“Not a bit of it, Lieutenant. I simply happen to have a deep-seated aversion to letting an important business get at sixes and sevens merely because you want to hold everyone here in Las Vegas until you’ve finished your investigation. I can quite understand your position, Lieutenant, and I don’t blame you in the least, but I have my own responsibilities.”
“I can have you subpoenaed as a witness before the coroner’s jury.”
Endicott thought it over, nodded slowly, and said, “My mistake, Lieutenant, you can.”
“And then you couldn’t leave until the case was cleaned up.”
“That’s right — and the aftermath might be unpleasant. This is important business to you, Lieutenant. To me it’s merely an unpleasant Interruption, and I propose to see it causes me the least inconvenience.”
“Suppose we compromise,” Kleinsmidt suggested. “If I do nothing to interfere with your going, will you come back of your own accord if I send for you?”
“Yes — on two provisos. One, that it’s really necessary; two, that I can adjust the business so I can leave it.”
Endicott started for the door. “If it’s all right with you, Arthur,” he said, standing with one hand on the knob, “I’ll leave here as close to ten o’clock as possible. That will get me in the office shortly after noon.”
Whitewell nodded.
“Now, you wanted to write a letter of acceptance on that option given by—”
“Yes,” Whitewell interrupted as though anxious to keep details from being disclosed in public.
Endicott took his hand from the door knob, nodded toward the writing-desk. “Just scribble a note,” he said. “All you need is to mention the option. It was dated the sixteenth of last month.”
Whitewell dashed off a note and affixed his signature with something of a flourish. Kleinsmidt watched him, studying every move he made.
“There aren’t any stamps here,” Endicott said suddenly. “I’ll run down to the lobby and pick up some stamps. There’s a vending machine—”
Whitewell said, “Don’t bother, Paul. I always carry stamped envelopes ready for just such an emergency as this. Not quite as fresh perhaps as one you’d take from a desk drawer, but Uncle Sam will honor ’em just the same.”
He took a stamped air-mail envelope from his pocket, slid it across the desk to Endicott, and said, “Fill out the address. You know where it is.”
I glanced quickly at Bertha to see if Whitewell’s habit of carrying stamped air-mail envelopes had registered. Apparently it hadn’t.
Whitewell sealed the envelope, handed it to Endicott. “Rush this into the mail, Paul.”
Endicott took the envelope, said, “I’m not certain of airmail connections out of here, but even if it has to go to San Francisco and back, it’ll be there by tomorrow morning at the latest — which will protect you.”
Kleinsmidt watched him, his eyebrows ominously level.
Abruptly he turned and smiled at Bertha. “So sorry, Mrs. Cool, I interfered with you so early in the morning. Try and overlook it. If you people can learn to accept these interruptions philosophically, it’s going to be a lot easier on you.”
He walked quickly to the door, turned on the threshold, and went out.
I looked over at Arthur Whitewell. He was no longer the flatterer, the somewhat muddled and very much worried father. He showed instead as a man with a quick, keenly incisive mind and the ability to reach snap decisions.
“All right, Endicott,” he said, “you’re going to be running the business. I’ll stay here until this thing is straightened up. You get started for Los Angeles.”
Endicott nodded.
“I’ll be willing to bid up to eighty-five dollars a share to get that block of stock we were talking about last night. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t go over fifty thousand for that Consolidated outfit. I think there’s a good prospect of oil in that underwriting proposition put up by Fargo. I’ll go to seventy-five thousand on it, but I want my money to be the last in and the first out, with as big a slice of velvet as you can get. Understand?”
“You mean to tell them—”
“No. Listen. They’re making the same mistake every new business makes — underestimating the amount of capital which is going to be required. Put in twenty thousand on their terms. Stipulate that the stockholders have to raise an additional twenty thousand. Then sit tight. When the shoe begins to pinch, they’ll ask for small amounts, two thousand to five thousand dollars. Sit absolutely tight. Wait until they’re desperate, then make them our proposition.”
“Control?” Endicott asked.
“Control of the common and first preferred covering my investment. I want control after I’ve withdrawn all the money I’ve put in.”
Endicott pursed his lips. “I don’t think it can be done.”
“It can if you go at it the way I’ve outlined. They’re asking for, thirty-five thousand dollars. Ask if they won’t be able to raise twenty thousand dollars among themselves if I put in twenty thousand dollars. They’ll do it — and they think that will be ample capital.”
“I understand,” Endicott said.
“Don’t talk about this case,” Whitewell instructed him. “If any newspaper reporters get in touch with you, laugh at them. I’m here on business. Point out very casually that I stopped off here several hours before the murder was committed. In other words, this is a business trip. My business here was important enough to cause me to take a plane and stop over for several days. Philip is here assisting me and learning certain details about the business. Understand?”
“Right.”
“Now Philip is young, hotheaded, and impulsive. He’s in love and worried sick over the disappearance of the young woman he was going to marry. You can appreciate the state of his nerves. Temporarily, he’s estranged from me. We had an argument. I don’t think he’s apt to come around holding out an olive branch. I don’t think the authorities here will let him leave Las Vegas. If they do, he’ll come to you. I’m relying on you to keep him in line.”
Endicott nodded.
“Under no circumstances is he to talk with the newspaper reporters. I think you can leave that to his good sense, but if you find him slipping, check him up. If you need anything, get in touch with me by telephone.”
“How long do you expect to be here?”
“I don’t know, perhaps for some time.”
“But surely, you’ll be in the office within two or three days. The investigation won’t take—”
“I may be in jail,” Whitewell said shortly.
Endicott puckered his lips and gave a faint whistle. “I think you’d better get started,” Whitewell said. “There’s a bare possibility your departure might be delayed.”
“Not mine,” Endicott said. “The time being stamped on those tickets and the drawing puts me in the clear. But it’s all foolishness to suspect everyone who hasn’t an alibi or who was anywhere in the neighborhood. That’s a goofy way of going at the thing. Why don’t they establish a motive and then start checking the time element.”
“Because he’s an overzealous cop in an isolated community,” Whitewell said. “We can’t expect metropolitan brains — and you’re going to miss connections if you don’t get started.”
Endicott got to his feet, bowed to Bertha Cool, shook hands with me, flashed a quick smile at Whitewell, said, “Carry on,” and hustled his big frame through the door. I could hear his heels pounding heavily on the corridor. Whitewell crossed over to the door and the sound of the clicking bolt in the lock made me realize that his approach toward me held some definite purpose.
“Now then, Lam, what can you do?”
Bertha said, “Arthur, you can trust the agency to—”
He didn’t even turn toward her, merely motioned for silence with the palm of his hand.