An' if I am right about this-an' I believe I am - then Burdell is a double liar. All that stuff he told me about Henrietta findin' them letters in Granworth's desk an' takin' 'em away is just a lotta punk.
OK. So we found something out ain't we? Something that is beginnin' to look good. I have already got a bunch of ideas stewin' around in my head about this new set-up.
I grab a piece of paper an' a pencil an' I write it down just to sorta analyse it in my mind. Here it is:
Point 1: -Burdell gets the servants to say at the inquest that Henrietta is outa town on the night of Aymes' death. He gives the Cotton's Wharf watchman one thousand bucks to keep his mouth shut about the woman in the car.
Point 2:- When the counterfeit dollar bond is passed by Henrietta and Caution is brought on in the job, Burdell tells him the same story as he told at the inquest. Right then he gets the three letters which he has found in Granworth's desk an' sends them to Fernandez who is out at the Hacienda and tells him to plant them somewhere where they will be found easy in Henrietta's room at the rancho. He then writes an anonymous letter to Caution an' tells him to get out to Palm Springs an' grab the letters which will tell him a lot.
Point 3 - Caution goes to Palm Springs, finds the letters, and also the picture and begins to think there is something screwy going on. He comes back to New York and sees Burdell. Burdell tells Caution a swell story which explains his change of front. Caution makes out that he is falling for this an' checks up on the next 'phone conversation.
So what do we know? We know one thing certain an' that is that the Burdell-Fernandez set-up are tryin' to pin a first-degree murder rap on Henrietta.
OK. Well if this is so perhaps you can tell me something? If these two guys are tryin' to frame Henrietta for the murder of Granworth Aymes, then why in the name of everything that is sizzlin' is Burdell so keen that Henrietta should get herself married to Fernandez?
Ain't that a sweet question? Because that is the thing that is stickin' in my mind an' I have gotta find the answer somehow, otherwise this case is goin' to get me nuts in a minute.
But there's one thing you can rely on. The explanation is always durn simple. They always are when you finally find 'em out, but at the time they look tough.
Like once when I was in Oklahoma a dame who I was very stuck on hit me right on the top of the head with a tent mallet.
When I Come to an' I asked her how come she said she was gettin' so durn fond of me that she knew that unless she done something about it she would break up her home an' family because she was so fond of my ugly mug. She said that she had thought it all out an' the best way out was for her to sock me one with a tent mallet because it would create a situation that would clean things up.
She was right. After she had one sock I left Oklahoma.
The point is that I am goin' to use the same technique - as the professors call it. I am goin' back to Palm Springs an' I am goin' around with a tent mallet bustin' guys wide open until somebody stops two timin' me an' comes across with a spot of real honest-to-god truth.
An' here we go!
CHAPTER 6
WHILE I am flying back to Palm Springs I think out how I am goin' to handle this bezusus. First of all it is a cinch that it is no good my jumpin' around pretendin' to be Mr Selby T. Frayme of Magdalena, Mexico, any longer, because it looks to me like all the guys that I don't wanta know I am a 'G' man have known about it for a helluva long time. Here is where we come right out into the open.
As far as Henrietta is concerned I reckon I have got enough on her to make her talk, because you have gotta realise that although I am certainly partial to this dame I have never allowed my personal feelin's to interfere with my business, well, not much, an' after all the fact that a jane is pretty don't mean a durn thing because it is always the hotcha numbers who get into jams.
I reckon if you was to stick an ugly jane on an island where there was a coupla hundred tough guys stickin' around nothin' much would happen; but you plant a little lady who has got this an' that in the middle of a jungle you can betcha sweet an' holy life that some guy will be busy startin' a big lion hunt just to show her what a swell guy he is.
I will go so far as to say that a travellin' salesman in Missouri once told me that if there wasn't any dames in the world there wouldn't be no crime. We talked this thing over an' after he had had half a bottle of rye he got all sentimental about it, an' said that anyway he reckoned he would sooner have crime an' dames.
He got his way all right, because eighteen months after some jane slugged him with a car spanner after which he handed in his order book an' took a one-way trip to the local cemetery.
Just how Henrietta is breakin' with these guys out at the Hacienda I do not know. This is another thing I have got to find out because it certainly looks a bit funny to me that she is stickin' around in a place actin' as hostess an' bein' kissed by some big guy who used to be the chauffeur. Maybe this Fernandez has got some pull over Henrietta, an' is makin' her toe the line which would account for her tellin' me that she might have to marry him.
It is eight o'clock when I pull in at the Miranda House in Palm Springs, an' I am good an' tired, but I reckon that I am goin' to getta move on with business an' not let any grass grow in my ears while I am doin' it.
After I have had a shower an' a meal I put a call through to the Hacienda an' ask if Mrs Aymes is around. Some guy at the other end - an' I reckon by the way he talks it is Periera-says what do I want with her, an' I tell him that what I want with her is my business an' that if he don't get her to the 'phone pronto I will come out there an' slug him one with a blackjack. After this he decides to go an' fetch her.
Pretty soon I hear Henrietta cooin' into the telephone an' I ask her if she knows where Maloney is. She says yes he's around. I tell her that I am the guy who said he was Selby Frayme an' that I am not Selby Frayme but Lemmy Caution, a Federal Agent, an' I wanta see Maloney pronto, an' that he had better get around to the Miranda House good an' quick because I wanta talk to him.
She says OK an' about nine o'clock Maloney blows in.
I take him up to my room an' I give him a drink.
"Now see here, Maloney," I tell him. "I reckon that you are stuck on this Henrietta, an' that maybe you wouldn't like to see her get into a jam, because it looks right now that that is the way things are goin'. I reckon that Henrietta has told you who I am, an' what I am doin' around here, so I don't have to exphin any of that, but what I do wanna wise you up to is this little thing. When I come down here first of all I wasn't interested in how Granworth Aymes died or whether he committed suicide or was bit to death by wild spiders, I was just musclin' around tryin' to get a line on this counterfeitin' business. All right. Well, now I reckon that I am very interested in the Granworth business because it looks to me like the two things are tied up.
"Since I have been to New York I have found out a lotta things that make it look pretty bad for Henrietta. Maybe they're right an' maybe they ain't, but it's a cinch that she's gotta watch her step-or else...
"Now murder ain't a nice charge. Maybe it's my duty to advise New York about this suggestion that Henrietta bumped Granworth, but I ain't goin' to do that. I ain't goin' to do it just for one reason an' that is it won't help me any in the counterfeitin' business, an' that is the thing that I wanta clean up right now. If Henrietta did bump Granworth then she'll fry for it some time, but maybe she didn't an' if she didn't then I'm goin' to advise her to talk plenty an' quick, otherwise she may find herself elected for the hot squat an' they tell me that dames fry just as quick an' sweet as hombres.