Sellers said, “All right, Pint Size, I’ve got Bertha Cool with me now and this is it. This is the showdown. Put your cards right out on the table.”
I said, “Okay, I will.”
“Not until I’ve put some of mine on the table,” Minerva Badger said bitterly. “You want evidence that will send this guy to jail and I’ve got it. And for your information I can be had. All I need is a little co-operation.”
Sellers looked at her with interest.
“And for your information,” I said to Sellers, “this woman murdered Deering L. Canby.”
“What?” Sellers exclaimed.
I said, “Canby had some evidence that he wanted to peddle to the highest bidder. He gave Badger the first crack at it. He told him not to be over two minutes late. That meant that he must have had a second appointment provided he and Badger couldn’t come to terms.
“The second appointment was with Minerva Badger here.
“She kept her appointment. She found him groggy, apparently about half drunk. It was a swell opportunity for her to get what she wanted without paying a red dime. She carries a little phial of chloral hydrate in her purse — at one time she was a nurse.
“She fed the guy knockout drops.
“Things had been happening she didn’t know about. The knockout drops were cumulative. He fell over dead. She searched him carefully, couldn’t find the evidence she wanted, couldn’t even find the keys to his apartment. She was baffled. She slipped out of the picture back to Las Vegas and consulted with her attorney.”
There was a sudden, heavy pounding of knuckles on the door, then almost immediately the knob turned, the door opened and Marvin Estep Fowler stood on the threshold. “I got here as soon as I could, Minerva,” he said. “I...” He broke off as he saw the number of people in the room and the tense, strained attitudes.
“And what are you doing here?” Sellers asked Fowler.
“I’m here representing my client, Mrs. Alting L. Badger. And I’d like to know what this is all about.”
“What do you mean you’re representing her?” Sellers asked.
“I’m representing her as an attorney.”
“The hell you are,” Sellers said. “You’re an attorney in Nevada. I didn’t know that the Nevada state line ran into the city of Los Angeles. You ever been admitted to practice law in California?”
“I can advise my client.”
“Just go ahead,” Sellers said, “and I’ll pinch you for practicing law without a license, impersonating an officer of the court and violating the Business and Professional Code.”
I took advantage of the strained silence and said, “Canby was a blackmailer. He had information that he wanted to sell. You know what he had in his mind as well as I do. He was selling it to the highest bidder. He had Badger come first; his wife was to come second. Canby was too smart to have the stuff in his possession, but Minerva here thought he had it in his possession. She slipped him the chloral hydrate and—”
“I’m going to sue you for slander and defamation of character,” Fowler said.
I said to Sellers, “She’s got a little bottle of chloral hydrate in her purse right now. She was planning to slip me a Mickey Finn if she couldn’t do business with me.”
Sellers reached for the purse.
“Don’t you touch that purse,” Fowler warned, pointing a finger at him. “You have no reasonable grounds for search. All you have is the slanderous, defamatory statement of this young man here.”
Sellers hesitated.
I said, “Do you have any objection if we look in your purse, Mrs. Badger?”
“I most certainly do,” she said. “In fact, I’m going to get out of here.”
“Not until I’ve had a chance to question you,” Sellers said.
He turned to Fowler. “But you can go. You’re not doing any good here. You can’t do any good. You can’t practice law in California. You’re out of your territory. As you so aptly pointed out to me, the logical thing would have been to have stopped in, explained the circumstances to some resident Los Angeles attorney and had him accompany you.”
“Don’t tell me how to practice law.”
“I’m telling you how I’ll practice law,” Sellers said. “Get out!”
“What do you mean?”
“Just two words,” Sellers said, advancing belligerently, “get out!”
“My client sent for me.”
“I’ll make it one word,” Sellers said. “Out.”
Fowler backed toward the door, “Now look,” he said, “you can’t do this, you can’t—”
“The hell I can’t,” Sellers said. He turned to me, “You want him out, Pint Size? — It’s your apartment.”
I nodded.
Sellers opened the door with his left hand, bunched a fistful of Fowler’s shirt and necktie in his right hand and heaved.
Fowler went out of the door backwards so fast he slammed against the wall on the other side of the hall.
Sellers kicked the door shut and dusted his hands. “I’d like to look in your purse,” he said to Minerva.
“You can go straight to hell,” she said. “I’m going out.”
“Remember,” I told her, “Elsie has a tape recording of your conversation and—”
“You rat,” she said, and swung her hand with the purse as hard as she could swing it.
A rough spot in the catch scratched down the side of my cheek and drew blood.
I said to Sellers, “Arrest her.”
“What for?” Sellers asked.
“Assault and battery,” I said. “Actually I think that purse is a deadly weapon.”
“You going to prosecute?” he asked.
“It gives you a good excuse to take her to headquarters,” I said, “and once you’ve got her down there you have to remove all personal property from her purse and give her a receipt.”
A slow smile spread over Seller’s features.
She took one look at him, then whirled and said, “Don’t you dare put your hands on me, you big brute.”
“Deputize me, Frank,” Bertha said.
“You’re deputized,” Sellers said.
Bertha reached out one long, meaty arm as heavy as the average leg, clamped it around the back of Minerva Badger’s dress and slammed her across the room.
Bertha came waddling after her like a Japanese wrestler, head forward, arms out.
Minerva swung the purse again. Bertha blocked it. The catch came open. The contents were strewn all over the rug.
Bertha threw her arms around Minerva, pinioned her by expertly twisting her wrists around behind her back. “Got any handcuffs, Frank?” she asked.
Sellers hesitated a moment.
“I’m a deputy,” Bertha said. “She resisted arrest. Isn’t it a crime to resist an officer in the performance of his duties?”
Sellers gave her the handcuffs.
I was down on my hands and knees looking around on the rug.
“Here it is,” I said, pointing to a small vial. “Chloral hydrate, otherwise known as knockout drops.”
Bertha slammed Minerva down into a chair. “Wait there for the paddy wagon,” she said.
“You’re hurting!” Minerva screamed. “Those handcuffs are breaking the bones in my wrists.”
“Quit trying to jerk loose,” Bertha said. “That makes them bite all the deeper. Sit there and shut up.”
Sellers looked at me. “This man, Canby, was killed by a dose of chloral hydrate?”
“That’s what the autopsy surgeon says.”
A slow grin spread over Sellers’ countenance. “I guess it isn’t going to hurt anything if the California cops solve a Colorado killing.”
“Now listen,” Minerva said, “let’s talk sense. You’re talking about murder. I didn’t give him enough to hurt him. All I gave him was a dose that would knock him out for about an hour. You can’t pin a murder rap on that.”