So I said to Mrs. Grayle: Youd still like it back, wouldnt you? Just like that. I didnt know any other way to say. I had to say something that would jar her a bit. It did. She gave me another number in a hurry. And I called that and I said Id like to see her. She seemed surprised. So I had to tell her the story. She didnt like it. But she had been wondering why she hadnt heard from Marriott. I guess she thought he had gone south with the money or something. So Im to see her at two oclock. Then Ill tell her about you and how nice and discreet you are and how you would be a good man to help her get it back, if theres any chance and so on. Shes already interested.
I didnt say anything. I just stared at her. She looked hurt. Whats the matter? Did I do right?
Cant you get it through your head that this is a police case now and that Ive been warned to stay off it?
Mrs. Grayle has a perfect right to employ you, if she wants to.
To do what?
She snapped and unsnapped her bag impatiently. Oh, my goodness a woman like that with her looks cant you see She stopped and bit her lip. What kind of man was Marriott?
I hardly knew him. I thought he was a bit of a pansy. I didnt like him very well.
Was he a man who would be attractive to women?
Some women. Others would want to spit.
Well, it looks as if he might have been attractive to Mrs. Grayle. She went out with him.
She probably goes out with a hundred men. Theres very little chance to get the necklace now.
Why?
I got up and walked to the end of the office and slapped the wall with the flat of my hand, hard. The clacking typewriter on the other side stopped for a moment, and then went on. I looked down through the open window into the shaft between my building and the Mansion House Hotel. The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on. I went back to my desk, dropped the bottle of whiskey back into the drawer, shut the drawer and sat down again. I lit my pipe for the eighth or ninth time and looked carefully across the half-dusted glass to Miss Riordans grave and honest little face.
You could get to like that face a lot. Glamoured up blondes were a dime a dozen, but that was a face that would wear. I smiled at it.
Listen, Anne. Killing Marriott was a dumb mistake. The gang behind this holdup would never pull anything like that. What must have happened was that some gowed-up run they took along for a gun-holder lost his head. Marriott made a false move and some punk beat him down and it was done so quickly nothing could be done to prevent it. Here is an organized mob with inside information on jewels and the movements of the women that wear them. They ask moderate returns and they would play ball. But here also is a back alley murder that doesnt fit at all. My idea is that whoever did it is a dead man hours ago, with weights on his ankles, deep in the Pacific Ocean. And either the jade went down with him or else they have some idea of its real value and they have cached it away in a place where it will stay for a long time maybe for years before they dare bring it out again. Or, if the gang is big enough, it may show up on the other side of the world. The eight thousand they asked seems pretty low if they really know the value of the jade. But it would be hard to sell. Im sure of one thing. They never meant to murder anybody.
Anne Riordan was listening to me with her lips slightly parted and a rapt expression on her face, as if she was looking at the Dalai Lhama.
She closed her mouth slowly and nodded once. Youre wonderful, she said softly. But youre nuts.
She stood up and gathered her bag to her. Will you go to see her or wont you?
Randall cant stop me if it comes from her.
All right. Im going to see another society editor and get some more dope on the Grayles if I can. About her love life. She would have one, wouldnt she?
The face framed in auburn hair was wistful.
Who hasnt? I sneered.
I never had. Not really.
I reached up and shut my mouth with my hand. She gave me a sharp look and moved towards the door.
Youve forgotten something, I said.
She stopped and turned. What? She looked all over the top of the desk.
You know damn well what.
She came back to the desk and leaned across it earnestly. Why would they kill the man that killed Marriott, if they dont go in for murder?
Because he would be the type that would get picked up sometime and would talk when they took his dope away from him. I mean they wouldnt kill a customer.
What makes you so sure the killer took dope?
Im not sure. I just said that. Most punks do.
Oh. She straightened up and nodded and smiled. I guess you mean these, she said and reached quickly into her bag and laid a small tissue bag package on the desk.
I reached for it, pulled a rubber band off it carefully and opened up the paper. On it lay three long thick Russian cigarettes with paper mouthpieces. I looked at her and didnt say anything.
I know I shouldnt have taken them, she said almost breathlessly. But I knew they were jujus. They usually come in plain papers but lately around Bay City they have been putting them out like this. Ive seen several. I thought it was kind of mean for the poor man to be found dead with marihuana cigarettes in his pocket.
You ought to have taken the case too, I said quietly. There was dust in it. And it being empty was suspicious.
I couldnt with you there. I I almost went back and did. But I didnt quite have the courage. Did it get you in wrong?
No, I lied. Why should it?
Im glad of that, she said wistfully.
Why didnt you throw them away?
She thought about it, her bag clutched to her side, her wide-brimmed absurd hat tilted so that it hid one eye.
I guess it must be because Im a cops daughter, she said at last. You just dont throw away evidence. Her smile was frail and guilty and her cheeks were flushed. I shrugged.
Well the word hung in the air, like smoke in a closed room. Her lips stayed parted after saying it. I let it hang. The flush on her face deepened.
Im horribly sorry. I shouldnt have done it.
I passed that too.
She went very quickly to the door and out.
14
I poked at one of the long Russian cigarettes with a finger, then laid them in a neat row, side by side and squeaked my chair. You just dont throw away evidence. So they were evidence. Evidence of what? That a man occasionally smoked a stick of tea, a man who looked as if any touch of the exotic would appeal to him. On the other hand lots of tough guys smoked marihuana, also lots of band musicians and high school kids, and nice girls who had given up trying. American hasheesh. A weed that would grow anywhere. Unlawful to cultivate now. That meant a lot in a country as big as the U.S.A.
I sat there and puffed my pipe and listened to the clacking typewriter behind the wall of my office and the bong-bong of the traffic lights changing on Hollywood Boulevard and spring rustling in the air, like a paper bag blowing along a concrete sidewalk.
They were pretty big cigarettes, but a lot of Russians are, and marihuana is a coarse leaf. Indian hemp. American hasheesh. Evidence. God, what hats the women wear. My head ached. Nuts.
I got my penknife out and opened the small sharp blade, the one I didnt clean my pipe with, and reached for one of them. Thats what a police chemist would do. Slit one down the middle and examine the stuff under a microscope, to start with. There might just happen to be something unusual about it. Not very likely, but what the hell, he was paid by the month.
I slit one down the middle. The mouthpiece part was pretty tough to slit. Okey, I was a tough guy. I slit it anyway. See if can you stop me.
Out of the mouthpiece shiny segments of rolled thin cardboard partly straightened themselves and had printing on them. I sat up straight and pawed for them. I tried to spread them out on the desk in order, but they slid around on the desk. I grabbed another of the cigarettes and squinted inside the mouthpiece. Then I went to work with the blade of the pocket knife in a different way. I pinched the cigarette down to the place where the mouthpiece began. The paper was thin all the way, you could feel the grain of what was underneath. So I cut the mouthpiece off carefully and then still more carefully cut through the mouthpiece longways, but only just enough. It opened out and there was another card underneath, rolled up, not touched this time.