Hale paused dramatically, motioned toward the gun, and said, “Well, there you are! It was murder. She got away with it once — and, by George, she tried getting away with it again. This time she can’t make it stick.”
I said, “Not necessarily. Simply because that’s a thirty-eight caliber gun doesn’t mean it’s the same gun with which Craig was killed.”
“Why are you protecting her?” Hale asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps because I don’t want you sticking your neck out.”
“How do you mean?”
I said, “Making positive statements accusing a person of crime is sometimes dangerous, unless you have the information necessary to back them up.”
Hale nodded. “That’s so,” he said. “Of course, there’s nothing to prove that the gun goes with the newspaper clippings.”
I pointed out, “The newspaper clippings could have been placed in that desk drawer, and worked on down through the opening in back. The gun couldn’t. The gun was placed there deliberately.”
Hale said, “Let me think.”
I said, “While you’re thinking, I’d better know exactly why you wanted Roberta Fenn, and who your client IS.”
“No. That doesn’t enter into the picture.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can tell you it doesn’t. What’s more, I’m protecting the confidence of my client.”
“Don’t you think that now he would want me to know more about it?”
“No.”
“It’s a man, isn’t it — your client?”
“You can’t pump me, Lam, and I don’t want you to try. I told you I wanted you to find Roberta Fenn. That was all.”
“Well, I’ve found her.”
“And lost her again.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
He said, “Find her again.”
“You haven’t known Bertha very long, have you?”
“You mean Mrs. Cool?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I said, “She’s rather hard-boiled in a business deal.”
“That’s all right. I’m rather hard-boiled myself.”
I said, “You employed the agency to find Roberta Fenn. You offered a bonus in the event she was found within a certain period of time.”
“Well,” he said impatiently, “what’s wrong with that?”
I said, “We found her.”
“But you didn’t keep her found.”
I said, “That’s why I asked you if you’d had much experience with Bertha Cool. My best guess is that she’ll say that all we were employed for was to find her.”
“And that having found her, your employment is completed, and you’re entitled to the bonus?”
“Exactly.”
I waited for him to get mad. He didn’t. He sat there on the floor, staring at the gun and the yellowed newspaper clippings. A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth; then the smile became a chuckle. “Damn it. Lam, she’s right! Here I am, a lawyer, and I stick my neck out on an agreement of that sort.”
He looked up at me.
I didn’t say anything.
He said, “That is the agreement in a nutshell. I remember the way it was worded now.” He laughed outright.
I said, “I thought I’d tell you, that’s all.”
“Well,” he admitted, “that’s one on me. Okay, I’ll hire the firm all over again and arrange for another bonus. I like the way you work. In the meantime, we’d better get in touch with the police about this gun.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
He said, “Don’t worry. Lam. I’m going to tell them the bare facts, that I happened to be looking through ‘the desk because I was interested in it as a piece of furniture. I intended to make the landlady an offer for it. I tilted it up in order to see the bottom, and realized there was something heavy in it. I shook it out, and the gun and these papers came out. Naturally, I don’t want to appear in front of the public as a snoop who was going around reading correspondence that was really no concern of mine.”
I said, “But you do want to get in touch with the police, is that it?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
I said, “Then the police will know as much about it as you do.”
“Well, why not?”
I said, “I don’t know anything about why you want Roberta Fenn or who wants her, but I suppose there’s a reason.”
He said, “Businessmen don’t pay out good money to find people just to ask them to subscribe to a magazine.”
I said, “Perhaps you don’t realize what I’m leading up to.”
“Go ahead. Lead up to it.”
“Let’s suppose a businessman wants to find Roberta. He undoubtedly wants her to do something, or wants her to tell him something, or wants to find out something. Here’s a thirty-eight caliber gun and some old newspaper clippings. You take those to the police, and you’ll never find Roberta Fenn and get a chance to talk with her. That thing will be headlined all over the country. Right now the police think Roberta may have been a second victim, or they think she may have been frightened away. There’s some speculation as to whether she might be the one who shot Nostrander, but she’s not what you’d really call hot. Once you take this to the police, the police will reopen that old murder case. Then the California authorities will go crazy looking for her. You’ll have both Louisiana and California police on her trail. You’ll have her picture published in every newspaper in the country. You’ll have posters made, and distributed in every post office, and mailed to every police officer in the land. Roberta will read all that stuff. She’ll duck for cover. What sort of chance do you think we have of finding her ahead of the police of two states?”
“When we do catch up with her she’ll be in a cell. If you want her to do something, being in a cell might cramp her style.”
He regarded me steadily for several seconds, his eyes batting every few seconds.
Abruptly he pushed the gun toward me. “All right, Lam, you take it.”
“Not me. I’m simply a detective employed to find Roberta Fenn for a client whose identity I don’t know. You’re the big shot who’s determining policies.”
“Then,” he said, “as an attorney in good standing, I would have no choice but to go to the police.”
I got up from the floor and brushed my trousers. “Okay,” I said, “I just wanted you to understand the situation.”
I was halfway to the door before he called me back.
“Perhaps I should give the matter a little further consideration. Lam.”
I didn’t say anything.
He went on: “You know it’s rather a serious matter to accuse a person of crime. I — er — I’ll think it over.”
I still didn’t say anything.
“After all,” he went on, “I’m assuming that this is the gun with which that crime in California was committed. That is pure inference on my part. I think it would be wise to make an investigation in greater detail. We really haven’t anything to report to the police right now. We merely have found some newspaper clippings and a revolver concealed in an old desk. Thousands of people keep revolvers, and newspaper clippings are not necessarily significant.”
“Done it?” I asked.
“Done what?”
“Convinced yourself that it’s all right for you to do the thing you want to do.”
“Hang it, Lam, I’m not doing that. I’m merely weighing the pros and cons.”
“When you get them weighed, let me know,” I told him, and turned once more toward the door.
This time he called me back before I had taken more than three steps.
“Lam.”
I turned. “What is it this time?”
Hale was through beating around the bush. “Forget about this,” he said. “We won’t tell the police anything about it.”