“Right. Commence firing.”
“TO WARREN REALTY COMPANY, CARTHAGE, ALABAMA. IMPERATIVE YOU CONTACT LOUIS NORMAN AGENCY NEW ORLEANS PHONE CYPRESS FIVE EIGHT THREE TWO SEVEN REGARDING PENDING DEAL FILE NUMBER W-511 REPEAT WILLIAM FIVE ONE ONE STOP WILL CALL YOU LATER SIGNED WEAVER.”
“Check.” He read it back. “Anything else I can do?”
“No,” I said. “Gracias, amigo.”
“Por nada. How bad is this thing, pal?”
“Real bad.”
“Okay. I’m holding it.”
“Hang on.” I dropped the receiver back on the hook, and walked back to the parking lot. The old car ran all right. Beyond Pass Christian, Mississippi, I stopped and bought some sandwiches and a quart thermos which I had filled with coffee. I pulled into a motel, slept until midnight,” and went on. It was three-fifteen A.M. when I came into the outskirts of Carthage.
North of the highway in the west end of town is an area of jerry-built houses and old shacks surrounding the cotton gin and ice plant. I turned left at the city limits, went over two blocks, turned right again, and parked near a weather-beaten frame apartment house. A half dozen other cars stood overnight at the curb in the same block, and this one could stay here a week or more before the police wondered about it, even with the Louisiana license plates. I looked up and down the shadowy street; it was deserted, and all the windows were dark. I slid out, grabbed the suitcase, and walked back the way I’d come, in order to cross the highway before it widened into the well-lighted thoroughfare of Clebourne Street.
When I came out to it I could see two or three cars parked before Fuller’s neon sign, six blocks to my left, but nothing was moving anywhere. I hurried across and down the street on the opposite side to the corner of Taylor, turned left, and started toward the center of town, feeling naked and exposed and scared. A dog barked, somewhere inside a house. The street lights suspended over the intersections swayed slightly in the wind, setting up weaving patterns of shadow under the bare limbs of the trees. I looked nervously behind me and down the intersecting streets, watching for Cap Deets on his patrol. My shoes made a grating sound on the sidewalk. Two blocks. Three. I passed the intersection of Mason Street, and midway up the block to my left was the softly glowing sign of the Carthage Funeral Home. I shuddered inside the topcoat, and hurried on. I reached Fulton. It was as empty of life as the rest. All I had to do now was cross it, turn left toward Clebourne, and make the last half block to the alley behind the office. I was in the open, still thirty yards from the mouth of the alley, when I heard the car coming along Taylor Street behind me. I broke into a run. Tires squealed softly as the car began its casual turn into Fulton, its headlights swinging. Just before they reached me, I flung myself into the alley and flattened against the wall behind a utility pole. The car went on past, toward Clebourne; behind the pole, I couldn’t tell whether it was a police car or not.
I remained plastered limply against the wall for a moment while I groped in my pocket for the keys and selected the right one. The alley was dark except for the window at the rear of Fuller’s kitchen, and there was no sound except the humming of the exhaust fan above it I strode over, unlocked the door, and breathed softly in relief as it closed behind me. The door into the outer office at the far end was closed, so the passage was in utter darkness, but I needed no light. To my left was the door to the washroom, and just beyond it, on the right, was the side entrance to my office. I groped my way along to it, stepped inside, and closed it.
To my left, a faint crack of light along the floor marked the location of the door opening into the outer office, facing the front windows and the street. Behind my desk, over on the right, was a small window on the alley. I felt my way back to it and checked to be sure the slats of the Venetian blind were closed, but even then I didn’t dare turn on a light. The glow of the window would be visible in the alley. I rolled my topcoat into a pillow and lay down on the rug in front of the desk. They’d never think of looking for me here. But everything now depended on Barbara Ryan; if she believed I’d killed Frances, she would call the police.
I awoke to gray dimness inside the room and looked at my watch. It was after seven. Taking the toilet kit from the bag, I went across the passage to the washroom to shave, and brush my teeth. After I’d put on a fresh shirt and brushed some of the lint off my suit, I felt less like the tag end of a four-day drunk and ready to face whatever was going to happen. I ate one of the sandwiches, drank a cup of coffee from the thermos, and sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk with a cigarette. She should be here in about ten minutes; she always opened the office at eight, while Turner and Evans, the two salesmen, came in around a quarter of nine. I wrote out a copy of the telegram I’d given Mac, and waited.
The door to the outer office was in front of me, but off to the left; when it was open, anyone passing on the sidewalk outside could see in, but wouldn’t be able to see the desk. I could hear the traffic outside on Clebourne and the rattle of trash cans in the alley as the garbage truck went through. Once in a while, very faintly, there was a clatter of dishes from Fuller’s, just on the other side of the wall to my right. I thought of the twenty, or thirty people who were in there now, eating breakfast, and of what they were saying. Mulholland would be there.
The front door had opened. I heard a desk drawer open and close as she stowed away her purse. There were no voices, so she was alone. A minute or two went by, and then I heard the staccato clicking of the typewriter. I reached out a hand toward the button, but hesitated, aware of the suffocation in my chest. What would she do? Scream? Run into the street? Call Scanlon? Well, as Mac would say, shoot or hand somebody else the gun. I pressed the buzzer.
The clicking of the typewriter cut off as if the sound had been chopped through with an axe. For several seconds that seemed like minutes, nothing happened. Then a chair scraped. I heard the tapping of high heels, coming this way. A door opened, but it was the other one, going into the passage. I sighed gently, wondering how I could have associated with this girl for a year without discovering she was a genius. To anybody passing along the sidewalk, she was merely going to the john. I leaned back in the chair with my fingers laced together behind my head and looked at the side door. It opened softly. She was wearing a gabardine skirt and a soft cashmere sweater that’d never had that kind of profile when the cashmeres were wearing it. If there was fear or consternation in back of the cool blue eyes, it didn’t show.
“Come in,” I said.
She stepped inside and closed the door, standing in front of the racked collection of guns along the left wall. Perhaps she had already answered the question, but I had to ask it anyway. “Do you believe I killed her?”
“No,” she said.
I wanted to ask why, but we didn’t have much time, and there were more important things. “Probably a minority opinion.”
She shook her head. “There’s considerably more heat than light at the moment, but not everybody believes it, in spite of the way it looks. I think I’m the only one, though, who knew you were coming back.”
“You did?”
“Sure. When I realized you wanted Scanlon to know you took those bonds.”
“That’s right,” I said. “He’d know I couldn’t go anywhere without money, nor get any after I was on the run, so I had an idea he’d ask if there were anything negotiable in that safe. Sit down, Barbara.”
She took one of the black leather armchairs in front of the desk and crossed her legs. I passed her the cigarettes and held the lighter for her. “How did you get back?” she asked.
“Obviously, I didn’t. My car’s in New Orleans, and if I’d come on the bus somebody would have seen me get off at the station. You haven’t seen me.”
“I’ve been thinking I should cut down on the stuff.”
“Even if they catch me here in town and discover I’ve been hiding out in my own office,” I went on, “there’s no way you could have known it. You wouldn’t have any occasion to come in
here. The files and every thing are all out there.”
She smiled. “All right, if you insist. And what else is there I don’t know?”
“That I was listening in on all phone calls—I mean, if my extension happened to be left accidentally jacked in. And about an hour from now you’ll receive a telegram from El Paso you won’t understand. Here’s a copy of it.”
I passed it over. She read it, nibbling thoughtfully at her lower lip. “Umh-umh. It would be a little on the murky side, since we don’t know any Mr. Weaver and we have no file number W-511. But being an alert and clean-living type of girl who’s always right in there polishing the apple and bucking for a raise, I’d probably go ahead and call the Norman Agency, since you’re not here to do it.”
“Right,” I said. “Then when you find out this Norman outfit is a detective agency and that the telegram’s from me, you turn the whole thing over to Scanlon, including the information Norman gives you—if any.”
She grinned. “Zzzzhhh! What a back-stabbing little priss I am!”
“You’re a law-abiding citizen who wouldn’t think of withholding information from the police. So later in the day when a couple of other telegrams come in, one from Houston and the other from Miami, you read them over the phone to Scanlon too.”
“Yes, I suppose I’m just the type that would. And probably be stupid enough to leave the intercom open so you’d hear me dialing. Now, is that a full catalog of the finer aspects of my character, or is there more?”
“Just one thing. You probably don’t know what the feature is today at the Crown Theatre?”
“No, but I have a feeling I’m dying to find out. Let’s see—today’s Saturday, so the box office’ll open at two.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Doris Bentley? I didn’t think of her.”
“Ernie said Roberts had gone out with her. And, remember, she used to work for Frances. I’ve got a hunch there’s a connection somewhere.”
She nodded. “Could be. Do you think you’d recognize the voice if you heard it again?”
“It’s worth a try.”
“Do you think she knows something about it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I told her just what the girl had said over the phone. “There’s another man mixed up in the thing somewhere, and if we find out who he is, we might get somewhere.” Then I went on and told her briefly about the money and the fact Norman believed Frances had been tailed by a private detective at least part of the time she was in New Orleans.
She looked up eagerly. “Could we find out who hired him?”
“No, but the police can.”
She crossed her fingers. “Good luck. I’d better get back out there.”
I stood up. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
She smiled. “You can’t. You’re in El Paso.” She started to turn away. “Oh, incidentally, the phones will be on the line together, so if we don’t want two separate clicks, we’ve got to pick them up at the same time. How about the middle of the third ring?”
“Right,” I said. “Smart girl.”
She went out, through the side door into the passage. In a moment the typewriter resumed its clatter. I lit a cigarette and tried to think. There must be some connection between the money Frances had got rid of and Roberts’ mysterious source of income that puzzled Ernie. But how could there be? The seven thousand dollars had all disappeared within the past week, while from what Ernie had said, the strange business of Roberts’ seeming to have more money than he took in must have been going on for months. Well, there was one thing I could check while I was waiting; all the monthly statements of our joint bank account for the past year were here in the desk where I’d been going through them for items deductible on my income tax return. I softly eased the drawer open, arranged the twelve brown envelopes in order on the desk, and started through them, sorting out and writing down the amounts of all checks she had made out to cash. On another sheet of paper I put down the totals by months. It took about a half hour. I was just finishing when the phone rang.
On the third ring I picked it up, holding my hand over the mouthpiece. “Warren Realty,” Barbara said. “Good morning.”
It was a woman’s voice, charged with venom. “Then it is true! When I heard it, I didn’t believe it was possible.”
“What do you mean?” Barbara asked.
“What do I mean?” She sounded as though she were strangling. “I mean that you’re still working for that monster! Or don’t you have any sense of decency at all?”
Barbara broke in sweetly, “Oh, has he been convicted? I didn’t even know they’d held the trial.”
“Well, of all the loathsome—!” There was a crash, and the line went dead. I replaced the receiver.
The typewriter resumed its cadence in the outer room. There was a momentary pause, and I heard faint background noise from the intercom at my left elbow. “Charming old biddy,” she said, as if she were speaking out of the side of her mouth. “The finance company must have repossessed her broom.” The speaker went dead.
I wondered how much of that she’d had to contend with yesterday, and how much there’d be today. I felt guilty, leaving her out there to endure it alone, while I hid. Wrenching my mind away from it, I returned to the column of figures, trying to find some pattern. Roberts had come here and opened his shop in April, but for the first seven months of the year, from January through July, the checks she had written for cash had averaged about $200 per month, ranging from a low of $145 to a high of $315. Then in August the total had jumped to $625, including two for $200 apiece. September was $200 again. October was $365, November $410, and December $500.
It wasn’t very conclusive. From the time Roberts had arrived in April, until August, there was no change. Then from August through December she’d cashed checks for a total of $2100, or an average of a little over $400 per month. That would be about $200 above the average for the rest of the year. It might be significant, but it certainly wasn’t enough to account for Ernie’s story. In a carelessly run business, $200 a month could disappear without a trace.
But still the similarity of the ways they had come here was too much of a coincidence. Had they known each other before? You could concede that one person might come to a small town where he knew no one at all and open a business, a town apparently chosen at random—but two? It was improbable.
I heard the front door open. It was probably Evans or Turner. But when I looked at my watch I saw it was already nine-fifty-five; they probably weren’t even going to show up. There was an indistinguishable murmur of voices, and then the door opened again. The intercom came on. “Here we go,” she whispered. I snatched eagerly at the telephone. The telegram had come.
vii
SHE DIALED THE OPERATOR AND put through the call. In a moment a girl’s voice said, “Norman Detective Agency.”
“Detective agency?” Barbara asked.
“Yes. Are you sure you have the right number?”
“Well, it must be, if this is the Norman agency. Could I speak to Mr. Norman, please?”
When he came on the line, she said, “This is the Warren Realty Company in Carthage—”
“Who’s speaking?” he asked.
“Barbara Ryan. Mr. Warren’s not here, and we’ve received a rather strange telegram from a Mr. Weaver, in—”
He cut her off. “Never mind where it’s from; if it’s what I think it is, I’d just as soon not know. Maybe you’d better read it to me.”
She read it.
“Umh-umh,” he said. “Your telegram’s from your boss.”
“From Mr. Warren himself?”
“In person. He pulled a whizzer on me, and now he’s about to pull one on you.”
“How do you mean?”
“He wants some information I’ve got for him, but if you pass it along to him without telling the police where he is you’re sticking your neck out a mile. When he hired me to get this information for him he didn’t tell me he was hotter than radioactive cobalt; I h
ad to find that out by reading the papers last night, like any other dope. And now I’m expecting the cops to come pounding on the door any minute; they know he was here in town, and it was Mrs. Warren we asked five thousand people about yesterday. But that’s all right; I don’t know where he is, and I don’t want to know.”
“Would you be breaking any law if you gave me the information?”
“No. I’ve got a signed authorization to do it, as long as you have that file number. What you do with it is your pigeon.”
“I suppose, under the circumstances, I should give it to the police, along with the telegram. But if Mr. Warren calls, I’ll also give it to him. After all, he’s paying for it. You don’t object to the police knowing he hired you, do you?”
“No. As long as I’m not withholding information as to his whereabouts, I’m in the clear. I don’t think it’ll be much help to him, but we have found out what he wanted. I mean, what his wife was doing down here.”
I waited tensely. “What was it?” Barbara asked.
“She was playing the ponies.”
That trumpet call! I cursed myself for a tone-deaf idiot; anybody else would have placed it long ago. It was the same one they always play at racetracks when the horses come out to parade to the post. She’d called from a booth somewhere near the track.
“Are you sure of that?” Barbara asked.
“No doubt of it at all. For the whole week she was out there every afternoon the track was open. And she really dropped a wad. At four yesterday afternoon we located two taxi drivers who remembered taking her out to the track on different days, so we shagged out there and started flashing her picture to the sellers. We didn’t have any luck until we hit the $50 window, but he remembered her all right. She’d been throwing it in to the tune of $200 and $300 a race, especially the last couple of days. We also found where she hocked the coat. She got $350 for it, a mink worth three or four thousand. If Warren’s lawyer could get enough husbands with bingo-playing wives on the jury, he’d be a cinch to beat it”