"Listen, Burdell," I tell him. "I wanna talk to you, an' I want you to listen an' not make any slip-ups, otherwise I'm goin' to get very tough with you."
He looks surprised. This Burdell guy is a bird about five feet four with sandy hair an' a thin face like a weasel with indigestion. He has got red eyes an' a pointed chin. He is one of them guys who might be good or bad or just nothin' at all. You just wouldn't know a thing by lookin' at him.
"Listen here," he says. "You don't have to talk like that, Mr Caution. I've always told you anything you wanted to know, ain't I?"
"Sure you have," I tell him, "but I wanta know some more that's all. Now stay quiet an' listen to this.
"Two weeks ago when I get put on this counterfeitin' job I come around here an' I ask you a lotta questions. Well, the main thing is that you say that you and the servants at the Aymes apartments have given evidence at the inquest that Henrietta Aymes wasn't in town the night that Granworth bumps himself off.
"OK. Well next morning I get around an' I talk to this watchman down at Cotton's Wharf - the guy who saw the car go over the edge, an' I grill this guy plenty. Finally he comes across that the mornin' after Aymes killed himself you got down there an' he told you that he saw some woman get outa that car way down the wharf. He says that you gave him a thousand dollars to keep his trap shut about that little fact, an' that he kept it shut.
"OK. Three days afterwards I get an anonymous note sayin' that I oughta go to Palm Springs an' check up on some letters that Henrietta has got. Right, well I checked up an' I have found them letters.
"Now I am very interested in who the guy was who sent me that anonymous note, an' I have come to the conclusion that the guy is you. You sent it to me, Burdell, an' you're goin' to tell me why, because you are a very contradictory sorta cuss. First of all you graft this watchman to keep quiet about the dame; then at the inquest you an' the servants say Henrietta Aymes wasn't in town on that night, an' a few months afterwards, after I have seen you an' heard one thing from you, you send me an anonymous letter that gets me out to Palm Springs where I find some letters that might hang a murder rap on Henrietta. So what? I'm listenin' an' I wanta hear plenty. Did you write that letter?"
He looks serious.
"Yeah," he says. "I wrote it, an' I'm goin' to tell you why, an' maybe when you've heard you'll understand why I played it like I did.
"You gotta get the set up," he says. "In the first place I knew Mrs Aymes was comm' to town to see Granworth because I saw the letters she wrote. I knew she come to town on the night he died, but I kept my trap shut about it at the inquest, an' I told the servants at the flat to keep quiet too, an' I'll tell you why.
"Granworth Aymes was a lousy dog. We none of us liked him, but we liked her plenty. We knew he usta play around with a lotta janes an' that he gave her a raw deal. But when he made that dough an' told us that he was goin' to give two hundred grand in Registered Dollar Bonds to her I thought that maybe he was goin' to start over an' be a good guy. I believe this because he acts that way, an' because he takes out extra insurance an' says he's goin' to be a regular feller.
"On the night he died he went outa this office an' I knew that later he was goin' to meet up with Mrs Aymes an' talk to her about this dame that she was so burned up about. The next thing I hear is when the police ring up the next mornin' an' say that they have fished Granworth outa the river an' want identification. I go down an' do it.
"I also knew that Mrs Aymes had gone back to Connecticut late the night before, because Granworth told me she was goin' back after she'd seen him.
"Now I worked it out this way. I worked out that she'd seen him an' told him plenty; that she'd told him he was a lousy double-crossin' dog an' that she was goin' to leave him an' after that she'd started back for Connecticut. Well, I know Granworth. He was an excitable sorta guy an' he probably was a bit upset, so I reckon he has some liquor an' maybe makes up his mind that he will bump himself off. Knowin' him I reckon that he woulda been drinkin' with some jane somewhere an' that she was the woman that the watchman saw.
"But I think that if I say that he saw Mrs Aymes that night that the police will think that the dame with Granworth was her; that they will bring her back here an' start givin' her the works an' makin' things tough for her So I get around to the apartment, an' I have a talk with the servants, an' we fix to keep quiet about her bien' in town that night I take a thousand that Granworth had in the drawer of this desk an' I graft the watchman to keep his trap shut. I thought then that Granworth had bumped himself off an' I didn't see why she should be brought into it. He'd caused her enough trouble anyway.
"All right. Everything works out swell an' the inquest finishes an' that's that. But a few months afterwards you come along an' you say that Mrs Aymes has tried to pass a phoney bond down at the bank at Palm Springs. You ask me a lotta questions before I have time to think this thing out, so I give you the same story as I handed out to the coroner at the inquest. But after you went I got down an' I did a little thinkin'. I knew durn well that the bonds that Granworth's lawyer handed over to Henrietta Aymes was the real stuff. They was got outa Granworth's safe deposit where they had been kept. I started thinkin' that if she had tried to pass a phoney bond then she musta got it from somewhere an' knew it was phoney.
"Another thing. I looked in the drawer of this desk where Granworth had put those three letters. They was gone, an' I remembered that when she came down from Connecticut after the inquest I found her at this desk one day. I begin to get a screwy idea in my head. I get the idea that maybe I have been a mug, that maybe she did bump Granworth after all; that she was the woman the nightwatchman saw, an' that's why she wanted the letters.
"Well, I may have sympathised with her in the first place, but I don't hold with murder an' I began to get a bit uncomfortable. Especially with you muscim' around because you have got a hot reputation, Mr Caution, an' I start wonderin' what is goin' to happen to me if you find out the truth. I was right here because the first thing you do is to go an' grill the truth outa the watchman, although I didn't know that at the time.
"So I sit down at the typewriter an' I send you that letter, without any signature, because I work it out that way. If you get down to Palm Springs an' get them letters, well you can do what you like about it. If you think she bumped Granworth you can set out to pin it on her, or you can leave it alone, just as you think. I thought that you might not worry about who wrote the letter providin' you got the information, an' I also thought that if you did pin that letter on me I would come across with the whole works. Well, there it is. That's how it was, an' I'm sorry if I've caused you any trouble by bein' a mug an' not tellin' the truth first go off."
I get up an' I hold out my hand.
"Fine, Burdell," I tell him. "I reckon you're a wise guy to come clean. I'm beginning to think that this Henrietta bumped Granworth all right, an' if she did, well she'll have to fry for it.
He shakes hands with me an' I scram.
I say so- long to the dame with the french heels outside, an' I take the elevator down. I ease along pretty quick to the caretaker's office on 'the entrance floor an' flash my badge an' grab the telephone. I get chief operator at the telephone exchange.
I tell the chief operator who I am an' I also tell him that I have just left Burdell's office an' that I have got an idea that Burdell will be puttin' a long-distance call through to somebody at Palm Springs pretty quick. I say that they are to listen in to that call an' take a note of it an' who the guy is at the other end who takes it. I say that they are to keep this shorthand note for me to call for an' that they can check up on my authority in the meantime.