“You mean he’d pay you money and suit would never be filed,” Sellers said.
“Heavens to Betsy,” she said, “it was nothing like that at all. He was buying the claim because he wanted to make more money out of it.”
Sellers quit looking at her and started looking at me. “You know, Pint Size,” he said, thoughtfully, “I’m beginning to smell something here, and I hope your hands are clean.”
“This is all news to me,” I said, “except that she’s telling the truth about the fact that I told her I wasn’t representing an insurance company and wasn’t making any settlement; that I knew a person who sometimes bought claims and then recovered on them.”
Sellers glowered at me. “Played it pretty smart, didn’t you?”
“The way she talked,” I said, “she had a very good claim if a person could find the car that hit her.”
“I see,” Sellers said, “and by a rare coincidence the person that you went to get the money from was the person who was driving the car that hit her.”
There was the banging of peremptory knuckles on the door and a man’s voice said, “Open up in here.”
Mrs. Chester jumped up with alacrity and opened the door.
A man of about fifty, with broad shoulders, a bull neck, a florid red face and feverish little brown eyes, set wide apart over a jaw that would have graced a prize fighter, said, “What the hell’s going on here?”
Sellers got up to face him, pushed the cigar out and upward at an aggressive angle. “And may I ask who the hell you are?”
The man said, “I’m Marvin Estep Fowler. I’m an attorney at 107 law. I’m representing Mrs. Chester here, and I want to know what’s going on. Now, who are you?”
Sellers said, “I’m Sergeant Sellers.” He pulled a leather container out of his pocket and flashed a badge at Fowler.
“Just a minute, just a minute,” Fowler said, as Sellers started to put the leather folder back in his pocket.
Fowler took the folder, looked at the badge and said, “Uh-huh, Los Angeles, huh?”
“That’s right,” Sellers said.
“I didn’t know the city limits of Los Angeles stretched into Nevada,” Fowler said.
“They don’t.”
“Then you’re out of your jurisdiction,” Fowler said.
“I’m working on a lead on a case — a hot lead.”
“And the way to do that,” Fowler said, “is to check in at police headquarters here, get a local man on the job and the two of you work on it together with the local man taking the responsibility.”
“There wasn’t time for all that,” Sellers said, but the angle of his cigar dropped three degrees.
The lawyer whirled to me. “And who are you?”
“The name’s Lam,” I said. “Donald Lam.”
Mrs. Chester said, “He’s the one I was telling you about late last night, Mr. Fowler. He’s the man that gave me the money and had me execute an assignment of my damage claim against anyone that hit me — or,” she added with a smile, “that I might have hit, only I didn’t tell him that.”
Fowler said to Mrs. Chester, “Your note said you were waiting in the bathroom.”
“He kicked the door down,” she said, pointing to Sellers.
“He what?” Fowler asked.
“Kicked the door down.”
“Show me.”
She led him over to the bathroom and showed him the splintered wood.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Fowler said.
“Let’s see if I get the sketch,” Sellers said to Mrs. Chester. “You went to the bathroom, opened the window and threw out a note. Is that right?”
She beamed and smiled. “That’s right. I wanted my attorney. I thought I had a right to have him here so I threw out a note to an awfully nice little girl who read it and smiled at me and nodded her head to show that she understood. She went to a telephone and called this number Mr. Fowler had left with me.”
Sellers’ face got black. He looked from her to Fowler, then from Fowler to me.
“Where do you fit into this, Pint Size?” he asked.
“I told you where I fitted in it. I was giving you the information you wanted. All this other stuff is news to me. You’re the one who let her go to the bathroom and lock the door.”
“You got any charge against my client?” Fowler asked Sellers. “—In Los Angeles, that is.”
“I don’t know,” Sellers said thoughtfully. He suddenly whirled to Mrs. Chester and said, “Have you ever been in other hit-and-run cases?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I—”
“Don’t answer that,” Fowler interposed. “You don’t have to.” Sellers was frowning and chewing on his cigar. “It seems to me I am beginning to remember some things,” he said.
Sellers was frowningly contemplative for a minute. Suddenly he whirled to Mrs. Chester, said, “What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Harvey W. Chester,” she said.
“That’s your husband’s name. You’re a widow.”
“Yes.”
“Your first name is Tessie — T-E-S-S-I-E?” he asked, abruptly.
She said, with dignity, “My first name is Theresa.”
A slow grin spread over Seller’s face. “I get you now,” he said. “Tessie — Tessie the Tumbler, that’s your specialty, doing a flip-flop on the pedestrian crossing and then claiming you’ve been involved in a hit-and-run.”
Sellers turned to me. He was grinning. “Looks like you got taken, Pint Size,” he said. “You fell for the good old tumbling trick— Now, wait a minute... wait a minute.”
Sellers got to his feet, stood with his legs apart, his face thrust forward, chewing on the cigar. The grin remained on his features. “Now,” he said “we’re beginning to get to the real core of the apple. And isn’t that pretty! I’m going to tell you something, Pint Size, maybe you’re just a sucker on this thing, maybe you’re the mastermind, but whoever is the mastermind is going to get into lots and lots and lots of trouble.”
“And,” Fowler said, “just so you don’t get into lots of trouble yourself, Sergeant, I think it would be advisable for you to get out of here, check in at the police station and ask for official courtesies in the official manner.”
Sellers turned savagely to him. “Any time I want anything out of your bailiwick I’ll ask for it,” he said. “Right now I’m on my own.”
He strode over to the telephone, picked it up, dialed information, said, “I want the airport. This is Sergeant Sellers of police, just connect me with the airport.”
A moment later, he asked, “When is your next plane to Denver?”
He frowned and looked at his watch. “Not until then?”
He hesitated a moment, then said, “All right, get me a seat on it. Sergeant Sellers, Los Angeles Police Department.”
Sellers banged up the telephone, turned to Fowler and said, “I’ll be talking with you later.”
He turned to me. “If you actually paid ten thousand bucks in cash,” he said, “it probably lets you out. But if you just paid ten grand in conversation it means you were masterminding the whole thing.”
“I paid ten grand in cash,” I said.
“Let’s hope so for Bertha’s sake,” he said, and walked out.
Fowler held the door open for me, “And I see no need to detain you any further, Mr. Lam.”
I walked out. It was Minerva’s trick all the way.
Chapter 18
I drove the rented car up to the motel I’d rented, unlocked the door and went in.
I looked at the door leading to Elsie Brand’s room. It was tightly closed.
I went to the bathroom, gave my hands and face a good scrubbing with a hot washcloth, and came out feeling a little better.