“Oh, yes.”
He looked me over as though trying to find signs of violence.
“My business in there,” I said, “was concluded very satisfactorily to all concerned.”
“Ah, yes.” His face wrinkled into a smile that reached his ears. “You did the wise thing, Lam, my boy. No one will make any trouble for you as long as you show a spirit of co-operation. I am very glad you saw things our way. We can use you.” He groped out for my hand again. I pretended not to see the gesture.
“Well,” I said, “I must be going.”
“I think now that we understand each other, we’ll get along much better,” Crumweather said. “Kindly remember that I want Miss Ashbury at my office tomorrow afternoon without fail.”
“Good-night,” I said, and stepped into the cab.
He was still standing on the curb, looking beamingly after me as I gave the cab driver Alta Ashbury’s address.
Chapter fifteen
It was eight-forty when I strode into the hotel where I’d left Esther Clarde. A young woman telephone operator was on duty at the switchboard. I told her to ring Miss Claxon’s room, and tell her that Mr. Lam was waiting in the lobby.
She said, “Miss Claxon has checked out.”
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Sometime last night.”
“Can you find out exactly when?”
She said, “You’d better ask the room clerk.”
I walked over to the registration desk and asked the room clerk. He moved down to the window marked Cashier and said, “She paid in advance.”
“I know she paid in advance. What I want to know is when she left.”
He shook his head, started to push back the drawer of cards, then some notation caught his eye. He turned it over to the corner and looked at the pencil note. “She went out about two o’clock this morning,” he said.
I thanked him and asked if there were any messages for me. He looked through a stack of envelopes and said there were none.
I called up Bertha Cool from a booth in a restaurant a couple of doors down the street. No one answered at either the office or her apartment.
I had breakfast and smoked cigarettes over two cups of coffee. I got a newspaper, glanced through the headlines, and read the sporting news. I called Bertha Cool’s office again, and she was in.
“Anything new?” I asked.
“Where are you, Donald?”
“At a pay station.”
Her voice was cautious. “I understand the police are making headway in the Ringold murder.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. There are some recent developments they can’t figure out.”
“Such as what?”
“Someone got into the hotel room, apparently early this morning, and ripped it all to pieces. The upholstery was cut open, curtains were pulled down, carpets torn up, pictures taken out of the frames — a hell of a mess.”
“Any clues?”
“Apparently none. The police aren’t exactly communicative. I had to get information that was bootlegged out.”
“Nice goings,” I said.
“What are you going to do, lover?”
“Just keep circulating.”
“Mr. Crumweather’s office called up. It seems that Mr. Crumweather is very anxious to see you.”
“Say what he wanted?”
“No. He just wanted to talk with you.”
“Sociable old buzzard, isn’t he?”
“Uh-huh. Donald, watch your step.”
“I’m watching it.”
“Bertha couldn’t use you, you know, if you were sleeping in a room that had iron bars all over it.”
I pretended to be surprised and hurt. “You mean you’d stop my salary if I had to go to jail over trying to solve a company case?”
Bertha fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. She said, “You’re goddam right I’d stop your salary, you impudent little squirt,” and slammed up the telephone so hard it sounded as though she’d pulled the receiver hook out by the roots.
I went back and had another cup of coffee on the strength of that, then went over to Crumweather’s office.
Miss Sykes gave me one look, said, “Just a minute,” and dived into Crumweather’s private office. It was a good minute before she came out. I figured she’d had fifty seconds worth of instructions.
“Go on in, Mr. Lam.”
I went into the private office. Crumweather beamed all over his face. He pushed out a bony hand at me, and was as effusively cordial as an applicant for a loan greeting a bank appraiser who’s called to go over the physical assets.
“Well, well, Lam, my boy,” he said, “you certainly are an active little chap — damnably active! You certainly do get around. Yes, sir, you certainly do.”
I sat down.
Crumweather pushed his bushy eyebrows together in level speculation, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and looked me over with cold, hard appraisal. He tried to soften the severity of his eyes by freezing his lips into a smile.
“What have you been doing since I saw you last, Lam?”
“Thinking.”
“That was clever, that idea of yours about the oil company— Now tell me, Lam, just what made you use that approach.”
“I thought it would be a good one.”
“It was a good one, very good indeed! Too good. Now, I want to know who put you up to it.”
“No one.”
“There’s been a leak somewhere. Someone has been talking about me. A man in my position can’t afford to have his professional reputation questioned.”
“I understand that.”
“Rumours have a way of traveling, getting garbled, distorted out of all sense of proportion.”
“They do for a fact.”
“If you’ve heard anything about any of my legal activities and came to me because it had been rumored I could beat the Blue Sky Act. Well, I want to know about it. I’d be willing to be generous — you know, grateful.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “I take it,” he said sarcastically, “the idea just popped into your head. You said to yourself, ‘Now, I want to approach Crumweather and get him to talk. What’s the best way to get him to open up? Ah, I have it. Tell him I want to beat the Blue Sky Act.’ ”
“That’s right.”
“Bunk!”
I puffed at my cigarette.
He studied me for a while, and then said, “You know, Donald — I’m going to call you Donald because you seem like a boy to me, not that I’m commenting on your immaturity, but simply because I’m a much older man, and I’ve taken a fatherly interest in you.”
“Have you?”
“I have indeed. You know you have a very shrewd mind. There’s something about you that appeals to me. I’ve investigated your past a bit— You’ll understand my interest in you?”
“I understand.”
He beamed, then the beam expanded into a chuckle. “You do, at that,” he said.
We were silent for a minute, then Crumweather went on. “I find that you’ve had a legal education. Most interesting. I consider a legal education a wonderful foundation for success in almost any field of endeavour.”
“Primarily in the law business,” I said.
He threw back his head and laughed. “A dry sense of humor, my boy, very dry, very interesting. You know, a man with your keenness of perception could make a great deal of money in the law business — if he had the proper connections. It’s very difficult for a young lawyer to open an office, finance the purchase of books and office furniture, and then wait for clients to come in.”
“So I understand.”
“But persons who have a well-established law practice are sometimes willing to consider offering junior partnerships to men with the right amount of ability.”