Donald Lam!” Evelyn Calhoun said. “What are you doing here? Sleuthing?”

“First tell me what you are doing here?” I asked.

“I’ve been here for six months,” she said. “I quit my job at the City Attorney’s office in order to take this position.”

I slipped the ad back in my pocket, said, “I didn’t know you were here. Actually, I didn’t have anything in particular on my mind. I wanted to find out about two or three things, but I’ll get a little more data and come back.”

“Perhaps you won’t need the additional data,” she said. “The receptionist tells me you were inquiring about the ad offering three hundred dollars reward for a witness to an automobile accident.”

“That was one of the things I had in mind,” I said. “Business is sort of dull, and I’m very curious. I was just nosing around. But it’s nothing to bother you with.”

She laughed and said, “Donald, don’t pull that line. I know you too well. You’re trying to cover up and back out because you didn’t want your real identity to be known. Come on in the inner office, Donald. I think perhaps I can help you.”

I followed her into the inner office and took the seat she offered.

“What’s your interest in it, Donald?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I would have lied to the girl out there, but I’m not going to lie to you, Evelyn. So let’s just forget the whole business.”

She smiled. “I won’t press you, Donald. But, as a matter of fact, we have some data on that. We made an investigation — just checking because of the peculiar way the ad was worded.

“The ad was placed by a Rodney Harper, who rented an office in the Monadnock Building from Katherine Elliott.

“Katherine Elliott is a very competent secretary and organizer who quit a salaried job as secretary and branched out on her own. She has a string of small offices in the Monadnock Building. She rents them out, runs a mail-answering service and a telephone-answering service. She had a client who got into trouble with the Better Business Bureau a couple of years ago, and she’s been rather careful ever since. She wanted Rodney Harper to give her references, and finally he did so — giving her a reference from the construction firm of Lathrop, Lucas and Manly. They stated that they had known Rodney Harper for some time and could vouch for his integrity.”

“Did you talk with Lathrop, Lucas and Manly?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “we didn’t check any further than with Katherine Elliott. Everything seemed to be all right. And, while the ad was worded in a peculiar way and the reward was a little high, we accepted Harper’s references and let it go at that.”

“Katherine Elliott had checked them?”

“Oh, yes, she got one of the partners in the firm on the telephone, and he confirmed everything that was said in the letter.”

“And she has Harper’s address?”

“As I remember it, she only had a hotel address. Harper was here from another city doing some kind of investigative work in connection with the accident. But, in view of the gilt-edged nature of his references, she went ahead with Harper.”

“You didn’t find out what hotel Harper was staying at, did you?”

“No, I just made a routine check. I can find out for you, Donald.”

“If you can find out without. Letting me get mixed in it in any way...”

“Don’t give it a thought,” she said. “I’ll be glad to do it for you.” She pulled out a drawer full of cards, got a number, and dialed.

“Katherine Elliott, please. Oh, yes, Katherine. This is Evelyn Calhoun at the Better Business Bureau. I was trying to complete my card file on the matter I consulted you about, and I notice we don’t have Mr. Harper’s address. I believe you said he was at a hotel...”

The telephone broke into squawking noises which sounded like a panic-stricken hen gathering her chicks about her when a chicken hawk flew overhead.

“Oh, yes, I see,” Evelyn Calhoun said, when she could get a word in edgeways; and then, after a moment, “Well, I was just completing my file and I saw, on looking at the card, that we didn’t have that address. The Stilton Hotel. Well, thanks a lot... No, no, everything’s all right. I was just completing our files. The matter is closed as far as we are concerned... That’s right... You know how it is. You like to keep your desk clear... That’s right. These things certainly do pile up. I hadn’t noticed that we didn’t have that data until I started to file. You probably gave it to me before, but I didn’t put it down. The fact he was vouched for by the contractors is enough for anyone... All right, thanks again. ’Bye now!”

Evelyn Calhoun hung up the phone and said, “My, you are an unpopular character!”

“Why?”

“She gave me the information I wanted, and then told me that a Donald Lam, who had made a pass at trying to get the reward from Mr. Harper and been turned down, was trying to make trouble.

“She said that Harper was satisfied that Donald Lam hadn’t seen the accident at all but was simply trying to collect three hundred dollars and was willing to commit perjury in order to do it.

“She went on to say that, under the circumstances, they couldn’t accuse Lam of trying to sell his testimony without putting themselves in a vulnerable position, so they had just kind of brushed him off, but that Lam was persistent and certainly wanted that three hundred dollars.”

“I see,” I said.

She regarded me thoughtfully. “Did you try to collect the three hundred dollars, Donald?”

“I tried to find out what the ad was all about.”

“Did you find anything?”

“In a way,” I said. “It’s fishy.”

“In what way?”

“I’m not prepared to make a detailed statement at the moment,” I said, “but that accident is completely phony. They’ve got everything all backward in the ad. The driver of the Cadillac was the one who was at fault. The accident was settled before that ad was ever put in the paper.”

Her eyes narrowed. “The accident was settled!”

“That’s right.”

“Then why on earth would they want to get testimony? Are they trying to reopen the settlement?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I was just trying to get information myself.”

“I think we’d better look into that,” she said. “This is right down our alley.”

I shook my head. “Don’t stir up the waters until after I’ve made a pass at catching my fish.”

“But those are the sort of things we like to catch. Well, I may as well tell you... Katherine Elliott was in trouble once before with one of her clients, and if she’s... But she told us she used every precaution.”

“I’m satisfied she did,” I said. “Just let it go for the time being. Can you give me Katherine Elliott’s address?”

She consulted a card, said, “She was living in the Steel-built Apartments in apartment 14 B. That was when she was having a little trouble with the B.B.B. I don’t know if she’s still at the same place.”

“I don’t know as it makes much difference,” I said. “I’m like you; I just like to have lots of data.”

“Lots of data sometimes comes in mighty handy,” she said, and then went on: “Let’s make a bargain, Donald.”

“What?”

“You tell us what you find out if it is something we should know and we’ll back your play if it comes to a showdown.”

“What do you mean ‘back my play’?”

“Say that we’re working on it together — if that will help.”

“The time may come,” I said, “when that will help. But, right now, I want to play a lone hand. I’ll co-operate with you every way that I can, but I have a client and some things I have to keep confidential.”

“I understand. But you’ve got me interested now.”

“Don’t show any interest in the outer office.”

“O.K., Donald. Keep in touch.”

“Thanks,” I told her, and left the office to go to the public library and check up on construction firms doing business in the city.

I found a contractor’s magazine and studied the files. Finally I found a reference to Lathrop, Lucas and Manly in the index.

The assistant librarian helped me find the issue I wanted, and I opened it to the page dealing with the firm.

There were pictures of the three executives.

Making allowances for the fact that the article was five years old, the picture of Walter Cushman Lucas was quite recognizable.

Walter Lucas was Rodney Harper.