“Mr. Pangburn,” I said after a while, “I’d like to handle this thing for you, but I’m not sure that I can. The Continental is rather strict, and, while I believe this thing is on the level, still I am only a hired man and have to go by the rules. Now if you could give us the endorsement of some firm or person of standing — a reputable lawyer, for instance, or any legally responsible party — we’d be glad to go ahead with the work. Otherwise, I am afraid—”
“But I know she’s in danger!” he broke out. “I know that— And I can’t be advertising her plight — airing her affairs — to everyone.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t touch it unless you can give me some such endorsement.” I stood up. “But you can find plenty of detective agencies that aren’t so particular.”
His mouth worked like a small boy’s, and he caught his lower lip between his teeth. For a moment I thought he was going to burst into tears. But instead he said slowly:
“I dare say you are right. Suppose I refer you to my brother-in-law, Roy Axford. Will his word be sufficient?”
“Yes.”
Roy Axford — R. F. Axford — was a mining man who had a finger in at least half of the big business enterprises of the Pacific Coast; and his word on anything was commonly considered good enough for anybody.
“If you can get in touch with him now,” I said, “and arrange for me to see him today, I can get started without much delay.”
Pangburn crossed the room and dug a telephone out from among a heap of his ornaments. Within a minute or two he was talking to someone whom he called “Rita.”
“Is Roy home?... Will he be home this afternoon?... No, you can give him a message for me, though... Tell him I’m sending a gentleman up to see him this afternoon on a personal matter — personal with me — and that I’ll be very grateful if he’ll do what I want... Yes... You’ll find out, Rita... It isn’t a thing to talk about over the phone... Yes, thanks!”
He pushed the telephone back into its hiding place and turned to me.
“He’ll be at home until two o’clock. Tell him what I told you and if he seems doubtful, have him call me up. You’ll have to tell him the whole thing; he doesn’t know anything at all about Miss Delano.”
“All right. Before I go, I want a description of her.”
“She’s beautiful!” he exclaimed. “The most beautiful woman in the world!”
That would look nice on a reward circular.
“That isn’t exactly what I want,” I told him. “How old is she?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Height?”
“About five feet eight inches, or possibly nine.”
“Slender, medium or plump?”
“She’s inclined toward slenderness, but she—”
There was a note of enthusiasm in his voice that made me fear he was about to make a speech, so I cut him off with another question.
“What color hair?”
“Brown — so dark that it’s almost black — and it’s soft and thick and—”
“Yes, yes. Long or bobbed?”
“Long and thick and—”
“What color eyes?”
“You’ve seen shadows on polished silver when—”
I wrote down grey eyes and hurried on with the interrogation.
“Complexion?”
“Perfect!”
“Uh-huh. But is it light, or dark, or florid, or sallow, or what?”
“Fair.”
“Face oval, or square, or long and thin, or what shape?”
“Oval.”
“What shaped nose? Large, small, turned-up—”
“Small and regular!” There was a touch of indignation in his voice.
“How did she dress? Fashionably? And did she favor bright or quiet colors?”
“Beaut—” And then as I opened my mouth to head him off he came down to earth with:
“Very quietly — usually dark blues and browns.”
“What jewelry did she wear?”
“I’ve never seen her wear any.”
“Any scars, or moles?” The horrified look on his white face urged me on to give him a full shot. “Or warts, or deformities that you know?”
He was speechless, but he managed to shake his head.
“Have you a photograph of her?”
“Yes, I’ll show you.”
He bounded to his feet, wound his way through the room’s excessive furnishings and out through a curtained doorway. Immediately he was back with a large photograph in a carved ivory frame. It was one of these artistic photographs — a thing of shadows and hazy outlines — not much good for identification purposes. She was beautiful — right enough — but that meant nothing; that’s the purpose of an artistic photograph.
“This the only one you have?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have to borrow it, but I’ll get it back to you as soon as I have my copies made.”
“No! No!” he protested against having his ladylove’s face given to a lot of gumshoes. “That would be terrible!”
I finally got it, but it cost me more words than I like to waste on an incidental.
“I want to borrow a couple of her letters, or something in her writing, too,” I said.
“For what?”
“To have photostatic copies made. Handwriting specimens come in handy — give you something to go over hotel registers with. Then, even if going under fictitious names, people now and then write notes and make memorandums.”
We had another battle, out of which I came with three envelopes and two meaningless sheets of paper, all bearing the girl’s angular writing.
“She have much money?” I asked, when the disputed photograph and handwriting specimens were safely tucked away in my pocket.
“I don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing that one would pry into. She wasn’t poor; that is, she didn’t have to practice any petty economies; but I haven’t the faintest idea either as to the amount of her income or its source. She had an account at the Golden Gate Trust Company, but naturally I don’t know anything about its size.”
“Many friends here?”
“That’s another thing I don’t know. I think she knew a few people here, but I don’t know who they were. You see, when we were together we never talked about anything but ourselves. You know what I mean: there was nothing we were interested in but each other. We were simply—”
“Can’t you even make a guess at where she came from, who she was?”
“No. Those things didn’t matter to me. She was Jeanne Delano, and that was enough for me.”
“Did you and she ever have any financial interests in common? I mean, was there ever any transaction in money or other valuables in which both of you were interested?”
What I meant, of course, was had she got into him for a loan, or had she sold him something, or got money out of him in any other way.
He jumped to his feet, and his face went fog-grey. Then he sat down again — slumped down — and blushed scarlet.
“Pardon me,” he said thickly. “You didn’t know her, and of course you must look at the thing from all angles. No, there was nothing like that. I’m afraid you are going to waste time if you are going to work on the theory that she was an adventuress. There was nothing like that! She was a girl with something terrible hanging over her; something that called her to Baltimore suddenly; something that has taken her away from me. Money? What could money have to do with it? I love her!”
III
R. F. Axford received me in an office-like room in his Russian Hill residence: a big blond man, whose forty-eight or — nine years had not blurred the outlines of an athlete’s body. A big, full-blooded man with the manner of one whose self-confidence is complete and not altogether unjustified.
“What’s our Burke been up to now?” he asked amusedly when I told him who I was. His voice was a pleasant vibrant bass.