For a moment we looked at each other. Then Stanberry said, “I did you the extreme courtesy of permitting you to intrude upon my grief because I thought you were a gentleman of the press.”
His tone was reproachfully cultured.
“I told you I’m a detective.”
“Had you told me that earlier, I should not have admitted you — particularly had I known you were a private detective.”
“A detective has to look around,” I said.
“Mr. Lam, I don’t know just what your game is, or what you’re trying to do, but if you don’t leave at once, I shall call the officers.”
“Suits me,” I said. “When you call them, call Frank Sellers. He’s connected with Homicide. He’s working on your uncle’s death.”
I sat there and Archie Stanberry stood there. After a moment, Stanberry walked dubiously to telephone, then detoured and sat down. “I can’t understand the reason for this rudeness,” he said.
I said, “In the first place while you are a meticulous little man with neat habits, you aren’t that neat.” I jerked my thumb toward the bedroom. “You are the favorite nephew of a rich uncle who owns the joint. Therefore, you get maid service — and how. That bedroom of yours is as clean as a new pin.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” he asked.
I grinned and said, “That’s the weak point in your armor.”
“What do you mean?”
I put all the assurance in the world in my voice. “The maid,” I said, “will be able to tell what picture was taken down from that wall — that’s where you made your mistake. You shouldn’t have taken down the whole frame. You should have pulled out the back of the frame, removed the picture, put in another one, and hung the frame back in place. As it is, you can see a little difference in color where the frame was removed. And, of course, there’s the little hole in the wall left by the steel push-pin that held the picture.”
He looked at me as though I’d hit him in the stomach.
“So,” I said, “go ahead and call the police. When Frank Sellers comes, we’ll bring the maid in here and show her Billy Prue’s picture and ask her if that’s the one that was removed from the wall right across from your bed.”
His shoulders sagged as though both lungs had gone flat.
“What... what do you want?”
“The truth, naturally.”
“Lam, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else — something that I’ve never expected to admit to a single soul.”
I didn’t say anything, but just sat there waiting.
He said, “I dropped in at the Rendezvous every once in a while. It’s only natural that I should have.”
“Getting material for your novel?”
“Don’t be silly, I was getting relaxation and looking around. When a man is doing a lot of brain work, he has to do some playing.”
“So you played around with Billy Prue?”
“Will you please let me finish?”
“Go ahead.”
“Billy Prue sold me cigarettes. I looked her over and thought she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.”
“So you made passes?”
“Naturally. And I got absolutely nowhere.”
“Then what?”
“Then I became even more seriously interested, and I’m afraid my uncle... well, I’m afraid my uncle didn’t approve of the manner in which I was — doing what he called losing my head.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Lam. I give you my word of honor that I don’t know.”
“But what do you think?”
“I don’t even think.”
I said, “Perhaps I can do some thinking for you.”
He looked at me with swollen, bloodshot eyes and acted as though he were a wounded deer asking me why I’d shot him.
I said, “Your uncle thought she was a gold digger?”
“I think that was rather obvious from what I said.”
“So he went to see her and told her that if she’d give you a thorough jolt so it would cure you — if she’d run off with someone else or let you catch someone else in her apartment, or do something that would completely disillusion you, he’d give her more money than she could hope to get by making a legitimate matrimonial alliance and then trying to collect alimony.”
Archie took a soggy handkerchief from his hip pocket, started twisting it around and around his fingers. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t think that Uncle Rufus would have done anything like that. I don’t think Billy would have listened to it. I think she would have... resented it.”
“With a hand ax?” I asked.
“My God,” he said, “you’re driving me mad with those cynical nasty cracks of yours. Of course not! Billy wouldn’t harm a flea. We’ve got to keep Billy out of this! We must!”
“How about the picture?”
“I took it down as soon as I found out that... well, about what had happened.”
“She gave you the picture?”
“No. I found out what photographer took her publicity pictures and bribed him to take a nice pin-up picture for me. She didn’t know I had a print.”
I said, “So far you’ve been one hundred per cent.”
“One hundred per cent what?” he asked.
“Rat,” I said and walked out leaving him gazing reproachfully after me, a tear-soaked handkerchief held to his nose.
9
The apartment house where I had been able to get a single apartment by dint of some pull and a lot of luck was about three blocks from the place where Bertha Cool had her apartment, which was altogether too close. It was a swanky place with a private switchboard and a garage, a rather ornate lobby, and the rent must have been fixed when the OPA had its back turned.
I parked the agency car, went up to the lobby desk and said, “Three forty-one.”
The man behind the desk looked at me sharply. “You’re new here?” he asked.
I nodded. “Just checked in today.”
“Oh yes. Mr. Lam, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a message for you.”
He handed me my key and the folded slip of paper. The paper said, “Call Bertha Cool, at once.”
“Also,” the manager went on, “a young woman has been calling you every ten or fifteen minutes. She won’t leave her name or number. Says she’ll call back.”
“A young woman?” I asked.
The manager smiled condescendingly. “Her voice sounds young and attractive.”
I pushed Bertha’s message down in my pocket and went up to my apartment.
The telephone was ringing as I entered. I closed the door, went into the bathroom, washed my hands and face and waited until it had quit ringing. Then I walked back to the telephone and said to the switchboard operator, “Don’t call me any more tonight.”
The operator said, “I’m sorry, I told this party that you didn’t answer. She seemed very much disturbed, said it was a matter of the greatest importance.”
“Woman?” I asked.
The girl downstairs said it was.
I changed my mind and said, “All right, go ahead and ring if the call comes in again. I’ll take it.”
I hadn’t taken time to unpack when I’d checked in. Now I threw my grip on the bed and started taking things out. One thing about the Navy, it teaches a man to cut his possessions down to the minimum.
I yawned, turned down the bed and got out my pajamas.
The telephone rang.
I answered it.
Bertha Cool’s voice said, “Well, for Christ’s sake! What’s the matter with you? Are you getting so damned high-hat you can’t call your boss on a matter of business?”
“Partner,” I said.