“Well, he may have left the place. You should have stopped in and told him to stay there. Wait a minute and I’ll call and—”
“No,” I told her, looking at my watch. “There isn’t time for that. We’re going out there. He’s out there. I’m sure he is.”
For a moment there was another flicker of suspicion.
“Donald,” she said, “you’re playing a game. I don’t know what it is. If this is an excuse to get me out there and we find the place is all dark and you think you’re going to get me in the office and make passes or cuddle up on one of those davenports out there, you just have six more guesses coming.
“When a man makes a pass at me, I want it to be a forward pass. I don’t like this lateral pass stuff.”
“Okay,” I told her, “come on.”
She switched out the lights in the apartment, and said, “I’m ready.”
We went down to my car and I drove in silence. I could see her looking me over carefully. Eventually she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Some difference.”
“What’s different?” I asked.
“When I was driving you out to the place,” she said, “you were looking at me and speculating as to just how far I’d go.”
“Well?” I asked.
“Now,” she said, “you’re doing the driving and I’m looking at you and trying to speculate on how far you’ve been.”
“I’ve covered a lot of territory,” I said.
“Darned if you haven’t, and believe me your story had better be good or you’re going to find yourself in some mighty hot water.
“If you think you’re going to shake Holgate down for two hundred and fifty bucks, you’re due to have a surprise. He knows nothing about that ad and he wouldn’t pay you a dime.”
“I don’t want a dime,” I said.
She shook her head. “I wish I knew just what you do want. You’re playing games... I was prepared to like you when I met you and dammit, I still like you.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” she said. “It’s just the chemistry of the situation. Frankly, I either like them or I don’t. I’ve always been like that. I can tell when I get my first exposure to masculine magnetism whether I like or whether I don’t like. With you, I liked and I still like, but I’m going to be awfully damned certain where you’re expecting to plant your feet before I tell you to jump.”
“Fair enough,” I told her.
Again we were silent.
I turned off the main road and she could see the lights in the buildings at the subdivision.
“Well,” she said, settling back in the seat, “that’s a surprise.”
“You didn’t expect it?”
“No. Frankly, I didn’t. I thought you were going to get me out here and suggest we go inside and try and locate Mr. Holgate on the office phone.”
“I told you the place was lit up. I could see it from the road.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” she said. “There aren’t any cars here.”
“Well, the lights are on. Someone’s here.”
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Whoever is here would have a car if he was still here.”
“Well, he wouldn’t leave without turning off the lights, would he?”
“No.”
“Well, then, he’s here.”
I swung the car around and parked it in front of the door, trying to put it in almost exactly the same spot where I had left it earlier in the evening.
Lorraine jumped to the ground and hurried to the door of the reception room.
She opened the office, walked inside, gave a quick glance at things, then suddenly came to a stop. “Who’s been using my typewriter?” she asked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“That electric typewriter,” she said. “The cover’s off and the motor’s running.”
She went over and put her hand on the machine. I promptly put my hand on the machine and said, “It’s been running for some time. It’s warm. Perhaps you didn’t shut the motor off this afternoon when you quit work.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Somebody’s been in here and has been using that typewriter.”
She turned and strode toward Holgate’s office, put her hand on the knob of the door, stopped, knocked in a perfunctory manner and then opened the door and walked in.
I was right on her heels.
“For God’s sake!” she said.
We stood there surveying the wreckage. I said, “Here’s a broken compact and — what is this, a powder cake?”
I picked up a piece of the cake.
“That’s right. It fell out of the compact.”
She took the piece I handed her, sniffed it, looked at it thoughtfully, said, “Probably a blonde.”
I moved over to the shoe. “Here’s a woman’s shoe. Now, what would this mean?”
I picked it up and handed it to her.
“Probably some girl was trying to find a weapon,” she said. “She took off the shoe and used the heel.”
“Assault?” I asked.
“Not with Holgate.”
“How about his partner, Chris Maxton?”
“What do you know about Maxton?”
“What do you?”
“I don’t know about his conduct with girls, if that’s what you’re leading up to.”
I said, “Well, there’s evidently been quite a fight here. Someone must have come in through the window.”
“Why through the window?”
“It’s open.”
“Why not out through the window?”
“Well,” I said, “that’s a thought. Let’s see.”
I sat on the windowsill, then turned and dropped down to the ground, waited there a few moments while she was over inspecting the files that were strewn on the floor. Then I crawled back in the window and said, “A person could get out through the window all right, but why would they do that?”
“Don’t ask me,” Lorraine said. “I want to know what’s happened here and I want to know what’s happened to Mr. Holgate.”
“And the woman,” I said.
“Well, if she lost the fight,” Lorraine said, “you can pretty much figure what happened to her. In any event, she’s gone.”
“Any papers missing?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” she said. “There’s one paper I’m looking for in particular.”
“What’s that?” I asked, walking to the lavatory.
She didn’t say anything for a while but kept looking through the jackets until she found a manila filing envelope, one of the kind that had a flap and a cord that tied it shut.
She opened the flap, looked inside, then handed the jacket to me. “You take a look,” she said.
“But there’s nothing in here,” I told her.
“Look on the outside of the jacket.”
I looked and found in neat feminine handwriting the designation, “Affidavit of Donald Lam, witness to Mr. Holgate’s accident.”
“That’s what’s missing,” she said.
Lorraine reached for the telephone.
“Hold it,” I said.
“Hold what?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Notify the sheriff’s office.”
“Why?”
“Why!” she exclaimed. “Good God, look at this wreckage!”
“All right,” I said. “What’s been taken?”
“I told you. Your affidavit.”
“I’ll make you another one.”
“What are you getting at?”
I said, “Nothing of value has been taken, at least as far as you know. The place is a wreck, a chair has been smashed, there are a lot of files to clean up.
“You notify the sheriff’s office and immediately they come out here and start taking fingerprints. Then the newspapers are notified and there’s a lot of publicity. You’re working for the firm of Holgate and Maxton. Do you think they’d want that publicity?”