"My arrestin' you tonight out at the Hacienda Altmira was just a fake. I done it for a purpose an' with a bitta luck what I want to happen will happen, an' then everything will be hunky dory. I hadta make Periera an' Fernandez believe that I was pinchin' you for this counterfeitin' job an' I've warned 'em both that I'm takin' 'em back to New York with me tomorrow.
"OK. Well, right now I'm scrammin' back to the Hacienda, but before I go I wanta wise you up to something, Henrietta, an' don't you forget it. Sometime tonight you're goin' to meet Mrs Paulette Benito - the dame that your husband was playin' around with; the dame that got the two hundred grand in real Registered Dollar Bonds.
"All right, now get this. I'm goin' to pin the murder of Granworth Aymes on this Paulette. I'm goin' to prove she did it. Now Granworth Aymes was bumped by one of two women, because there was only two women saw him on the evenin' of the 12th January. One was Henrietta here an' the other was Paulette.
"Right, now I'm goin' to eliminate Henrietta from this business by producin' a bit of fake evidence. I'm goin' to say that we've checked up at New York an' that we know that Henrietta here couldn'ta killed Aymes because she left New York on a train that left the depot five minutes before the night watchman saw the Aymes car go over the edge of Cotton's Wharf. I'm goin' to say that a ticket clerk an' a train attendant both identify Henrietta's picture as being that of a woman who was on the train goin' back to Hartford.
"Now have you got that, Henrietta? You was on that train goin' back to Hartford, Connecticut, an' it left the depot at eight-forty. An' don't forget it."
She looks at me sorta curious. She is lookin' tired an 'it looks like she might start weepin' at any minute.
"All right, Lemmy," she says. "I don't understand, but I'll remember."
"OK," I tell her. "Now I'm goin' to scram." I turn around to Metts. "Let these two stick around," I tell him. "Henrietta ain't under arrest for anything. But I don't waht 'em to leave here. I want 'em here when I get back."
When I get to the door I turn round an' look at Henrietta. She is almost smilin'.
"An' when I get back, honeybunch," I say, "I'll tell you why I stopped you marryin' Maloney!"
CHAPTER 13
I RECKON that I am glad I stopped Henrietta marryin' Maloney.
As I go whizzin' along the road towards the Hacienda I start doin' a little philosophising in regard to dames. I have told you that they got rhythm an' technique; but they also gotta helluva lot of other things as well some of which are not so hot.
Dames fly off the handle any time. They just go off anyhow; they are like skyrockets. You can take an ordinary honest-to-goodness dame an' mix her with a little bitta excitement an' maybe a spot of love an' she just goes nuts, an' when she goes nuts she always has to put some guy in bad just so's she'll be in company. It ain't the thing that dames do that worries me, it's the things that they get guys to do for 'em.
I've heard folks say that the difference between a man an' a woman is so little that it don't matter. Well you don't want to believe these guys. They're wrong. A man is controlled by his head an' a woman by her instinct, an' in nine cases outa ten a woman's instinct is just the way she's feelin' that mornin'.
An' the way Henrietta feels now is that she would like to marry Maloney just because she's in a jam an' because she thinks that she ain't got any friends, an' that I am ridin' her like hell an' that in Maloney she will have a good guy who will look after her an' act as a buttress between her an' the wicked world.
Hooey!
Maloney wouldn't be any good at all for Henrietta. Why? Well, didn't I see all them little shoes of hers set out in rows, the night that I bust into the rancho where she is stayin'. Them shoes told me she had class an' although Maloney is a good guy he ain't in the same boulevard as Henrietta, not by a mile, an' another thing is that he only thinks he is fond of Henrietta. He ain't really in love with her at all. If he'd been really stuck on this dame he wouldn'ta let me play her around on this job the way I have had to do. He woulda done something about it.
I reckon I'll be pretty glad when I have got this case sewed up an' in the bag. You gotta realise that except for a coupla hours sleep I had at Yuma I have been kickin' arourid for practically three days an' three nights without sleepin', an' I am a guy who is very fond of bed.
By this time I am half a mile from the Hacienda. I pull the car off the road an' leave it behind some sage brush. Then I start easin' over towards the house. Presently I come across the State policeman's motor cycle where he has left it, an' a few yards farther on I find him.
He tells me that nobody has left the Hacienda except when Fernandez has come out an' driven a car from the garage around to the front. He says Periera an' Fernandez have been droppin' things into this car from the veranda over the front entrance so it looks as if my idea is workin' out.
I do not see that it is any good havin' this cop hangin' around, so I tell him to scram back to Palm Springs. When I have done this an' he is outa the way, I walk over to the back of the Hacienda. I go up past the wall that runs along from the garage an' up to the back door that leads into the store-room, the place where I found Sagers' body. This door is locked, but I work on it an' after a few minutes I get it open.
I go inside, lock it behind me, walk along the passage an' get down into the storeroom. I go across the storeroom an' very quietly I start movin' up the steps that lead to the door behind the bar. This door is not locked. I open it justa little bit so that I can put my eye to the crack an' look out.
In front of me I can see the dance floor of the Hacienda. All the lights are out, but from where I am I can see the door of Periera's office on the balcony along the Opposite wall. The door is a little bit open an' there is a light inside. From where I am I can just hear Fernandez an' Periera talkin'.
I light myself a cigarette, hold it behind the door so that they cannot see the light, an' I wait there about ten minutes. I can still hear their voices dronin'. Then I hear Fernandez laugh. After a bit the door opens an' he comes out an' stands in the doorway. As the light falls on his face I can see that he is smokin' a cigarette an' lookin' pretty pleased with himself.
Then he goes back into the office an' comes out again in a minute carryin' a suitcase. He starts walkin' along the balcony towards the place where it ends which is just over the main entrance to the Hacienda. I think for a minute that he is goin' into the end room on the balcony, but he don't. He passes it. He keeps on walkin' an' he goes to where there is a big picture on the wall.
He waits there for a minute an' then Periera comes out.
They both get hold of this picture an' start takin' it down.
When they have done this, they lean it up against the wall, an' I can see that behind the picture is a sorta hatchway in the wall. Periera goes back to the office an' closes the door behind him. Fernandez climbs through the hatch in the wall an' disappears. I push open the door an' step into the bar. I jump over it an' start gumshoein' up the stairs. I pull the Luger whilst I am goin' up.
I am very quick an' very quiet, an' the first thing that Periera knows is that I am standin' in the open doorway of his office with the gun on him. From this place I can keep an eye on the hatch down the balcony just in case Fernandez decides to come out.
Periera looks surprised. His mouth sags open an' some little beads of sweat come across his forehead. I reckon this Periera is a yellow cuss anyhow.
"Well, Periera," I tell him. "It don't look so good for you does it? It looks as if you two guys are not goin' to have such a good time from now on. Now you take a tip from me an' do what I tell you, otherwise things is goin' to look pretty bad for you. Have you gotta key to this door?"