Up for Grabs

Chapter 6

Elsie Brand was waiting for me at the airport.

“Donald,” she said, her manner indicating her mental “What’s gone wrong?”

“What makes you think anything’s gone wrong?”

“You’re supposed to be at that guest ranch and Bertha can’t understand you leaving there, or all your running around.”

“What about Melita Doon?” I asked. “Have we got a line on her?”

“I think so. It’s such an unusual name — there could hardly be two people with that name.”

“Who is she? What does she do?”

“She’s a nurse at the Civic Community Hospital. They were a little closemouthed about her when I tried to find out. We gave the old line about wanting to check on her credit, particularly with relation to her personal habits and all that.”

“What did we find out?”

“She had some sort of a nervous breakdown about a week ago and is out somewhere recuperating. They gave her a month’s leave of absence. She misfiled some X-rays. She’s all broken up about it. Got so she couldn’t do her work.”

“That checks,” I said. “But we’d better just check for physical description.”

“She’s twenty-eight years old, blonde, five feet two and a half, weighs a hundred and eight pounds.”

“Okay,” I said, “that’s the one. Who’s her boy friend?”

“A man by the name of Marty Lassen. He runs a television repair shop. He’s a big, athletic type and he’s supposed to be both jealous and short-tempered.”

“I always pick guys like that,” I said.

“Donald! You aren’t going to try to see him, are you?”

“Tomorrow morning, bright and early.”

“Oh, Donald! I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I’ve got to. Where does she live, and does she live alone or does she share an apartment?”

“No. She shares an apartment. She’s in 283 at the Bulwin Apartments, and her roommate is another nurse named Josephine Edgar.”

“Know anything about Josephine?” I asked.

“Only that she’s a nurse, and evidently a close friend of Melita Doon. They’ve been living together for a couple of years now. Melita has a sick mother whom she’s supporting in a nursing home.”

“That checks,” I said.

“What about Mr. Breckinridge?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “I’m going to call him right now.”

“You have a night number for Breckinridge?” she asked.

“Yes. He said I could reach him there at any time.”

I called the number, and Breckinridge’s well-modulated, suave voice came over the wire, “Ah, yes, hello, this is Homer Breckinridge speaking.”

“Donald Lam,” I told him.

“Ah, yes. Where are you?”

“I’m here at the airport.”

“You just got in?”

“Yes.”

“Lam, I have a hunch about this case, and when I have a hunch about a case it is predicated upon years of long experience and a subconscious appraisal of the situation.”

“I dare say it is.”

“I have to talk with you.”

“Give me your address and we’ll drive out,” I said.

“Who’s the ‘we’?”

“Elsie Brand, my secretary.”

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you at the office. Your partner didn’t know where to reach you.”

“That’s right.”

“I felt that I should be able to get in touch with you by calling your partner,” Breckinridge said reproachfully.

“Ordinarily you could,” I said. “This is something that it may be better if no one knows about. I’ll come out and see you if you want.”

“Please do that. I’m at my home.”

I hung up, and turned to Elsie, “Do you have the agency heap?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “Bertha would have wanted mileage and all that stuff so I just took my own car. I felt it would be easier doing it that’ way.”

“All right,” I told her, “we’re going to run up some mileage on your car.”

“Breckinridge?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I think he’s quite irritated.”

“Probably,” I said.

“What do we do?”

“We un-irritate him if possible. I’m sticking my neck way out on this thing and I hope he’s willing to ride along. Come on, let’s go.”

“Could we get something to eat afterwards? I’m starved.”

“Afterwards,” I promised her, “we’ll get eats.”

We drove Elsie Brand’s car. While we were working our way through traffic, I said, “This is a swank neighborhood, Elsie.”

“I don’t want to go in with you, Donald. I’ll sit in the car.”

“Nonsense,” I told her. “You met me at the airport, you’ll go on in with me.”

We drove to an imposing, Spanish-type house with an old-fashioned splendor of trees, grass and a wide porch. To be sure, the lawn was narrow, the trees were closely trimmed, but the house sat back from the street and there was an atmosphere of luxury about it.

I rang the bell.

Breckinridge himself came to the door.

“Well, well, Donald,” he said, shaking hands, “you’ve had quite a day, I guess. And this is your secretary, Elsie Brand? I’ve talked, with her over the phone.

“Come in, come in.”

His manner was very cordial.

We entered the house, were escorted into a living room and seated.

Breckinridge didn’t sit down. He stood by the fireplace facing me, his hands thrust deep into the side pockets of the cashmere sport coat he was wearing.

“Donald,” he said, “I gather that you’re rather impulsive, rather quick on the trigger, and once you start work on a case you become very loyal and intensely partisan.”

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“But by that same token,” Breckinridge went on, “those qualities keep you from following instructions.

“Now, your partner, Mrs. Cool, is pretty much worked up about this quality you have. I’m not nearly so concerned about it because I understand your motivation. However, this case should have been settled by this time. As it is, following your suggestions, we are going to wait until tomorrow. You’re now the pitcher responsible for the game. If we lose it’s your loss.

“Now, I have no fault with what you’ve done as far as factual investigation is concerned, but I permitted myself to be swayed by your importunities into holding this case open for another day.

“I’m sorry I did that.

“I’ve been in this business long enough so I have a sixth sense in such matters, and I just knew that this was the time to make a settlement and that we should have bought our way out of it, no matter what it cost — that is, within reason, of course.”

“All right,” I said, “the responsibility is mine. I talked you out of settling. I’m responsible. I don’t have any sixth sense in such matters, but I’ve batted around a bit and there’s something fishy about this case.”

Breckinridge said, “Even so, Donald, I don’t think there’s anything we can prove. Unless you uncover something before noon tomorrow, I’m going to make a settlement. That’s final.”

I said, “Apparently you wanted to talk with me just so you could tell me you didn’t like the way I’d been doing things?”

He smiled. “Now, Donald, you’re getting a chip on your shoulder. Don’t be like that. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your vigor, your determination, your attempt to get at the bottom of things. In a case where there was any real possibility of a margin of error, all this would have been very commendable but in the present case it simply isn’t. You’ll have to learn about the insurance business.

“Now, when you see your partner, Bertha Cool, I want you to tell her that you’ve had a talk with me, that we understand each other perfectly, and that what you have done in this case isn’t going t affect our relations with the firm in the least. We’re going to keep right on employing you.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “That’s mighty generous of you. Now, what makes you so certain that this man, Bruno, is on the level?”

Breckinridge pursed his lips. “Don’t misunderstand me. Whether he’s on the level or not, the fact that he showed up at that guest ranch complaining of his injuries and getting around in a wheel chair is the determining factor. We can’t afford to gamble in a case of that sort.”

I said, “You baited one trap and he didn’t walk into it. That doesn’t make him a saint.”

“He walked into the trap,” Breckinridge said, “but he walked in limping and he didn’t take the bait.”

I said, “How carefully have you inquired into accident from your insured— What’s his name?”

“Foley Chester.”

“How carefully have you inquired into the facts with him?”

“Carefully enough so that I know we will have to admit liability.”

I said, “Don’t you suppose that this man, Bruno, could have been driving, looking in the rearview mirror, watching the car be’ hind him, and the minute he saw the driver look to the side of the road he braked his car to an immediate stop so that Chester had to hit him?”

Breckinridge thought that over for a moment and said, “Well, of course that’s possible. It would be a rather ingenious way of establishing a claim.”

“It would be a foolproof way,” I said. “There’s an attraction on the side of the road, a shop window or whatever it was, that has an unusual display. Bruno knows his onions. He realizes this will make drivers look. He drives around and around the block, keeping his eye on the rearview mirror, just waiting for an opportune moment. He sees someone in his rearview mirror who turns to glance at the side and Bruno promptly puts on his brakes.

“There’s not much chance of his getting injured very seriously. He’s prepared for everything. He gets a bump, he gets out and is affable and good-natured and shows the man behind him his driving license, and the man behind him says, ‘I’m sorry. It was my fault. I just took my eyes from the road for a tenth of a second, and there you were stopped right ahead of me.’

“Bruno says, ‘Gosh, the fellow in front of me stopped and I had to stop, but I gave a signal and just about the time I came to a stop, wham, you hit me.’

“Everything is nice and good-natured and the people get along swell. If Bruno had been abusive, Chester would probably have told him to go jump in the lake, but Bruno is nice, and Chester is very much the magnanimous gentleman and says, ‘It’s all my fault. You aren’t hurt, are you?’ And Bruno says, ‘No, I’m not hurt.’ ”

“I don’t know much about the accident,” Breckinridge admitted. “Chester bought an automobile and insured it with us. He ran into the rear of another car. That’s prima-facie negligence per se. Then he admits he wasn’t watching the road ahead. That clinches it.”

I said, “I’d like to talk with Chester and get his version of what happened, just what Bruno said at the time.”

Breckinridge said, “Donald, forget this thing. Good heavens, we’re an insurance company. We charge premiums. The premiums go into a sinking fund to cover the payment of losses. We expect to payout hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. You act as though this was coming out of your own pocket.”

I said, “It’s the principle of the thing.”

Breckinridge frowned. “You mean you’re not ready to give up yet despite the fact that I’ve tried to be patient with you?”

“I’m not ready to give up yet.”

He looked at me and flushed, then suddenly laughed a short, harsh laugh. “Donald,” he said, “I’m going to prove to you that in this business you can’t adopt that attitude. We expect to use you more and more. We’ve had glowing reports on you from the guest ranch. You have comported yourself with dignity; you’ve kept in the background, yet you’ve made people like you. Apparently, you know a good deal about riding a horse, yet you aren’t a show-off. You’re just exactly the type of person we can use.

“But we can’t use you as long as you have that idea about insurance claims and losses. Now, come on, we’ll go out to Foley Chester’s place right now and talk with him.”

“You have his address?” I asked.

“As it happens, I have his address and I know that it’s not too far from here, only about three quarters of a mile.”

“I’ve got a car outside,” I said, “and we—”

“We’ll go in my car,” Breckinridge said, with a tone of finality.

Abruptly, a tall, rather angular woman with high cheekbones, black, burning eyes and a determined manner, came striding into the room.

She stopped in apparent surprise and said, “Why, Homer, I didn’t, know you were having company.”

Her eyes slithered very briefly over me and came to rest on Elsie Brand, looking her over from head to toe, the way a certain type of woman will size up a potential competitor.

Breckinridge apparently didn’t notice the undertone of hostility and suspicion in her voice. He said easily, “A business matter, my dear. I didn’t want to disturb you with it, but permit me to present Miss Brand and Mr. Lam. These people are detectives who are working on a case for us.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, and smiled acidly. “Another female operative?”

“Strictly speaking,” Breckinridge said, “Miss Brand is secretary to Mr. Lam. She met him at the airport and drove him out here... I’m sorry, dear, but I’m going to have to leave for a brief interval. We have to interview a witness immediately.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, and the inflection of her voice was highly significant.

I said to Breckinridge, “Elsie has her car here and there’s no need of complicating the situation. You lead the way and we’ll follow in her car. Then after the interview you can come back here.”

“That probably will be better,” Breckinridge said.

“Where are you from, Mr. Lam?” Mrs. Breckinridge asked, slightly mollified. “Where are your headquarters?”

“They’re here,” I said.

“Oh, I understood Homer to say you came in by plane.”

“I did.”

“From Arizona?” she asked, and her words were dipped acid.

Breckinridge gave me a swift, appealing but furtive glance.

“Arizona?” I said vacantly. “Why, no, I came in from Texas.”

“He’s been working on a case in Dallas,” Breckinridge explained hastily.

“Oh,” she said, and her manner was almost cordial. “Well, if you people have to go, you’d better go so my husband can get back.”

She bowed to Elsie and me and swept out of the room.

Breckinridge said hastily. “All right, let’s get in the cars and go. You people follow me.”

We went out a side door. Breckinridge’s car was parked in the driveway. It was a big, leather-upholstered, air-conditioned vehicle. He climbed in and slammed the door shut.

Elsie and I walked down the driveway to where her car was parked.

“Why did she act that way about Arizona?” Elsie asked. “She almost spat the word out.”

I said, “She’s probably a woman of deep-seated prejudices.”

“You can say that again,” Elsie said. “She has a husband who looks like a matinee idol and she’s not sure of him or of herself.”

Breckinridge paused as he drew alongside of us. He was consulting a leather-backed memo book which he took from his pocket. He checked an address, turned out the dome light in the car, nodded to us and called out, “Ready?”

“Ready,” I said.

I drove Elsie’s car. We encountered very little traffic and made good time to a good-looking apartment house.

At the entrance to the place Breckinridge looked at a folded paper; I looked at the directory and said, “He’s in 1012. Let’s go up.”

“Heaven knows whether we’ll catch him home or not,” Breckinridge said. “I should have telephoned for an appointment, but you have me acting impulsively now.”

We went up in the elevator, found the apartment, and I pressed the mother-of-pearl button. Chimes sounded on the inside of the apartment.

Nothing happened.

I waited some ten seconds and then rang again.

“Well,” Breckinridge said, “he’s out. We should have phoned. However, Donald, the principle is the same. I’m going to settle that case tomorrow afternoon.”

A door opened down the hall. A man stepped into the corridor, started toward the elevator.

We kept walking on toward the elevator. Out of the same apartment stepped another man, who was just behind us.

The man at the elevator suddenly turned. The man behind us said, “Right this way, please.”

Breckinridge whirled. I turned more leisurely. I had heard that tone of voice before.

The man behind us was holding a leather folder with a badge.

“Police officers,” he said. “Would you mind stepping this way.”

“What’s all this about?” Breckinridge asked.

“Right this way, please. We don’t care to discuss it in the corridor.”

The man who had walked toward the elevator and had turned was now right behind us. He put one hand on Breckinridge’s arm, one on mine and pushed.

“Come on, folks,” he said. “This will only take a few minutes. Make it snappy.”

A door across from us opened; a woman looked out.

The man with the badge said to her, “Never mind, madam.”

“What’s all this about?” she asked, suspiciously. “What’s going on here?”

The officer showed her his badge.

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” she exclaimed and stood there in the doorway, her jaw sagging, trying to pull her wits together.

The plain-clothes officer escorted us into the apartment which the two men had emerged.

It was fixed up as a typical police stakeout.

There was a tape-recording machine on the table, a couple of officers seated at another little table, a shortwave radio telephone. The regular furniture of the apartment had been pushed back so that there was room for these new pieces of furniture that had been brought in.

As we entered the room and the door closed behind us, a man, stepped out from a closet.

It was Sgt. Frank Sellers, an unlighted cigar in his mouth.

Sellers took one look at me and made an exclamation of disgust.

“Hello, Pint Size.”

“Hello, Frank.”

Sellers turned to the other officers. “This guy has more cases than any other private eye in the business.”

He turned back to me. “What the hell are you doing now?” he asked.

I nodded toward Breckinridge. Breckinridge cleared his throat, said, “Permit me, gentlemen, to introduce myself.”

He took out a card case, handed Sellers a card.

“I am Homer Breckinridge,’ he said, “president and manager of the All Purpose Insurance Company. This is Donald Lam and, I believe, his secretary, a Miss Brand. They are working on a case In which my company is interested. They came to the apartment of Mr. Chester acting on my orders. We want to interview him.”

“So do we,” Sellers said, studying Breckinridge, looking from him to the card.

“Now this,” Sellers said, “can be pretty damned significant. You don’t mean Chester’s been involved in an accident and you’re interested?”

Breckinridge nodded.

Sellers looked disappointed. “And that’s why he hasn’t come back?”

“I don’t know,” Breckinridge said. “This accident is one that occurred before he left.”

“And he’s trying to collect some insurance?” Sellers asked.

“Not at all. He was involved in a very minor traffic accident which, however, has developed into a situation where we would like to talk with him in greater detail than was deemed necessary at the time of his original report.”

“Why? Have you got anything on him?”

“Heavens, no. Chester’s perfectly all right. He’s our insured, but we are going to need his testimony.”

“Then you’re pretty apt to be out of luck,” Sellers said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Sellers said, indicating the room, “why do you think we’ve got a stakeout on the place?”

“I haven’t the least idea,” Breckinridge said. “But I want to find out — and I intend to find out — even if I have to go to the Chief.”

Sellers hesitated a moment, then said, “Well, I guess you folks are all accounted for. There’s no reason to detain you.”

“On the contrary,” Breckinridge said with dignity, “I am substantial citizen and a substantial taxpayer. If there is any police activity involving Foley Chester, I am interested in it and I feel I am entitled to know what it is.”

“We’re waiting for him to come back,” Sellers said. “We think he may have murdered his wife.”

“Murdered his wife!” Breckinridge exclaimed, horrified.

“That’s right,” Sellers said. “We’re pretty well satisfied that he planned a deliberate premeditated murder.”

“Where is his wife?”

“We’ve recovered her body. It’s being held. So far there’s been no publicity. We’ve got to release publicity within the next twenty-four hours or so. We’d like very much to question Chester before we have to face any publicity.”

“Oh, my God!” Breckinridge said.

“What’s the matter?” Sellers asked.

“Publicity!” Breckinridge exclaimed.

“What about it?”

“The faintest breath of publicity on a charge of that sort and we never will settle the insurance case.”

Breckinridge looked at me accusingly. “The price of settlement,” he explained to Sellers, would go up astronomically.”

Sellers said, “We’re going to sit on it as long as we can, but it’ll be bound to break one way or another. Chester took out a pretty good insurance policy on his wife.”

“How much?” Breckinridge asked.

“A hundred thousand bucks,” Sellers said. “He did it, however, by having his wife insure his life at the same time he insured his wife’s life. They called it family insurance and the policy went through all right without arousing any suspicion. In fact, the idea of the policy originated in the mind of the Insurance salesman who had called on them and talked about death taxes these days and all of that. He sold them the policies.”

“How long was it in force?” Breckinridge asked.

“For, over a year,” Sellers said, and then added, “If it weren’t for what I’m pleased to call some damned brilliant police work this would have only been a routine case. Chester would have disposed of his wife, taken the money and been on his way.”

Breckenridge said to me, “This cooks our goose Donald.”

“Not yet,” I said. Let’s remember we haven’t heard Chester’s side of the case yet.”

Sellers said sarcastically, “The boy genius speaks. He knows more about the case than we do and he hasn’t even heard the facts yet.”

Breckinridge said, “What are the facts?”

Sellers said, “After a while, Chester and his wife weren’t getting along so well. There were disputes, little altercations here and there. Mrs. Chester decided she was going to San Francisco and told Chester she might never come back. They had quite a scene. Mrs. Chester packed up, went down and loaded the bags in her car. Chester was so mad he wouldn’t even help her; he stood and watched. People in some of the other apartments saw it and thought it was pretty damned churlish.

“Then,” Sellers continued, “when she’d packed the car, she jumped in, slammed the door, and tried to start the car.

“The car wouldn’t start.

“Now, it happens that morning Chester had put his car in the garage for repairs and was driving a rented car. Mrs. Chester wanted to take it. Chester wouldn’t let her have it. Mrs. Chester went to a drive-yourself car agency, rented a car, arranged to turn it in San Francisco, arranged with the garage to come and get her car and repair it, and then she was going to fly back and pick it up. She was that mad at Chester, she was getting out of there right then.

“She drove up in the rented car, transferred her baggage, and took off for San Francisco. All of that we know and can prove.

“The next morning Chester turned his rented car in and went to pick up his own car.

“When he turned his rented car in, the people checking it over noticed a couple of places where the paint was off, indicating the car had hit something.

“At first Chester denied he had hit anything. Then he suddenly ‘remembered’ that he might have brushed against a cement gatepost in visiting a friend in the country. He said the scrape had been so slight that he hadn’t even noticed it.

“Well, that was a good story but there was a little triangular chip out of the glass on one of the headlights and a little color had rubbed off on the car so that the man who inspected it had an idea Chester had probably scraped against a parked car. He asked Chester about it, and pointed out that Chester was fully covered by insurance, but Chester said that he hadn’t anything to report and then apparently, as an afterthought, suddenly snapped his fingers, and said, ‘By George, that’s what happened. I had the car park and somebody must have scraped against me.’

“So the car rental people let it go at that.

“But Mrs. Chester didn’t show up on the appointed date in San Francisco to turn her rented car in. After four or five days the car people began to get nervous. They interviewed Chester, and Chester told them frankly that he hadn’t heard from his wife since she left; that as far as he was concerned he didn’t give a damn. That she had had two or three affairs since they’d been married; that he was no angel himself but that his wife wanted a double standard. She wanted freedom for herself, but wanted him to toe a chalked line, that he was damned good and sick of it, and, as far as he was concerned, he was just as happy the way things were and he didn’t care if she never came back, and since she had signed the contract with the car company, the company could do whatever they damned pleased about it.

“Chester said he was going off on an extended business trip an might not be back for three or four weeks, and as far as his wife was concerned he wasn’t going to worry about her, and the car rental people could do the worrying about the car.”

Breckinridge said quietly, “We knew in advance that going on a business trip but thought he’d be back by now.”

“Do you know where he is now?” Sellers asked, becoming suddenly deflated.

“He was going up through the Northwest, up Washington, Montana, Idaho.”

“You didn’t get an itinerary?” Sellers asked.

“No, we didn’t. You see, he had had this accident and he reported it all right, gave us a full statement and we asked him where we could get in touch with him if we wanted an elaboration of his: statement. He told us, very frankly, that he was going away, that he had had some domestic trouble, that his wife had left him and probably would file suit for divorce and that was all right by him.”

“Okay,” Sellers said, losing assurance by the minute, “everything moves along fine and there wouldn’t have been anything to it if· It hadn’t been that this missing rented car showed up wrecked at; the bottom of a ravine way down below the Tehachapi Grade. And that would have been all right if the car hadn’t caught on fire.

“By the time the car was found, the wife’s body was somewhat decomposed, and, if it hadn’t been for the fire, would have been very decomposed.

“Well, we had a post-mortem on the body and it turned out that Mrs. Chester had been dead before the fire started. The doctor thinks at least an hour before the fire started, perhaps quite a bit longer.

“Well, that was still all right, but we went and impounded the rental car Chester had been driving. They had replaced the headlight and painted over the scratch marks. We went up to the road where Mrs. Chester’s car must have gone off and made an inch-by-inch search. We found a piece of glass broken from a headlight. We feel sure it was the piece chipped out of the headlight lens on the car Chester was driving. However, the evidence there is not as robust as we’d like to have it because of the fact that the headlight lens had been replaced. But we can prove it’s from the same type of headlight used by the company from which Chester rented the car he was driving.

“At the place where we found this broken chip from the headlight, we found tracks in the side of the road off the paved shoulder and in the dirt.

“Those tracks were rather eloquent, despite the fact that some time had passed since they had been made. They told the story.

“Mrs. Chester, making a detour on the Tehachapi, had been forced to the outside of the road. A car apparently had crowded her so far off the road she had lost control. There was a steep slope going down for several hundred feet, then a half-mile slope terminating in an abrupt drop to a dry wash at the bottom.

“Apparently Mrs. Chester had been pushed off the road but had managed to keep from going all the way down the slope, although she presumably was seriously injured. Her husband had calmly parked his car, taken some heavy metallic instrument, probably a jack handle, got out of the car, walked down to where his wife’s car had come to a stop, reached in, clubbed his wife over the head until she was dead, and then had taken some time debating What he was going to do.

“He finally decided to destroy any evidence that might be remaining by fire, so he released the brakes, and after a lot of work, got the car started downhill. This time it went clear to the bottom. Then Chester went down and poured gasoline over the car and set fire to it.

“He made one little mistake that betrays him.”

“What was that?” Breckinridge asked, and I noticed just a faint, trace of skepticism in his voice.

“He left the cap off the gasoline tank.

“He had unscrewed the cap from the gasoline tank, used a rag of some sort to dip out gasoline, then he squeezed gasoline over the, wrecked car and the body. After that he tossed a match into the car and ran. He made his big mistake in waiting to be sure the gasoline in the tank ignited. Having left the cap off the gasoline tank, he forgot to go back and replace it after the fire had burned itself out.

“Once we began to get an idea of what had actually happened, we found a place where the car had rolled over several times and then come to a rest on the side of the hill. We found where someone had gone down to that car and had moved rocks, then used a jack to shove the car around so the wheels would be pointed downhill. Then down at the bottom of the hill we found more tracks again where the man had set fire to the car.

“If that fire had been set at night, it would probably have attracted enough attention from passing motorists to cause a report to the highway patrol. Therefore, we’re pretty certain the fire was set during the daytime. But Mrs. Chester left home about four-thirty. She had some people she wanted to see in San Bernardino. We checked there and found that she arrived a little after six, stayed for dinner and left about nine o’clock to drive over the Tehachapi to Bakersfield. Her friends tried to talk her into staying overnight and leaving early the next morning, but she said she liked to drive at night.

“She told her friends that she and her husband were finished, that she didn’t want to have anything more to do with him that she had other interests and there was a man in her life who could fill it a lot more completely than her husband. We can’t find out this man’s name. It was some cowpuncher she’d fallen for.

“Now then,” Sellers said, “that’s generally the story.

“We’re afraid that Chester will skip out if he gets any idea of how much evidence we have, and if he comes back here and gets to nosing around, he’ll cross our back trail. Then he’ll skip out for good, and we’ll have the devil of a time finding him. So we’re making a stakeout on his apartment so we can nail him when he comes here, and we want to crucify him by getting his story about his wife leaving him and all of that put on tape. We also want to get him to repeat the story that he either ran into a cement gatepost, or that while the car was parked someone ran into him. We’ll get that story put on tape so that we can confront him with it at the trial.”

Breckinridge said, without any great enthusiasm, “Sergeant, that makes an impressive array of circumstantial evidence.”

“Thank you,” Sellers said. “I worked this up mostly by myself — with some help from the office of the Sheriff of Kern County.”

“But,” Breckinridge went on, “that leaves us in the devil of a predicament. We’ve simply got to settle this accident case before the claimant learns you suspect Chester of murder.”

He looked reproachfully at me and said, “After this, Lam, don’t ever discount the value of experience. I told you I had a hunch on this case and I’ve been in this business for years. When I get a hunch, it’s right.”

He turned to Sellers. “May I go now?”

Sellers said thoughtfully, “I guess so. I guess I can trust your discretion.”

“You certainly can,” Breckinridge said.

“How about me?” I asked.

Sellers said irritably, “We can trust you to mess the thing up in some way.”

“And how about Elsie Brand here?” I asked. “What are you going to do with her? Put her under arrest?”

Sellers scratched his head, worried the cigar around in his mouth, heaved a long sigh and said, “All right, all three of you can go. Get the hell out of the neighborhood and don’t have anything more to do with trying to find Chester. Leave that end of it to us.

“Just keep this pint-size troublemaker out of my hair,” Sellers said to Breckinridge, “and keep him away from Chester and the Whole Chester case. What’s the name of the man your insured hit?”

“Helmann Bruno. He lives in Dallas.”

“All right, I may want to check on that file,” Sellers said.

“Our records are at your disposal any time. We cooperate with the police to the fullest extent.”

“Now, of course,” Sellers said, “what I’ve told you about the case against Chester is in strict confidence. The fact that he’s suspect probably will come out in tomorrow’s papers — perhaps the next day — but right at the moment we want to lead Chester along. We don’t want him to know how much we’ve got on him. We want him to start making a lot of statements that he’ll have to contradict later.”

“I understand that,” Breckinridge said. “I understand police procedure. In fact, we encounter similar problems with malingerers.”

“Okay,” Sellers said. “I’m sorry the boys pulled you in here but that was the plan. We were going to round up any of Chester’s friends who came in, particularly if one of them was a jane.

“We don’t want any tip-offs to Chester. You’d be surprised what some slick lawyer can think up if you give him time.”

“I know. I know,” Breckinridge said with feeling. “Believe me, Sergeant, we have the same problems.”

The two men shook hands.

Sellers didn’t shake hands with me.

Elsie Brand, Breckinridge and I left the apartment and took the elevator down to the street.

Breckinridge said with dignity, “I think, Donald, if your firm is going to represent us in insurance matters, it would be well for you to improve your relations with the police department.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I told him.

“Now then,” Breckinridge went on, “I’ll have an adjuster at that ranch tomorrow. He’ll be on the morning plane. I’ll have him pay off. We’ll probably have to pay a terrific price now, but it’ll be worth it... I only wish we’d made the settlement today. I had a hunch on this case.”

I said, “We still haven’t heard Chester’s side of the case.”

“We don’t need to,” Breckinridge snapped.

There was only one thing to do. I kept quiet.

“Now I’m going home,” Breckinridge said. “You’re relieved of all responsibility in this case, Lam. I’ll take it from here — and, by the way, if you ever meet my wife again, don’t mention anything about that guest ranch in Arizona. She’s sort of prejudiced against it.”

That time again I said the only two things there were to say.

“Yes, sir. Good night.”