“Hello, Quin. What’s on your mind?”
The cop put in, “First I think I ought to tell you, Chief. He’s been standing all day in front of The Haven, wearing a phony mustache, looking for a friend, he said—”
“Go on and chew the rag while he digs himself a hole,” Pellett said bitterly.
“Spill it, Quin, we’re busy. Who’s digging a hole?”
“A man I tried to collar. By this time he’s to hell and gone for the hills.”
“Not him,” said the cop scornfully. “That bum wouldn’t get more than a mile from a pavement—”
“What bum?”
“The one that socked you. Al Rowley, his name is.”
Pellett gaped. “Do you mean to say you know him?”
“Sure I know him. He’s one of those—”
“Then find him! Get him!”
“That wouldn’t be—”
“Get him, damn it!”
“Keep your shirt on, Quin.” Phelan sounded impatient. “If the boys know him they can get him. Then what do they do with him?”
Pellett went to a chair and sat. “Listen, Frank. I’ll tell you about it. But first tell them to get that man. Have you ever known me to take a fool hen for a grouse? Tell them to get him.”
Phelan turned. “Who is he, Tom?”
“His name’s Al Rowley,” said the cop. “He came in with that carnival last year, the one that busted, and he’s been hanging around ever since, mostly at one of the joints on Bucket Street. Every once in a while he gets ahold of a buck, I don’t know how, and makes a deposit at The Haven.”
“Do the boys all know him by sight?”
“Sure, he’s one of our most prominent citizens.”
Phelan requested Tuttle’s phone, got it, called the station and asked for the lieutenant in charge. After a few concise but thorough instructions, he hung up and shoved the phone back and turned to Pellett.
“All right, Quin, they’ll get him. Now spill it. What’s he done besides sock you?”
“He stole my niece’s bag from her car yesterday afternoon.”
Bill Tuttle jerked into a stare. Everybody stared. The cop said involuntarily, “Ouch!” Phelan demanded, “This bum — stole her bag? Delia Brand’s bag?”
“Yes.”
“The one with the gun and the cartridges in it?”
“Yes.”
The sheriff broke in, snapping, “How do you know he did?”
“I saw him.”
“You saw him take it?”
“Yes.”
“You saw him take it and you didn’t mention anything about it here this morning?”
“Nobody here seemed to give a damn about anything I might say this morning. You were all so sure of what you had you didn’t want anything more from anybody. Besides, all I could do was describe him, I didn’t know who he was, and what good is a description?”
“So instead of telling us you went and planted yourself—”
“Wait a minute, Bill.” Phelan reached for the phone again, and called the station. In a moment he spoke: “Mac? Frank. That order I just gave you about a bum named Al Rowley. Make it hot. Put every man you can get on it. I want him and no mistake, and quick. And take him good. It may be murder.”
As Phelan hung up, the sheriff barked at Pellett, “Is that the idea? That this bum stole the bag with the gun in it and murdered Jackson?”
“No. He couldn’t have, because I took the bag away from him.”
“You did what?”
“I caught him stealing the bag from her car and I took it.”
“What did you do with it? — Wait a minute.” The sheriff included the two detectives and the cop in a look. “You fellows go out front and wait there. The three of you. And keep your traps shut. Understand?”
They said they did, with evident reluctance, and marched out. The sheriff leaned back and sighed heavily.
Phelan said, “Maybe we ought to get this the way it happened. In order. This is quite a — quite a surprise.”
“It’s all of that.” Tuttle fastened his eyes on Pellett and demanded, “What did you do with the bag?”
Pellett shook his head. “I think Frank’s right. You ought to have it in the order it happened. In the first place, my niece came to see me yesterday afternoon—”
“What for?”
“It doesn’t matter what for. It had nothing to do with killing Dan Jackson, you can be damn sure of that. The fact is, she wanted me to go with her to persuade Jackson not to fire Clara — my other niece. I told her it would be better if we didn’t go together, and that I had an appointment to call on him that afternoon on another matter and would speak to him about it then. Not long after she left my place, I left, to keep my appointment with Jackson. He had phoned that he wanted to consult me about some information he had got hold of regarding the death of my brother-in-law two years ago. While I was looking for a parking space on Halley Street I saw Delia’s car there. I had to park up ahead, and as I walked back I saw a man closing the door of Delia’s car with her bag in his hand. He didn’t look like a man she might have sent for it, so I confronted him and asked him if it was his bag. He said, ‘It’s not yours, is it?’ and I said, ‘No, it belongs to my niece, and so does that car.’ He said, ‘Then do me a favor and take it to her,’ and shoved it into my hand and walked off. He was so damn cool about it I just stared at his back.”
“You didn’t call a cop?”
“With the bag in my hand, what was there to tell a cop?”
“Did anybody see all that? Anyone stop to look at you?”
“Not that I know of.” Pellett was frowning.
“Okay. You’re standing there on the sidewalk holding the bag. Then what?”
“I started for Jackson’s office. I had intended to wait there by my niece’s car until she came out, because I didn’t want to interrupt her talk with Jackson, and I went to the corner and had a glass of beer. That took five minutes, maybe a little more. When I went back her car was still there, and it occurred to me she might have got through with Jackson and gone somewhere else nearby, so I went to the entrance there alongside The Haven, and went in and climbed the stairs. When I got nearly up, about two or three steps from the top, something hit me on the side of the head. I must have rolled all the way down. When I came to I was there at the bottom landing, and my niece and Jackson were standing there—”
“Company halt!” said Tuttle savagely. “I’ll stop you if I’ve heard it! And the bag was gone? Sure the bag was gone? Sure the bag was gone! And the ones who found you there unconscious were your niece, who is in a cell, and Jackson, who is dead!”
“That’s right.” Pellett raised his hand and rubbed the left side of his jaw, slowly and tenderly. “Look, Sheriff. Don’t figure on getting me sore. I knew what your attitude would be, and that’s why I went there and laid for that man in case he might show up. But while it was my niece and Jackson that found me, because they were in his office and heard me rolling downstairs, Jackson went to The Haven right away, to telephone, and someone from there came back with him. I think he’s the manager or the bouncer, because it was him that came out and spoke to me today. And before they helped me upstairs to Jackson’s office a police sergeant came, Gil Moffett, and a doctor. They decided I had been hit with a piece of ore out of that old bin up there; Jackson found it on the floor near the head of the stairs. I suppose Gil Moffett reported it; anyway, you can ask him. I had a little natural curiosity about who had tried to crack my skull open, and I phoned Gil at his house last night and he said they hadn’t found any tracks.”
Tuttle asked with a scowl, “Was it your theory that someone trailed you up and beaned you when you got to the top?”
“I didn’t have any theory. But he couldn’t have trailed me up and then got a piece of ore from that bin. He must have been already up there.”