“Is there any resemblance to Holgate?” I asked.
“Quite a striking resemblance,” Andover said. “Both of them are big men with mustaches and this guy wears Texas hats and whipcord suits — so there’s your high-powered theory that you had me running around on all shot to hell.
“You know, Donald, if you child geniuses would just mind your own damn business and let us officers run the police department according to the accepted theories of systematic investigation, you’d save yourself a lot of trouble and perhaps in the course of time I could learn to overcome that feeling of irritation which grips me every time you stick your neck out with one of these theories of yours.
“Come on now, we’re going back to headquarters.”
“Can I make one more suggestion?” I asked.
“No,” he said and his voice had a hard crack to it. “I’ve finished listening to you and your theories. You’re a prime suspect in a murder case. We’re going back to headquarters and if the deputy district attorney says okay, you’re going into the felony tank and you aren’t going to talk your way out from nothing.”
I said, “I don’t know what kind of a pull the Ace High people have with you, but I’d like to find out. What do they do, send you a case of cigars every Christmas?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.
I said, “The Ace High Detective Agency was mixed in this thing and you’re certainly letting them off the hook. If it had been Cool and Lam, you’d have had us on the grid and—”
“Oh, forget it,” he said. “You’ve got a persecution complex.”
“Probably I have,” I told him, “but this much is certain. The Ace High was investigating Holgate and probably investigating that accident. Heaven knows what they’ve found out and they certainly aren’t going to pick up the telephone and tell you.
“You go ahead and play it real cozy with them if you want to. The next time you want information out of us—”
Sellers clamped down on his cigar angrily for a moment, then said, “Listen, Pint Size, did it ever occur to you there isn’t going to be any next time? You’re going to be charged with murder within the next forty-eight hours and you’re going to have one hell of a time trying to beat the rap.
“I’ll admit there are some things in the case that are a little cockeyed but we’ll get them all buttoned up before we get done. Personally, I don’t think you killed him, but you certainly stuck your neck out in such a way that you became a prize patsy, and I don’t think you’re going to be able to convince a jury you’re such a sweet, innocent little lamb.”
Sellers thought for a minute and then grinned and said, “And that’s not a bad pun, in case you’re interested.”
I said, “It’s okay by me. Just remember that I told you the Ace High had been investigating Holgate and the accident and that you did nothing about it.”
“Now, wait a minute. What’s the idea of that crack?”
“I’ve given you warning,” I said. “When I put on my defense I’ll make a real issue out of that. There’ll be no holds barred.”
Sellers said, “In other words you’d try to make something out of the fact that I didn’t— Oh, hell, it’s all right with me. The city’s paying for my gasoline. If you want to make a trip to the Ace High people, we’ll make a trip to the Ace High people and then you won’t have anything to squawk about.”
I settled back against the cushions and said, “I’d just like to see how soft you are with some of the other agencies.”
“You’ll see,” he said grimly.
Chapter Twelve
Morley Patton, the manager of the Ace High Detective Agency, regarded us with something less than cordiality.
“This is official business,” Sellers said.
“And so you bring one of my competitors along with you to listen?” Patton asked.
“Now, don’t be that way,” Sellers told him. “I’m running this thing and I have to have Lam here because there are certain things about the case he knows.”
“And probably a lot of other things he’d like to know,” Patton said.
“All right, you had a tail on Donald Lam,” Sellers said. “How did it happen?”
“I don’t think we have to discuss that and I’m not admitting that we had a tail on Lam.”
I said, “Put it this way, Patton. You were shadowing a Doris Ashley at the Miramar Apartments in Colinda and when I entered the picture and got acquainted with her, you put a tail on me.”
“I don’t have to answer your questions, that’s a cinch,” Patton said.
“All right,” Sellers said, his face darkening, “you’re going to have to answer mine. Now did you have a tail on Doris Ashley or not?”
“It depends on what you mean by—”
“You know what I mean,” Sellers said. “Now, you can answer that question yes or no and damned fast.”
“Yes,” Patton said.
“You were keeping her car at her apartment under surveillance?” I asked.
“You’re talking to my deaf ear,” Patton said.
“Were you?” Sellers asked. “I’ll make it my question and put it to the other ear.”
Patton said, “Yes.”
“All right, who was your client?”
“We don’t have to tell you that.”
“I think you do.”
“I don’t.”
“For your information,” Sellers said, “this is now being tied into a murder case.”
“Murder!” Patton exclaimed.
“You heard me.”
“Who was murdered?”
“Carter Holgate. Know anything about him?”
“He... he enters into the picture in a general way,” Patton said, choosing his words cautiously now, and his manner showing that he was apprehensive.
“All right,” Sellers said, “I think the identity of your client may have something to do with our investigation. I want to know who was employing you.”
“Just a minute,” Patton said, “let me get the record.”
He walked over to a filing case, pulled out a jacket, opened it, looked at some papers, dropped the jacket back into the file and stood frowning.
“We’re waiting,” Sellers said. “And for your information, the police like a little more active co-operation from a private detective agency in connection with a murder case.”
“How much co-operation are Cool and Lam giving you?” Patton asked.
“All I’m asking for,” Sellers said. And then added with a grin, “More than I’m asking for.”
“Well, I’ll tell you this,” Patton said. “Our client was just a telephone number in Salt Lake City. Money for our services was received in the form of cash and we were instructed to telephone developments as fast as they happened to whoever might answer at this number.”
“And you didn’t look up the number?” Sellers asked.
“Sure, we looked it up,” Patton said. “We’re not that naive. It was the number of an apartment that was rented to a man named Oscar Bowman. It was a hotel apartment. No one knew anything about Bowman. He had paid the rent for a month in advance and that was it. Sometimes a man’s voice answered the telephone when we phoned in for instructions and sometimes a woman’s voice.
“We had Doris Ashley under surveillance for about a week. That is, we kept her apartment under surveillance, or rather her car at the apartment house. When she’d come out or go in, we’d clock the times of arrival and departure.
“When Lam showed an interest in the picture, we reported on that, and when Lam had made a contact and gone up to her apartment house with her, we phoned in that information and were instructed to drop the whole thing, to mail a report and terminate our activities at once.”