"An' Granworth just sits around in his office waitin' for Henrietta to telephone through.
"In the later afternoon she comes through. She tells Granworth that she has just gotta see him an' she asks him where. He says at some little downtown cafe an' when the time comes Henrietta goes along, an' he drives up in his car an' they have a big talk.
"Granworth has had a coupla drinks an' is fairly high an' fulla courage. He tells Henrietta he don't give a durn for her an' that she can do what she likes. When she says that she will divorce him if he don't give up this other dame, he says OK an' if she does he won't pay her any alimony, that he will leave the country first. Then she says she don't give a hoot about the alimony because she has got the dollar bonds an' then be just laughs like hell, because he is thinkin' what a funny story he will have to tell Paulette when he goes back to the office an' meets up with her again.
I stop talkin' because there is a knock at the door. Metts gets up an' goes across. He talks to the copper at the door an' then he comes back across the room to me. He has got two telegrams in his hands an' he gives 'em to me. I bust 'em open an' read 'em. One is from the 'G' Office in New York an' the other is from a Captain of Mexican Police Rurales in the Zoni district to Mexican Police headquarters at Mexicali, who have forwarded it on to me from there.
They both look pretty good to me.
I put 'em down on the desk in front of me an' I go on.
"Henrietta can't say anything else," I tell 'em. "He is drunk an' she knows it. She gets up an' she leaves, an' she goes back to the depot an' takes the first train back to Hartford, Connecticut. We know she does this because two guys in the railway service, a ticket clerk an' a train attendant, have identified her picture as bein' on the train that left at ten minutes to nine.
"OK. Well, returnin' to Granworth. He goes back to his car an' he starts it up an' he drives back to his office. By now it is about eight-thirty an' he is lookin' forward to havin' a big laugh with Paulette about his talk with Henrietta an' maybe he is reckonin' on takin' her some place to dinner.
"Right. Granworth goes up to his office an' there he finds two people waitin' for him. He finds Langdon Burdell an' Paulette. When he goes in the door of the outer office he is so high that he forgets to close it behind him. If he had I mighta not been tellin' this story.
"Anyhow he goes inta the inner office an' he gives himself another drink an' he starts laughin' his head off. Then he starts tellin' Paulette and Burdell about his interview with Henrietta. He tells these two that the poor sap Henrietta thinks that she has got two hundred grand in dollar bonds an' that the poor mutt is threatenin' him with divorce thinkin' that she has got plenty money an' that all the time all she has got is a bunch of counterfeit paper.
"They all start laughin' like hell. They all think that it is one helluva joke an' just when they are screamin' their heads off the door opens an' in walks Rudy Benito, and I reckon this guy has been standin' in the outer office an' has heard them tellin' the whole bag of tricks.
"Rudy starts in. He tells 'em about it. He tells Granworth what a cheap four-flushin' devil he is an' then he turns around to Paulette an' tells her what he thinks about her. He tells her just what he thinks about a lousy daughter of hell who would help to swindle her dyin' husband an' who could sit down an' laugh about it.
"He stands there pointin' his finger at 'em. An' then he tells 'em something else.
"He says that the fact that Granworth is prepared to return the money don't matter a durn to him. He says that he is goin' to the police. He says that he is goin' to bust the whole works an' hold 'em both up for all the world to see what lousy scum they are. He says that if it's the last thing he ever does he's goin' to put 'em behind the bars.
"An' then what! Well, I'll tell you. Paulette here is pretty burned up. She is furious at bein' caught out like this. Right by where she is sittin' on the edge of Granworth Aymes' desk is a big paper weight-the figure of a boxer, the same one that's there now. She gets up an' she grabs it. She smashes it down on Rudy's skull an' she kills him. He lies there dyin', a poor sick guy that never had a chance, an' there, sittin' in that chair lookin' at us, is the lousy dame who did it!"
Paulette cracks. She jumps up. She rushes across to the desk an' she leans across it. Her eyes are blazin' an' she is so worked up she can hardly talk.
"I never did it," she yells. "I tell you I never did it. It's all true but the killing. I didn't do that. Granworth did it. He killed Rudy. I tell you he killed him with the paper weight."
She falls on the floor in front of the desk. She lies there writhin'. I go around an' take a look at her.
"Thanks a lot, Paulette," I tell her. "Thank you for the tip. That's just what I wanted to know."
CHAPTER 15
I WALK around the desk an' I stand there lookin' at her as she is lyin' on the floor. I reckon she is goin' to give herself a double dose of hysteria in a minute.
I bend down an' pick her up. I carry her over to the chair an' while I am doin' it she tries - even fixed the way she is - to pull something. While she is in my arms she sorta turns her bead an' looks at me an' she puts everything inta that look that she's got. I reckon that if that dame coulda cut off ten years of her life if she was able to kill me with a look she woulda done it. It was poison I'm tellin' you.
I throw her down in the chair.
"Take it nice an' calm, Cleopatra," I tell her, "because gettin' excited or raisin' hell around here is goin' to be as much use to you as a red pepper on a gumboil. Sweet dame, you are all shot to hell, you are washed up like a dead fish in a waterspout. From now on you are the sample that got lost in the mail, you are the copy the news-editor spiked, you are the lady who got stood-up by a gumshoein' Federal dick that you thought was a pushover. You make me sick. Even if you was good I wouldn't like you."
She goes as red as hell. I reckon talkin' to her this way has stopped her hysterics anyhow. She takes a pull at herself.
"You cheap heel," she says. "I wish I'd shot you when I had the chance. I wish I'd hurt you so that it took you a year to die. But get this. Somebody will get you. Somebody will get you for this!"
"Nope, little buttercup'," I tell her. "Somebody won't, an' if you keep them shell-like ears of yours flappin' an' stop thinkin' of new things to call me you'll hear just why 'somebody' won't. Another thing I ain't frightened of friends of yours, little dewdrop, an' though they may be all the world to you to me they are just bad smells. An' another thing, if every crook who has tried to iron me out had done what he wanted I would be so full of holes that they could use me for a nutmeg grater.
"Stay quiet an' take what's comin' to you like a lady."
I turn around to Henrietta. She is sittin' up starin'. She is tryin' to understand just where she is breakin'. You ain't never seen a dame as surprised as Henrietta.
"But, Lemmy," she says. "You say that Granworth killed Rudy Benito. Then what happened? I don't understand. Did Granworth commit suicide afterwards?"
"Take it easy, honeybunch," I tell her. "You ain't heard the half of it yet. By the time I'm through you'll begin to understand just what a lousy heel that husband of yours was, an' just how much trouble a cheap dame like this Paulette here can start if she feels like it.
"OK. Well let's go on from there. There is poor Rudy Benito lyin' on the floor as dead as last month's prime cuts. Langdon Burdell, Granworth, an' Paulette standin' lookin' at each other an' wonderin' what the hell they are goin' to do next, an' then Paulette gets another swell idea - an' is it a good one? I'm tellin' you that it was such a good one that they nearly got away with it.