“Your fault!” the driver exclaimed. “Where do you get that noise? A man driving hacks gets so he can size people up. Anybody that can’t get along with you is just one of those things.”
“Thank you,” Della said demurely.
The cab driver moved slightly in the seat, squared his shoulders. “You just get right out and go about your business when you get to the station, ma’am. If there’s anybody waiting there that says anything to you, I’ll see that you aren’t annoyed.”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” Della said hastily. “It’s all right now. I know that he won’t be there. He won’t have any idea where I’m going.”
The cabby said, “Well, he didn’t follow us, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s what I mean.”
The driver laughed. “If any guy was trying to tag along behind us, he’s in the hospital by this time. You know how it is, us fellows that are driving traffic all the time, we get so we know what we can do and what we can’t do. And we know just how to go about doing what we can do. Shucks, you take some private guy that gets out in a car maybe once in a week, and maybe don’t drive traffic over ten or fifteen hours a month. Why say, he doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Della agreed.
The cab rolled smoothly along, the driver silent for a while, then as it rolled up to the Union Terminal, the driver said, “I’m giving you one of my cards, ma’am. If you have any more places to go where you don’t want to be followed, just get in touch with me. You can usually find me around where you picked me up this afternoon. That’s my stand.”
“Thank you.”
“And remember that no one’s going to push you around any when I’m there.”
“You’re very kind.”
Della Street paid him the meter fare, gave him a twenty five cent tip and a smile.
The driver, a look of dreamy abstraction in his eyes, watched her through the entrance of the depot, and only snapped back to the realities of life and the traffic regulations when the horn of a car behind made raucous protest.
Della found Carol Burbank standing near the telephone booth in the section of the terminal reserved for telephone and telegraph service.
“Hello,” Carol said with a quick smile and an impulsively outstretched hand. “Mr. Mason telephoned that you’d be down and meet me here.”
Della Street nodded. “He’s given me some rather definite instructions,” she said.
“So he told me.”
“He thinks that it’s very important that you do exactly what he says.”
“Naturally,” Carol said laughing, “if I paid an attorney to tell me what to do, I’d be foolish to disregard his advice.”
“Where’s your father?” Della asked.
Carol frowned. “I wish I knew. I’ve been trying to get him on the phone.”
“Did he go to Skinner Hills Friday afternoon and talk with Frank Palermo?”
“Friday afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Of course not. Friday was the day of the political meeting at the Surf and Sun Motel. Don’t you remember?”
Della Street said very definitely, “Well, you’re to come with me — and you’ll have to stay out of circulation for a while. Those are the boss’s orders.”
“Keeping me away from newspaper reporters?”
“I didn’t ask him,” Della Street said and smiled. “One doesn’t, you know.”
“Yes, I can understand Mr. Mason may be rather impatient if one interrupts his high-speed mental processes to ask why this is done and why that is done. All right, let’s go.”
“I think we’d better take a cab,” Della said.
They started toward the taxi stand.
Carol Burbank said, “I think I’ll put on my coat and gloves. That cold, west wind is blowing again this afternoon. It was so nice up until half an hour ago, too.”
“I’ll hold your purse,” Della offered.
Carol Burbank slipped into her coat, opened her purse and pulled out a pair of gloves. As she did so, a slip of pasteboard fluttered from the purse to the floor.
Della glanced inquiringly at Carol Burbank and saw Carol’s face was a complete blank. Evidently she had failed to notice that bit of pasteboard.
Della Street turned back. A smiling man who had rushed forward to play the gallant raised his hat and extended the printed pasteboard.
Della Street flashed him a smile.
Carol Burbank turned to regard Della Street curiously, and Della, moved by some impulse, pushed the claim check down into the pocket of her coat. Not until they had moved out through the patio to the cab stand, did Della slip the pasteboard out of her pocket and give it a quick inspection.
It was a claim check at the parcel claim stand at the depot.
Abruptly Della said, “Just a minute, Miss Burbank, I want to call the boss about something. Do you mind waiting for just a minute?”
“Not at all. I’ll go back with you.”
“Oh, don’t bother to do that. I’ll just skip along and...”
“No, no. I’ll come along.”
“There’s nothing that you want to get here at the depot, is there?”
“No.”
“No baggage or anything?”
“Heavens, no! I just came down here because it was a good place to telephone and one can always find a cab here. These days it isn’t easy to pick up a cab just when you want one.”
Della said, “Yes, I know how it is. I had to wait so long a few days ago that I missed my appointment at my hair dresser. If you’ll just excuse me a moment, Miss Burbank.”
Della Street popped into a telephone booth, leaving Carol Burbank standing outside.
She dialed the unlisted number of the phone on Mason’s desk. She heard the receiver lifted and Mason’s voice saying cautiously, “Hello, who is this?”
“Della.”
“Hello, Della. You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t followed?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Not a chance.”
“You have Carol?”
“Yes.”
“You at the hotel now?”
“No, at the terminal. Listen, Chief, she opened her purse to take out her gloves and dropped a claim check. It’s on the parcel checking service here. She must have left that package, or whatever it is, within the last hour or two...”
“Where’s that check now?”
“I have it.”
“Does she know it?”
“No. She hasn’t realized she’s lost it yet.”
“All right, you have an envelope in your purse?”
“Yes.”
“Write my name on it. Put in the claim check. When you get to the hotel, leave the envelope at the desk. I’ll pick it up, go get the parcel and see what’s in it. Got that straight?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Take care of yourself.”
“I will. Bye, Chief.”
“Bye, Della.”
Della hung up, then moved around on the stool so that her shoulder hid what she was doing. She slipped an envelope out of her purse and scribbled Mason’s name and the office address on it, inserted the pasteboard under the flap.
She rejoined Carol, and the two girls retraced their steps to the taxi stand and moved forward as a vacant cab drew up to the curb.
“Where to?” the starter asked.
Della said, “We’re both together. It’s the Woodridge Hotel.”
“Sorry, we’re not putting two people in a cab any more, you’ll have to double up with... Where to, Mister?”
A man’s voice said, “I want to go to Eleventh and Figueroa.”
“All right, get in,” the starter said, and then instructed the driver, “Take the young ladies to the Woodridge Hotel, and the man to Eleventh and Figueroa, Jack. Any baggage?”
It seemed that none of them had baggage.