Apparently police were inclined to give more credence to the first theory.
Police were making a diligent search for a young, well-dressed man wearing a gray checkered suit who had been waiting for Roberta Fenn when she finished her work at the bank the evening before. Witnesses had seen him escort her into a taxicab. Police had a good description: Height, 5 feet 5½ inches; weight, 130 pounds; hair, dark, wavy; eyes, gray and keen; age, 29; suit, gray, double-breasted; shoes, brown and white sport.
Nostrander had been practicing law for about five years. He was 33 years of age, and among lawyers was noted for his ingenuity as well as his mental agility in the trial of a case. He was a bachelor. Both parents were dead, but he had an older brother, 37, who was employed in an executive capacity with one of the bottling companies. So far as was known, the dead lawyer had no enemies, although he had a host of friends who were shocked to learn of his passing.
The crime had been committed with a .38 caliber police special. Only one shot had been fired, and only one shot had been needed. Doctors said death was almost instantaneous. The position of the body and the distance from the hand of the corpse to the gun which was found lying on the floor made it almost impossible to consider the death as other than deliberate murder. Police were also investigating the theory that the death might have been part of some strange suicide pact, that Roberta Fenn had become too nervous or frightened to carry out her part of the bargain, and so had disappeared.
Police fixed the time of the murder as being almost exactly at 2:32 in the morning. Because a pillow had been held over the gun, the report had been muffled. Only one person had actually heard the shot. That person, Marilyn Winton, a hostess at the Jack-O’-Lantern, had been returning home. She had the apartment directly across the hall from that of Miss Fenn. It had been just as she was fitting her latchkey to the street door to the apartment house that she had heard what she took to be a shot. Two friends, who had driven her home, were waiting at the curb to “see that she got in all right.” Miss Winton had immediately returned to their car to ask if either,of them had heard a shot. Neither had. Police attached some significance to this, as it indicated that the pillow had muffled the explosion sufficiently to make the single shot inaudible above the sound of the idling motor.
The friends had convinced Miss Winton that she had merely heard a door slam. She had gone on upstairs to her apartment, but still only half convinced that it was not a shot she had heard, had looked at her watch to note the exact time. The time was then exactly 2:37. She estimated it had then been not over five minutes since she had heard the shot.
There was nothing in the paper as to how the police had happened to discover the crime. News of that mysterious telephone call of mine had apparently been deliberately suppressed. The newspaper explained that the police who stumbled upon the murder were “merely upon a routine tour of inspection.”
I read the news, smoked a cigarette, and went back up to the public typing agency.
Ethel Wells had pulled a proof of the letter for me.
I read it over.
“You think this will do the work?” I asked.
She said, “It rang the bell with me — as you may have noticed.”
“I noticed.”
She laughed up at me. “You were all eyes, as the saying goes.”
I said, “I need an address for the Silkwear Importation Company.”
“Three dollars a month entitles you to use the office as a mailing address. You can have as many letters sent here as you want.”
“Can I trust your discretion?”
“Which, I suppose, is a nice way of asking if I can keep my mouth shut if someone comes around asking questions?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s a postal inspector, what do I do?”
“Tell him the truth.”
“What’s that?”
“That you don’t know my name or anything about me.”
She turned that over in her mind for a few seconds, then said, “That’s an idea. What is your name?”
“On the books, it’ll be Cash. You’ve added three dollars to your month’s income, as well as the price of the typing.”
Chapter Ten
I went back to the hotel, went up to my room, opened a fresh package of cigarettes, sat by the window, and did a little thinking.
Bertha Cool was somewhere between New Orleans and Los Angeles. Elsie Brand would be running the office. It looked like a good time to get the information I wanted.
I picked up the telephone and placed a station-to-station call. It took about five minutes to get the call through. Then I heard Elsie Brand’s voice, crisp and businesslike, saying, “Hello.”
“Hello, Elsie. Donald talking.”
The hard, keen edge came off her voice. She said informally, “Oh, hello, Donald. Operator said New Orleans was calling, and I thought it was Bertha. What’s new?”
“That’s what I want you to tell me.”
“How come?”
“Bertha tells me she’s gone in for war work.”
“Didn’t you know?”
“No. Not until she told me.”
“She’s been working with it for about six weeks. I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t. What’s the idea?”
She laughed and said uneasily, “I guess she wants to make money.”
“Listen, Elsie, I’ve been associating with Bertha long enough so I object to paying long-distance telephone rates for the pleasure of listening to you beat around the bush. What’s the idea?”
“You ask her, Donald.”
“I could get pretty damned peeved about this in a minute,” I warned.
“Use your head,” she said suddenly. “You’re supposed to have brains. Why should Bertha want to get into war work? Why would you do it if you were in Bertha’s position? Figure it out for yourself, and quit pressing me for information. I’ve got a job to hold, and you’re just one of the partners.”
“Was it so she could make a claim that would exempt me from military service?”
There was silence at the other end of the line.
“Was it?”
“We’re having very nice weather out here,” Elsie said, “although I suppose I shouldn’t tell you that, because it’s a military secret.”
“It is indeed?”
“Oh, yes. By suppressing all information about the weather, we’ve taken a long step toward winning the war. One of the things we’re short on is newsprint. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce used to use up enough paper telling about the climate to cover with dense forest an area of nine thousand, six hundred and eighty-seven acres, assuming that the trees would be on an average of eighteen inches in diameter and would be growing at distances of ten and six-tenths feet, measuring from the center of the trunks. That assumes that the trees would have an average height of—”
“Your three minutes are up,” the operator broke in.
“You win,” I told Elsie. “Good-by.”
“By-by, Donald. Good luck.”
I heard the receiver click at the other end of the line, and hung up.
I sat back with my feet propped on a chair, thinking.
The telephone rang.
I picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” and heard a man’s voice saying cautiously, “Are you Mr. Lam?”