I turned.
‘You wanted to see me?’ he asked.
‘No, I’m waiting for Dr. Holoman.’
‘But I’m Dr. Holoman.’
I said, ‘I guess you’re right, Doctor, there’s been a mistake. I want Dr. Archie Holoman.’
‘But I am Dr. Archie Holoman.’
I looked him over. He was somewhere in the late twenties, or perhaps had just turned thirty. He was an earnest, sincere-looking chap, with a pallid face, high cheekbones, smoldering black eyes, and dark, wavy hair. I said, ‘Would you mind stepping out to the taxicab with me? I’d like to have you explain to Mrs. Cool that you’re not the Dr. Holoman she’s looking for.’
I could see he was suspicious. He glanced over at the nurse, then out to where the taxicab was standing at the curb. Then he looked me over, evidently figured he could handle me if he had to, said curtly, ‘Very well,’ and accompanied me out to the door of the taxicab. I said, ‘Mrs. Cool, this is Dr. Holoman, Dr. Archie Holoman.’
She looked him over and said, ‘The hell it is!’
After a moment, he said lamely, ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Cool. Was there something I could do?’
‘Not a damn thing,’ she said. ‘Hop in, Donald.’
‘Thank you very much, Doctor,’ I told him.
He looked at me then with the growing conviction that we were both crazy. I hopped into the car. Mrs. Cool gave the driver Sandra’s address, and the cab jerked into motion, leaving Dr. Holoman standing there at the curb looking at us with the expression of a man who has reached for a purse on April First, only to find it jerked out from under his fingers.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘the plot thickens.’
‘Thickens, hell,’ she said. ‘It’s like gravy that’s had too much flour dumped in it. It’s full of lumps. Are you sure that was Dr. Holoman?’
‘He said he was, and the hospital said he was.’
She fumbled around in her purse, and said, ‘Donald, I’m out of cigarettes.’
I gave her one out of my fast-diminishing store, and took one myself.
We shared the same match. She said, ‘Damned clever, Donald, my boy, damned clever. They needed an authentic background. They couldn’t get a real doctor to do the dirty work, so they stole an interne’s identity and background. If we’d ever wanted to check back on Dr. Holoman, we’d have found his record, date, graduation, present location, and all of that. There wasn’t one chance in fifty we’d have gone to Dr. Holoman at the hospital.’
‘That,’ I said, ‘brings up the question: Who was the chap masquerading as Dr. Holoman?’
‘Her boy friend, probably,’ she said. ‘Where there’s so much smoke, there’s apt to be some fire.’
We rode for a while in silence. She turned to me, and said, ‘Now listen, Donald. Don’t be a damn fool about this.’
‘Meaning what?’ I asked.
‘You’re just about half in love with that Hunter woman.’
‘Make it two-thirds,’ I said, ‘if you’re going in for fractions.’
‘All right. Call it two-thirds. Hell, I don’t care. Call it a hundred per cent. She’s in a jam. You’re going to try and save her. Now don’t get excited. Keep your shirt on, and look at the facts. She lied to you about the shooting.’
I said, ‘I’m not certain that she did.’
‘No,’ Mrs. Cool observed dryly, ‘you wouldn’t be.’
There was another interval of silence.
‘You had some plan?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What is it?’
She said, ‘We’ll pin the killing on Bleatie.’
‘Not so hot,’ I objected. ‘We’ve just established that there isn’t any Bleatie.’
‘That makes it swell,’ she said. ‘It gives the police a hard nut to crack. The way the thing stands now, there were two persons — Bleatie and Morgan Birks. We are the only outsiders who know Morgan Birks and Bleatie were the same people. Morgan Birks is dead. Therefore Bleatie is dead too. No one knows Bleatie is dead. They can’t ever prove it because they can’t ever find his body. We pin everything on Bleatie — if she pays us enough.
‘Now, you walk in there and spill what you know, and everyone says, “That’s right. Clever of the boy, but we were right on the verge of reasoning it out ourselves. Another half hour and we’d have had it.’ But we go in there and start asking where Bleatie is, and pretty quick some damn flatfoot gets the idea Bleatie’s guilty of murder. Play it that way and you’ve got something.’
‘But how could any flatfoot figure Bleatie’d killed anyone when Alma Hunter admits she raised the gun and pulled the trigger?’
‘That’s where our ingenuity comes in,’ she said. ‘If Sandra wants us to clear Alma Hunter of the charge, and I think she does, and pays enough for it, and I hope she will, we drag Bleatie into it by the ears. Alma Hunter was hysterical. She was excited. She doesn’t know what happened. She heard a shot, and she thought it came from the gun she was holding in her hand. Really it didn’t. It was fired by Bleatie, who was in the room.’
‘What was he doing in her room?’ I asked.
‘Looking at her etchings.’
‘And Alma didn’t know he was there?’
‘No.’
‘And Alma didn’t shoot at all?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘But suppose it’s her gun that’s on the floor?’
‘No, it wasn’t her gun. She screamed, dropped her gun and ran. Bleatie picked up her gun, left the gun with which the killing had been done, and walked out into the night.’
‘That,’ I said, ‘is a pretty tall order.’
‘We can make it sound plausible.’
‘I don’t think I like your way,’ I said. ‘I think I like mine. What’s more, the police won’t like yours.’
‘The police have hands, ears, eyes, legs, noses, and mouths just the same as we do. They can gather the facts and draw conclusions just the same as we can. It isn’t up to us to prove that girl innocent. It’s up to the police to show that she’s guilty. If we can account for the circumstances by some other explanation which doesn’t leave any loose threads dangling, that’s all we need to offer to a jury. That’s the law.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s not an exact statement of the law, but it’s close enough.’
‘Now then,’ she demanded, ‘Do you want to get Alma Hunter out of this or not?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right then. Keep your mouth shut, and let Auntie Bertha do the talking.’
The cab pulled up in front of Sandra’s apartment house. A police guard was stationed in the lobby. Apparently the few early morning stragglers had no inkling of what had happened. There was no outward indication of a homicide.
Bertha Cool paid off the cab and barged up the apartment house. The officer said, ‘Just a moment. Do you live here?’
‘No.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To call on Sandra Birks.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Bertha Cool, head of the Cool Detective Agency. This is one of my operatives.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To see Sandra Birks.’
‘What do you want to see her about?’
‘I don’t know. She wants to see me. What’s the matter? Is she under arrest?’
‘No, not under arrest.’
‘It’s her apartment, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, go on up,’ he said.
‘Thanks. I intend to,’ Mrs. Cool announced.
I tried to be polite about the door, but she beat me to it, grabbed the knob and flung the heavy door back as though it had been made of cardboard. She strode on in, and I came along in her wake. We took the elevator to the fourth floor. Sandra Birks flung open the door as I tapped gently on the panels.