After a bit this Madrales comes to the top of the stairs. He says I am to go up. At the top of the stairs is another passage an' we go into a room on the left. One side of the room is practically all windows which are open, an' in one corner there is a screen. On the other side of the room pushed up against the wall is a low bed.
I look at the guy in the bed. He is lyin' there lookin' straight up at the ceilin'. He has got a thin funny sorta face an' there is a funny strained sorta look about it.
Tere is very little furniture in the room. Beside the bed there is a low table with a polished top an' there are some bottles on it an' a lamp. Madrales goes over an' stands by the side of the bed.
"Benito," he says, "this is Mr Caution. He wants to ask you some questions. Just keep very quiet and don't worry about anything."
The man in the bed don't say anythin'. Madrales walks over to the other side of the room an' brings a chair. He sticks it by the side of the bed for me. Then he says:
"Senor Caution, I will leave you now. I know that you will treat my patient with as much consideration as is possible;'
He goes off still rubbin' his hands together.
I go an' stand over by the bed. The sick guy turns his eyes so that they are lookin' at me an' his lips break into a little sorta smile.
I am feelin' plenty sorry for this guy. It looks to me like he has had a pretty low deal all round. I talk to him nice an' quiet.
"Listen, Rudy," I tell him. "Take it easy. I am sorry I gotta come over here askin' you things, but that's just the way it goes. I'm goin' to make it as short as possible. I just wanta check up on what that swell wife of yours Paulette has been tellin' me tonight, an' while I think of it I gotta tell you that she sent you her love. I reckon maybe she'll be along in the mornin' to see you. Well, here's the way it goes.
"It's about this Granworth Aymes business. Your wife tells me that Granwortb was takin' you for plenty since you was doin' business with him as a stockbroker. She says that you found it out, that she went an' saw Aymes an' gave him the choice of cashin' in or else she was goin' to the cops.
"She says that Granworth turned over two hundred grand in Registered Dollar Bonds to her an' that's the money you got now, the money that paid for you to be brought down here. Is that OK, Rudy?"
He speaks very quiet. His voice sounds as if it was comin' from a long way away.
"Sure," he says slowly, "that's how it was, an' I am durned glad Aymes bumped himself off. If I hadn't been sick I would have liked to have shot that lousy guy."
"OK, Rudy," I tell him, "that's that. An' there's just one little thing I wanta ask you an' maybe I'm sorry I've got to ask you it because I don't wanta make things tough for you right now. It's this way. Henrietta Aymes, Granworth's wife, got an unsigned letter from some guy. This letter tells her that Granworth is playin' around with this guy's wife."
I speak to him nice an' soft.
"Listen, Rudy," I say, "did you send her that letter? It musta been you. What about it?"
There is a long pause. Then he turns his eyes over towards me again.
"That's right," he says. "I sent it. I just had to do something."
I nod my head.
"Look," I say, "I reckon we're cleanin' this job up pretty swell. I don't wanta make you talk too much. You tell me if I'm right in my ideas. The way I look at it is this. Maybe your wife Paulette thought she was a bit stuck on Aymes. Maybe because you was sick you couldn't give her the sorta attention that a dame like she likes to have, so she falls for Aymes. OK. Aymes thinks he's on a durn good thing. He starts doin' you left an' right for your dough an' maybe the reason that you don't find it out is that your wife Paulette is lookin' after your business, an' because she an' Aymes are gettin' around together it's easy for him to pull the wool over her eyes. She don't see he's takin' you for your dough because she don't wanta see it. Got me?
"An' then the works bust. All of a sudden at the end of last year she finds you're not so well. She hears that you're a durn sick man an' that there's got to be dough to get you down here to get you looked after. Maybe she finds out that you've got an idea about what's goin' on. Maybe you even tell her that you've sent that unsigned letter to Henrietta Aymes.
"She sees she's been pullin' a lousy one an' she tells you that she is goin' back to get that dough out of Aymes if it's the last thing she does. Am I right?"
He turns his eyes my way again.
"You're dead right, Caution," he says. "We had a big scene. I told her what I thought about her. I said it was pretty tough for me being sick to think that she was running around with a guy who had swindled me. Well, that broke her up. I reckon she was sorry, and you know "- I see a little smile come around his lips - "I haven't very long to be around, and I don't want to feel that I'm making things tough for anybody. She told me she'd put the job right. She told me she'd get the money from Aymes and that she was through with him once and for all, and she made good. She got it."
He starts coughin'. I give him a drink of the water that is by the side of the bed. He smiles at me to say thank you.
"I'm a dying man, Caution," he says, "and I know you've got to do your job, but there's one thing you can do for me." His voice gets weaker. "Just you try to keep the fact that Paulette was getting around with Aymes out of this," he says. "I'd like you to do that for me. I wouldn't like people to know that she preferred a dirty doublecrosser like Aymes to me."
He smiles at me again. He is a piteous sorta guy.
"OK, Rudy," I say, "that's a bet. I'll play it that way. It won't hurt anybody. Well, I'll be gettin' along. So long an' good luck to you."
I turn an' I start walkin' towards the door. When I am half way I see something, somethin' that is just stickin' out behind the edge of the screen that is on the other side of the room. It is a waste-paper basket and when I see it an' what is in it, I get a sorta funny idea, such a funny idea that I have to take a big pull at myself. When I get to the door I turn around and I look at Rudy. His eyes are still lookin' straight up at the ceilin' an' he looks half dead right now.
"So long, Rudy," I say again. "Don't you worry about Paulette. I'll fix that OK."
Downstairs in the hall I meet Madrales.
"Listen, Doctor," I say, "everythin' has been swell, but there is just one little thing I am goin' to ask you to do for me. I have got all the information I want from Benito. I got my case complete but I have got to have a signed statement from him, because he is the guy who was swindled. Can you lend me a typewriter and some paper an' if you'll just get him to sign it I needn't worry him no more."
"But surely, Senor Caution," he says, "come with me."
He takes me into some room off the hall which is like a doctor's office. In the corner on a table is a typewriter. I sit down at this machine an' I type out a statement incorporatin' everything that Benito has said. When I have finished I go out to Madrales an' we go upsrairs. It is a tough job gettin' this guy Benito to sign it. The doctor has to hold his hand because it is shakin' so much that he can hardly hold the pen, but he does it. I stick the satement in my pocket and say so long to these guys an' I scram.
As I start up the car I look at my watch. It is twenty minutes past four.
I have got one helluva hunch. I have got an idea in my head that is considerably funny, an' I am goin' to play this idea. Even if I'm wrong I'm still goin' to play it.
When I have got well away from the Madrales dump I pull up the car an' do some very heavy thinkin'. I am checkin' up on the idea that is in my head. I have got a very funny hunch an' I am goin' to play it in a very funny sorta way.