“It was given to me.”
“You know, Lam, there’s just a chance, just an outside chance that you’ve been over talking with Irene Bishop. I wouldn’t like that.”
I said nothing.
He picked up my wallet, started going through it, became motionless. “Well, I’m damned,” he said, half under his breath. “You’ve got four more cards — all given to George Bishop!”
I realized then how foolish I had been to keep this evidence on me. There undoubtedly was a secret mark on each of those cards.
For ten or fifteen seconds he sat there, saying nothing.
I stole another glance at my wrist watch. I had eleven minutes to go, then Danby would call the police if he followed instructions. I hoped he’d follow instructions. I didn’t care particularly about having the police butt in at this stage of the game, but I could see that things might be getting just a little out of hand.
Abruptly Channing said, “Bill, there’s a man waiting down there in the guy’s car. I had assumed he was just an errand boy carrying a life insurance policy for this guy, but I think we’d better make sure.”
“Yes?” Bill said.
“Go down and bring him in,” Channing said.
“Suppose he doesn’t want to come?”
“I told you to bring him in.”
Bill started moving for the door.
I knew I had to stall for ten and a half minutes.
“We might talk first,” I said.
“We might talk afterward,” Channing retorted.
I got up out of the chair, said, “I think I’m tired of being pushed around.”
I hoped that would bring Bill back to pull another judo grip on me and delay things for a while.
Bill looked questioningly at Channing.
Channing said, “Get going, Bill,” and pulled a .38 revolver out of the top drawer in the desk.
“I think,” he said, “I’m going to readjust a lot of opinions within the next few minutes. I’m readjusting some right now. So you really are a private detective. What the hell are you working on, and who the hell are you really working for?”
The door closed behind Bill. I knew I was sunk then. I should have cut the time limit down to thirty minutes, gone in and got out.
And really I didn’t want the police any more than Channing did. That probably was why I’d made it an extreme outside limit. I had really expected to go in there, get the information I wanted, and be out inside of half an hour. I’d have done it, too, if it hadn’t been for Diane Marvin. The fact that the man behind the roulette wheel had given her the signal to start playing me for a live one had given me a false sense of security.
Channing thought things over for a while, then tossed the wallet across the desk so it lit in my lap.
“Put it away,” he said. “I don’t want you to think we’d take anything by force here. You’ll find that everything’s in your wallet. I just wanted to look at it — and it’s a damned good thing I did.”
“Okay,” I said, “what do we do next?”
“We wait.”
I said, “I was having a bottle of champagne with your come-on out there. I suppose the champagne is still waiting. It—”
“Don’t mention it, Lam,” he said magnanimously, “there’ll be no charge. In fact, I’ll have it brought in here. I may want to use it for a christening.”
“What christening?”
“I think I’ll pour it all over you and christen you the heel of the week.”
“That won’t get you any place.”
“Shut up, I want to think.”
We were silent for a while, then a loudspeaker said, “Bill is at the door. He says to tell you he has a man with him.”
Channing said, “Tell him to take the guy into office number two and plug in the sound connection. Question him in there. You can help him with the questions. I want to find out who this guy is and what he’s doing around here.”
“I suppose,” Channing said, turning to me, “you have one of your agency men with you.”
I said nothing.
“You’re a communicative cuss, aren’t you?”
“My clients pay me to get information, not to give it.”
“Who are your clients, by the way?”
I grinned at him.
“I wonder,” he said softly, almost to himself, “if Irene is just a little smarter than we’ve been thinking she is.”
I still said nothing.
“If Irene wants to make any trouble,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “it would be a dirty, nasty mess — for her. She wouldn’t get anything out of it. Make no mistake, Lam, I’ve taken over here and that’s final. There isn’t the scratch of a pen that ties George Bishop into this thing. There isn’t anyone who can show this isn’t my business built with my money, and there isn’t any way of passing this thing on to George’s widow. She wouldn’t stand one chance in a million.”
He waited for a few minutes, then said, “I wish I knew whether you were working for her or not.”
Abruptly a light flashed. Channing reached over and tripped a switch. He said to me, “We can hear what goes on in the other room but they can’t hear what’s said in here.”
Almost instantly a voice said, “All right, buddy, let’s have it. What’s your name?”
“My name is Danby, and I didn’t want to come in here. I’m going to make charges against you. You can’t hustle me around like this. That’s kidnaping.”
“Danby, eh? What do you do?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Let’s take a look for a driving license.”
There was the sound of a brief scuffle and another voice said, “Okay, this is it. Frank Danby. Here’s his social security number and—”
“What’s the address on that driving license?”
“A yacht club.”
“Good Lord, I get it now,” Channing said, coming up out of the chair as though the thing had been wired.
He crossed the room, jerked the door open, and was out like a shot.
I got up and crossed over to the desk.
He’d taken the revolver with him.
I gave every drawer in the desk a quick frisking. There wasn’t another gun anywhere in the place. There was a box of .38 shells, a pipe, a tobacco pouch, and a can of tobacco. There were two packages of cigarettes, a box of cigars, some chewing gum, and a bottle of fountain-pen ink.
Aside from that .38-caliber gun it was a desk that the police could have prowled through any day in the week, and welcome.
Abruptly I heard Channing’s voice from the other room. “What’s the trouble?”
Danby’s voice, surly and defiant, said, “I’ve been kidnaped. Who are you?”
“Kidnaped!” Channing exclaimed.
“That’s what I said. This guy made me come in here with him. He had a gun in his pocket.”
Channing said, “What’s all this, Bill?”
Bill’s voice said, “No gun, just a lead pencil. For a gag I pushed the end of this lead pencil against the cloth of the coat pocket.”
“But what was the trouble?” Channing asked.
“No trouble except this guy has been sitting out front getting a line on everyone coming in. I figured he’s a stickup guy, waiting for some dough-heavy customer to come out. Then he’d follow and stick ‘em up.”
“That’s serious,” Channing said. “We’d better turn him in.”
“You’re nuts,” Danby growled, but his voice showed he was frightened. “You’ve got nothing on me. I was hired to come out to point out a guy.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know, but when I recognized Mr. Catlin, this fellow left me and came on in.”
Channing’s booming laugh was good-natured. “Oh, shucks, that must have been Donald Lam.”