“After that,” he said, “you’ll pay me ten per cent of the take.”
“How will you be protected on that?”
“Never fear.” He chuckled. “I’ll be protected.”
The secretary came in with the letter. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose with the tip of his forefinger, and his glittering black eyes read the letter carefully. He took a fountain pen, signed the letter, and handed it to the secretary. “Give it to Mr. Lam,” he said. “Have you got the fee available, Mr. Lam?”
“Not right at the present moment — not the amount you mentioned.”
“When will you have it?”
“Probably within a day or two.”
“Come in any time. I’ll be glad to see you.”
He got up and wrapped long, cold fingers around my hand. “I thought,” he said, “you were more familiar with the routine procedure in such cases... You seemed to be when you came to the office.”
“I was,” I told him, “but I always hate to tell a lawyer the law. I’d rather have him tell me the law.”
He nodded and grinned. “A very smart young man, Mr. Lam. Now, Miss Sykes, if you’ll bring in that file in the Case of Helman versus Helman, I’ll dictate an answer and cross-complaint. When Mr. Lam comes in to pay his fee, I’ll see him personally, and give him a receipt. Good morning, Mr. Lam.”
“Good-bye,” I said, and walked out. The secretary waited until I had gone through the door before going after the file of Helman versus Helman.
I went down to the agency office. Bertha Cool was in. Elsie Brand was at her secretarial desk, hammering away at the typewriter.
“Anybody in with the boss?” I asked.
She shook her head.
I walked across to the door that was marked Private and pushed it open.
Bertha Cool shoved an account book hurriedly into the cash drawer of the desk, slammed the drawer shut, and locked it. “Where did you go?” she asked.
“I tailed along for a while, saw her into a movie, and came back to look for you.”
“A movie?”
I nodded.
Bertha Cool’s little glittering eyes surveyed me thoughtfully. “How’s the job?” she asked.
“Still going.”
“You’ve managed to keep her from saying anything?”
I nodded, and she asked, “How did you do it?”
“Just kidding her along,” I said. “I think she likes to have me around.”
Bertha Cool sighed. “Donald, you have the damnedest way with women. What do you do to make them fall for you?”
“Nothing,” I said.
She looked me over again and said, “It may be at that. All the competition is trying to appear big and masculine, and you sit back as though you weren’t interested... Sometimes I think you bring out the mother complex in us.”
I said, “Nix on that us stuff. This is business.”
She gave a throaty chuckle, and said, “Whenever you try to get hard with me, lover, I know that you’re after the money.”
“And whenever you start handing me the soft soap, I know you’re trying to kid me out of it.”
“How much do you want?”
“Plenty.”
“I haven’t got it.”
“You’d better have it, then.”
“Donald, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you fifty times that you can’t just come in here and hold me up for a lot of expense money. You’re careless, Donald. You’re extravagant. Mind you, I don’t think you pad the swindle sheet, but you just don’t have any perspective in money matters. All you can see is what you want to accomplish.”
I said, casually, “It’s a nice piece of business. I’d hate to see you lose it.”
“She knows you’re a detective now?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t lose it, then.”
“No?” I asked.
“Not if you play your part.”
“I can’t play my part unless I have a roll.”
“Good heavens, listen to the man. Do you think agency is made of money?”
I said, “Officers were out last night — early this morning.”
“Officers?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was sleeping through most of it, but it seems that Robert Tindle — that’s the stepson — had a man working with him by the name of Ringold — or did you read the paper?”
“Ringold? Jed Ringold?” she asked, her voice seeming to jump down my throat.
“That’s the one.”
She kept looking at me for a long time, then she said, “Donald, you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Falling for a woman. Listen, lover, some day that’s going to get you in an awful jam. You’re young and innocent and susceptible. Women are shrewd and designing. You can’t trust them... I don’t mean all women, but I mean the kind of women who try to use you.”
I said, “No one’s trying to use me.”
She said, “I should have known better. I thought it was too damned improbable at the time.”
“What was?”
“That a girl like Alta Ashbury with a lot of money, swell looks, and a lot of men chasing after her would fall for you. It’s the other way around. You’ve fallen for her, and she’s using you as a cover-up... Went to a movie! Movie, my eye! At eleven o’clock at night.”
I didn’t say anything.
She picked up the newspaper and checked through it before she found the address. “Murdered within a couple of blocks of the place where she parked her car — you tailing along behind — officers out at the house at three o’clock in the morning. She knows you’re a detective — and we still have the job.”
Bertha Cool threw back her head and laughed — hard, mirthless laughter.
I said, “I’m going to need three hundred dollars.”
“Well, you can’t have it.”
I shrugged my shoulders, got up, and started for the door.
“Donald, wait.”
I stood at the door looking at her.
“Don’t you understand, Donald? Bertha doesn’t want in be harsh with you, but—”
“Do you,” I asked, “want me to tell you all about it?”
She looked at me as though her ears hadn’t been working right, and said, “Of course.”
I said, “Better think it over for twenty-four hours, and then let me know.”
All of a sudden her face twitched. She opened her purse, look a key from it, unlocked the cash drawer, opened an inner compartment with another key, took out six fifty-dollar bills, and gave them to me. “Remember, Donald,” she said, “this is expense money. Don’t squander it.”
I didn’t bother to answer her but walked across the office, folding the fifty-dollar bills. Elsie Brand looked up from the typewriter, saw the roll of fifties, and pursed her lips into a silent whistle, but her fingers didn’t quit hammering away at the keyboard.
Going out to Ashbury’s place in a taxicab, I read the morning newspaper. Ringold had been identified as an ex-convict, a former gambler, and, at the time of his death, had been employed by “an influential corporation.” The officials of the corporation had expressed surprise when they had been told of the man’s record. Although his employment had been in a minor capacity, the corporation had used great care in the selection of its employees, and it was assumed that Ringold’s references had been forged. The officials of the corporation were making a checkup.
The police were completely mystified as to the motive for the slaying, and the manner in which the murder had been done. Approximately fifteen minutes before the killing, a young man with quiet manners and agreeable personality had asked for a room where he could spend a few hours of undisturbed slumber. Walter Markham, the night clerk at the hotel, was emphatic in his statements that the man had made no effort to get room four-twenty-one, beyond mentioning that he preferred an odd number. He had been assigned to room four-twenty-one, had gone up, hung a “Please Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, and apparently had immediately proceeded to pry off the molding strip which ran along the edge of the door that communicated with room four-nineteen — the room occupied by Ringold. With the molding off, the man had been able to twist the bolt on one side, and, by use of a chisel, pry back the bolt on the other. The communicating door opened into an alcove formed by one wall of room four-nineteen and the door of the bathroom which went with room four-nineteen. It was assumed that Ringold, hearing some noise at the door, had become suspicious and decided to investigate. He had been shot three times. Death had been instantaneous. The murderer had made no attempt either to leave by the room he had rented or to rob his victim. Apparently, he had pocketed the gun, calmly stepped over the body, walked to the corridor, and stood in the doorway masquerading as a guest who had been aroused by the sound of the shots. No one had seen him leave the hotel.