“And what did Minerva do?”
“Strung them along, kidded them a little bit. We had escorts. We had swimming companions, and we had one fellow who was completely gaga over us, that is, he was over Minerva, but it didn’t do him any good.”
I said, “Minerva had her picture taken with her head lying on his bare chest.”
“How do you know that?”
I said, “I saw the picture.”
“Donald Lam, did you steal those films? I’ll bet you did. I looked all around for them and couldn’t think where I’d put them. I… why, you…”
I said, “Of course I picked up the films. You were holding out on me.”
“I don’t like that.”
“That’s all over with. Let’s keep on the main subject. Did Stanwick Carlton suspect what was going on on that beach vacation?”
“I tell you, nothing was going on. We strung a couple of saps along and that was that.”
“And was one of them Tom Durham?”
“I never saw this man you say was Tom Durham in my life except the one time when I was there at Aunt Amelia’s place and he came in and, as I told you, Aunt Amelia didn’t introduce him.”
“Then why should Minerva want him shadowed?”
“She didn’t want him shadowed. She wanted to find out just who he was and just what his relationship with Aunt Amelia was.”
“How did she know he knew your Aunt Amelia?”
“I don’t know a thing in the world about it, Donald, honestly I don’t. Minerva Carlton came to me Saturday morning. She’s been in touch with me two or three times while she was here. On Saturday morning she seemed a little triumphant, as though she’d had something that was bothering her, but was getting the better of it. She was all excited. She gave me a cheque for five hundred dollars and told me that she wanted me to go to your office and get you to find out who a man was and all about him, but that he mustn’t know he was being investigated. She said that he knew Aunt Amelia, and that was the first I knew of him. After she’d described him, I knew that he was the man I’d seen there at Aunt Amelia’s.”
“And you don’t know what he wanted with your Aunt Amelia?”
“Heavens, no. Minerva said he’d be there at four.”
“You don’t know whether he was trying to sell her stock or trying to marry her, or…”
“I don’t know. He may have been a life insurance salesman for all I know. I handed you a song and dance so that you could go to work, and in case anything happened there wouldn’t be any trail that would lead back to Minerva. She was desperately anxious about that. She said that if anything happened and the thing was botched up in any way, she must have it so that the lead could only go back as far as me. It must never be traced to her.”
I said, “And all this time, Minerva was holding out on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was having a big love affair with Dover Fulton and she never let you know about it.”
She said, “Donald, that’s the thing I can’t understand. I’m almost certain Minerva would have told me if... well, if there’d been anything like that. She didn’t need to hold out on me. She knew that. I simply can’t understand that business with Dover Fulton.”
“Where were you Saturday night about ten o’clock?” I asked.
“I was... I was out.”
“Girl friend?”
“None of your business.”
“Boy friend?”
“Go jump in the lake.”
“I hope you can prove an alibi,” I said.
“An alibi? What do you mean?”
“That’s the time the murder was committed.”
“What murder? What are you talking about? That murder was committed last night.”
“You mean the stocking murder.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t.”
“What do you mean, you don’t?”
I said, “I’m talking about the murder of Minerva Carlton.”
“Did you expect me to show a lot of surprise?” she asked.
“No.”
“I know definitely that it wasn’t a suicide,” she said. “Minerva wasn’t that type. Minerva wouldn’t kill herself and I don’t think Dover Fulton meant anything at all to her emotionally. I know she admired and respected him, but I happen to know that beyond the usual kidding that takes place in an office, Dover Fulton never so much as made a try for her while she was working for him.”
“Was Dover madly in love with her?”
“That’s the part I can’t understand. I don’t think he was. Minerva and I were very close. I don’t think she’d have held out on me on anything.”
“You mean you knew her that well?”
“Of course.”
I said, “In case anyone should be looking for me, I’ve been here and gone.”
“Someone going to be looking for you, Donald?”
“Perhaps.”
“Your office?”
“Probably.”
“What is your partner going to do about that cheque I gave you?”
“Probably take it out of your hide.”
“Donald, I’ve explained now. You can see it isn’t my fault.”
I said, “If you could find any possible explanation that would talk Bertha Cool out of two hundred bucks you’d be able to talk the explosion of an atomic bomb into a hiccup.”
And having left that thought in her mind I went out to wrestle with troubles of my own.
Thirteen
I had one more lead.
Bob Elgin had called Waverly 9-8765. The address on the registration certificate of the car that had followed me the night before had been Sam Lowry, 968 Rippling Avenue.
It was about a hundred to one shot, but it paid off.
I looked Lowry up in the phone book. He didn’t have a phone. I checked on Waverly 9-8765. It was a public telephone in an apartment house, and the address was 968 Rippling Avenue.
I went over there. It was a last desperate chance and time was running out. When those two photographers woke up and read the morning paper they’d be almost certain to remember the address they’d given me. After that I’d have only as long as it took Frank Sellers to throw out a dragnet.
The Rippling Avenue address turned out to be a nondescript apartment house, and the cards showed Lowry had an apartment on the second floor.
I rang the bell.
It was quite a while before anything happened. Then a man’s voice called from the head of the stairs, “Who is it?”
“Message for you,” I called up.
The electric door catch buzzed the door open. I went on in and walked up the stairs.
The man who was standing at the head of the stairs was a well-put-together, broad-shouldered individual, somewhere around twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He looked thoroughly capable of taking care of himself under any circumstances. He had the thick neck which usually indicates a wrestler or fighter. His dark hair was tousled in uncombed disarray. He was wearing trousers, slippers and the upper part of a pair of pyjamas. His nose had been broken, and in healing had given his face a flattish, Mongolian appearance, but there was lazy good nature in his grin. “What’s the idea?” he asked.
I closed the door behind me and said, “I’m sorry if I got you up.”
“Oh, it’s all right. I usually get up around this time anyway. What’s the idea of all the commotion? Who’s the message from?”
“The message,” I said, “is from me.”
The good-natured grin faded from his lips. He stood with his feet apart, blocking the stairway. His shoulders settled into solid hostility. “I’m not sure I like that, buddy,” he said.
“The name,” I told him, “is Donald Lam.”
He puckered his forehead, trying to remember where he’d heard the name before.