I picked up my hat and left Tracy Evans’ office. He already had Ralph Kingston pinned to the cross — where he thought he belonged. Nothing I could say was going to change his mind.
III
The streets were crowded with late morning shoppers in spite of the rain. In Louisiana, in January, nobody stays home on account of the rain. If they did, they’d never go anyplace. I picked my way through the crowds to Rampart Street, and headed for Lowenstein’s Loan Shop.
I knew Abe pretty well — in fact, I had done a little business with him myself, right after I opened my own office. He was a nice little guy, and a sucker for a hard-luck story. I wondered, sometimes, how he managed to stay in business.
He greeted me warmly. “Mr. Cory Andrews — it’s good to see you!” Then his face sobered, and he peered at me anxiously. “How’s business? You doin’ all right?”
“Sure, Abe. Everything’s fine. This isn’t a business call — at least, not as far as your business is concerned. It is, though, from the standpoint of a client of mine.”
“You got something to pawn?”
“No, Abe.” I pulled out my wallet, and took out the yellow slip. “I want you to do me a favour. Can you tell me what merchandise this ticket’s for?”
He took the slip, went to a wall safe in the back of the shop and extracted a worn black ledger. His stubby forefinger slid down the page over a column of numerals. Finally it stopped. Abe paused perceptibly before he closed the book, his finger still marking the place. He held the book against his chest, and slowly turned to face me.
“Mr. Andrews, do you know who that ticket belonged to?”
“Sure, Abe, I know. I guess you’ve read the papers.”
Abe nodded. “This is bad — very bad. I’ll have to tell the police about it. That man was a thief!”
I grabbed Abe’s arm. “I don’t think so, Abe. Kingston was a friend of mine. I think he was framed.” I paused. “What did he pawn here?”
“It was a diamond bracelet. A very fine expensive bracelet. I loaned him eight hundred dollars on it”
I could feel the sickness welling up inside of me. Maybe Tracy was right, after all. Maybe I was soft-hearted, and a rotten judge of character — just because I’d liked the guy, considered him my friend. Then I remembered Muriel’s anguished face, her tormented words.
“Do you remember the transaction, Abe?”
“Sure — I remember it well. I don’t get merchandise like this often. I don’t make loans of eight hundred every day.” Abe pursed his lips and frowned. “He said it was his wife’s — that he had a chance to make some money on a business deal, but he had to have some ready cash. The bracelet is worth much more than that, but I told him it was as high as I could go.”
“Will you let me see it?”
He shrugged. “Sure — there’s no harm in that. The man is dead. I’ll have to tell the police, and they’ll come and take the bracelet. I lose the eight hundred bucks.” He shook his nearly-bald head, and walked back to the safe. “That’s a big loss for me, but it’s a chance we gotta take in this business.”
He opened the outer door of the safe again, and fiddled with the dial on a smaller inner compartment. A moment later, he returned to the counter at the front of the shop, with a manilla envelope in his hand.
The bracelet slithered on to the counter top, as he poured it from the envelope. I picked it up.
“What’s it really worth, Abe?”
He clasped his hands together on top of the counter. “Oh — maybe eight thousand — maybe a little more on the market to-day. Those baguettes in the centre are a good two carats apiece.”
“Would a guy be crazy to take eight hundred for a bracelet worth ten times that much, after he’d gone to the trouble of stealing it?”
“He would, yes. But unless he had a good fence to sell it for him, maybe he couldn’t get anything at all. You know that, Mr. Andrews. Stolen jewellery isn’t so easy to dispose of.”
“Sure, Abe — I know.” I could tell the defeat was there, in my voice.
I turned the bracelet over and ran it through my fingers. The cool hardness of the stones gave me an odd feeling of excitement. Then something on the back caught my eye.
I quickly went to the front of the store, where the light was better, and held the bracelet up where I could see it clearly. I hadn’t been mistaken. There was an inscription on the back.
It had been done in tiny script. Unless my eyesight was good, I’d probably have missed it entirely. Mine, fortunately, was good. It said, To Anita — with love.
Then I felt the mounting excitement turn to sickness again. It didn’t mean a damned thing. If anything, it made things look even worse for Kingston.
“When did he pawn this, Abe?”
He consulted the black ledger again. “On December seventeenth — just about a month ago.”
I laid the bracelet on the counter, picked up the pawn ticket and said, “Abe, I’m going to ask you to do me another favour. Just forget I was in here. Unless I go to the police with this ticket, there’s no way for them to know about the bracelet. And there’s no reason you should remember the name of a man who pawned something here a month ago.”
Abe frowned. “I’m an honest man, Mr. Andrews. I’ve always played square with the police. I don’t monkey around with stolen goods.”
I touched his arm. “Sure, Abe — I know. But if you call the police now, you lose the eight hundred bucks. All I want is a little time. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t stolen, and maybe I can find the owner. Then you might get your money back — with interest.”
“You goin’ to give that ticket to the police?”
“I’ll give it back to my client, where I got it. Then it’s up to her.”
Abe grinned. “Okay. I forget you were here — for twenty-four hours.”
IV
I didn’t bother to call Muriel, since I figured she’d be waiting for me. I went straight to her apartment.
She looked even worse than when I saw her, earlier that morning. Crying and loss of sleep had left their marks. She still wore the black suit she had had on before.
“The police were here,” she said dully. “They went through everything. But they didn’t find what they expected. I didn’t tell them about the pawn ticket.” Her voice was husky, and her eyes were imploring. “Cory...”
I knew she was hoping I had something good to tell her. I sat down on the couch, pulled her down beside me and held her hands tight. I gave it to her straight.
“Ralph pawned an eight-thousand-dollar diamond bracelet. He got eight hundred bucks for it.”
I felt the tenseness in her hands as her body stiffened. Her face looked as if I had belted her right between the eyes. I had to soften the blow some way, so I said, “Muriel, do you have any idea where he could have got a bracelet like that?”
She shook her head numbly.
“He never had that kind of money, Cory. I’m sure he didn’t buy it.”
I had to give her the rest of it. “The bracelet wasn’t new. It had an inscription on it. It said, ‘to Anita — with love’.”
Her voice was dull. “Do the police know about it yet?”
“No. I know the pawnbroker. He won’t say anything, at least until to-morrow, unless I give him the word.”
A thought was nagging the back of my brain, but I wasn’t ready to let it out — not yet. So I said, “Muriel, you might as well face it. There’s only two ways Ralph could have gotten that bracelet. Either he stole it, or someone gave it to him. Either way, it doesn’t look good.”
She stood up and walked across the room, her arms folded over her breasts as though she were cold. She paused at the window and gazed out at the rain-swept sky. “What are you going to do now, Cory?” she asked.