“And then?”
“Then he went and got himself killed in a traffic accident.”
“And what was your interest in the body?”
“Not in the body. In the clothes the body was wearing at the time of the accident. He told me that he wouldn’t actually let go of the money until he was assured the ordinance would pass and that to protect me in case anything should happen to him he’d leave the cash in a safe-deposit box and the key to that box and a note saying the money was my property would be in his wallet.”
“You believed that?”
“I did at the time.”
“Was the note in his wallet?”
“I don’t know. They gave me a regular bum’s rush out of Susanville. They said I’d have to take up my claim with the administrator of the estate.”
“You didn’t see his wallet?”
“They didn’t even let me get to first base.
“Now then, Donald, I’ve put my cards on the table. I’ve tried to play it smart. I’ve tried to outwit you. I’ve tried to be seductive. I’ve tried to... shucks, I don’t know, I guess I’ve been doing business with crooks for so long I thought everyone was crooked. You’re square, and you... you’re decent.”
“I can’t help you,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Because I’m working on something else for someone else. I can get information, but I can’t give it out. I’ll tell you one thing.”
“What?”
“Don’t shed any tears over Drude Nickerson’s unfortunate demise.”
“Tears for that crook!” she blazed. “What I want to know is what’s going to happen to the zoning ordinance. I wouldn’t cry over that two-timing—
“Wait a moment, I guess I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead. It isn’t supposed to be the sporting thing to do.”
“Go ahead and speak ill of him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He isn’t dead,” I told her.
She looked at me with big eyes. “How do you know?”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing,” I said. “I don’t think he’s dead. I think the whole thing is a plant.”
She sat very still for several minutes, thinking things over. Suddenly she looked up at me and said, “Donald, you’re a darling and you may kiss me good night. What’s more it’s not going to be a cold, chaste kiss. Get ready, Donald, for an experience. You’re about to receive an osculatory award from a grateful woman.”
It was everything she said it was going to be.
Chapter 7
I caught the six o’clock plane for Los Angeles and got to the office about the time Bertha Cool did.
“Get my wire?” I asked.
“Get your wire!” Bertha Cool said. “Of course I got your wire. How drunk were you when you sent it?”
“Cold sober.”
“What the hell did you think you were doing, going out in the desert to collect flora and fauna? You couldn’t get excited over a commonplace plant. What the hell were you talking about?”
“Didn’t you understand what I meant?” I asked. “I wanted you to warn our client. The thing was a plant.”
“What was?”
“Drude Nickerson’s death.”
Bertha Cool blinked her sharp little eyes at me. “Why the hell didn’t you say so?”
“I did. I sent you a wire.”
Bertha did some thinking for a minute. “If that’s a plant,” she said, “our client could be in one hell of a mess.”
“How come?”
Bertha said, “I was burning up the long-distance telephone wires trying to get in touch with you. I called every motel, hotel, rooming house and honky-tonk in Susanville.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“We’re fired. We don’t have any more case.”
“What’s happened to the case?”
“The client got his information out of a newspaper and it was all the information he needed.”
“What newspaper?” I asked.
“The Citrus Grove Clarion.”
“What did that paper have to say?”
“The paper found out about the death of Drude Nickerson. It published quite a story about it, and said that with the death of Nickerson the last chance of ever solving the murder of Karl Carver Endicott had passed. The newspaper went on to comment that Nickerson was the only man who had seen the killer and who could have made an identification.”
“And that interested our client?” I asked.
“Very much.”
“What did he do?”
“Told me that he had all the information that he wanted, that it had been a pleasure to do business with us, that he felt certain we could have handled the matter in such a way that it would have given him the greatest satisfaction, but there was no longer any need for us to concern ourselves. The matter was all taken care of. He had the information he wanted.”
“How nice!” I said. “The widow of Karl Carver Endicott. What about her?”
“What do you mean, what about her?”
“Where is she?”
“What’s that to us?”
“Let’s find out,” I said. I picked up the phone and told the office operator to put in a call for Elizabeth Endicott at Citrus Grove; that it was a person-to-person call, we’d talk with no one else if she wasn’t there; that if she wasn’t there, to find out where we could reach her. If she was at a telephone any place in the United States, we’d talk with her there.
Bertha was blinking her eyes at me as I hung up. “Are you nuts?” she asked.
“No.”
“Those calls cost money.”
“We still have expense money.”
“Not now we don’t. The case is over.”
“For your information,” I said, “if the thing is happening the way I have it doped out, the case is just starting. Whether we’ll be in it or not, I don’t know.”
Bertha said, “You must be off your rocker, Donald, or else you’re thinking about some other case. Our client, John Dittmar Ansel, called up and told us there was no more case, to discontinue expenses, to make an accounting. Do you understand?”
“Sure I understand. Ansel is the one who doesn’t understand.”
“What doesn’t he understand?”
“That he’s walking into a trap.”
The phone rang and the girl at the office exchange stated that Mrs. Endicott was away and would be gone for about a week, that there was no place where she could be reached.
I relayed the information to Bertha.
“Well?” Bertha asked.
I said, “I suppose we could telephone our correspondents in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Yuma, Arizona, and have them on the job so we could tip Ansel off. But that’s going to cost a lot of money and I don’t think he’d pay to have his wedding interrupted.”
“Could you blame him?” Bertha asked.
“No,” I said, and started for the door.
“Now wait a minute! Don’t walk out of here without telling me what this is all about,” Bertha snapped.
“I don’t know yet, not for sure.”
“When will you know?”
“When they arrest John Dittmar Ansel and Elizabeth Endicott just as they step up to the altar prepared to enter into the holy bonds of wedlock.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“Well then, who the devil is our client, John Dittmar Ansel?” she asked.
“For your information,” I said, “John Dittmar Ansel is the man who was taken to Karl Carver Endicott’s house in Drude Nickerson’s taxicab on the fateful murder date.”
Bertha thought that over a long time. “Can they prove it?”
“Of course they can prove it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to get him to come out into the open and furnish them with proof of motivation.”