“I know.”

  “Well, anyway, I got acquainted with her. I found out she was running away from something, too. She hadn’t had as much of a success at it as I’d had, so I offered to take over her identity for a while and let her really disappear.”

  I said, “I’m anxious to get that straight, Rob. Did you make the offer to her?”

  She thought for a moment and said, “Well, she paved the way for it. I guess it was her idea.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Definitely, yes. Can I have another drink, Donald? You’ve made me get cold sober, talking about this thing. I didn’t want to get sober tonight. I wanted to ring doorbells and have some fun.”

  I said, “There’s a little more I want you to tell me first, little details about, for instance, when you first heard about Nostrander’s death.”

  She said, “Put yourself in my position. One murder had been committed over me already. I was trying to dodge notoriety. Well, when this thing happened, I—I just acted on instinct. I wanted to run away from it.”

  “Not good enough, Rob,” I told her. “What isn’t good enough?”

  “That reason for running.”

  “It happens to be the truth.”

  I looked her straight in the eyes, said, “You know better, Rob. No one had thought you might have been implicated in the murder of that young man with whom you were riding back in 1937, but two murders in a girl’s life are just too many murders. They’d begin to ask questions about that old murder, and they wouldn’t be the same kind of questions they asked you five years ago.”

  “Honest, Donald, I never thought of that. But-well, I guess it’s an angle to take into consideration. It’s something to think of, all right.”

  “Let’s go back to that love bandit. Did they ever catch him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he confess?”

  “Not to that crime. He always denied having had anything to do with that. He confessed to a couple of others.”

  “What did they do with him?”

  “Hanged him.”

  “Did you ever see him?”

  “Yes. They took me down to see if I could identify him.”

  “Could you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see him alone or in a line-up?”

  “They showed him to me in a line-up, in one of those inspection boxes where a person stands on kind of a stage with a lot of lights beating on him and a white screen stretched across the front so he can’t see you, and yet you can see him perfectly.”

  “And you couldn’t pick him out of the line-up?”

  “No.”

  “Then what did they do?”

  “Then they put him in a darkened room where there was just a little light, put an overcoat and a hat on him, just the way he’d been dressed at the time of the crime, and asked me if I could identify him.”

  “Could you?”

  “No.”

  “The man who killed your friend wore a mask?

  “Yes.”

  “Did you notice anything about him, anything at all?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “He walked with a limp when he came out of the bushes. After the shooting, when he ran away, he didn’t limp.”

  “Did you tell the police that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it mean anything to them?”

  “I don’t think so. Can’t we quit talking about this and have a drink?”

  I called the waiter over. “Same thing?” I asked her.

  “I’m tired of wine. Could we have something else?”

  “Two Scotch and sodas,” I said. “How’s that, Rob?”

  “That’s fine. And then do something for me, will you, Donald?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t let me drink any more.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to enjoy the night and not just get dizzy and a little sick and pass out and wake up in the morning with a head.”

  The waiter brought the drinks. I drank about half of mine, then excused myself and started in the general direction of the men’s room. I detoured over to the telephone booth, got a couple of bills changed into twenty-five-cent pieces, and called Emory G. Hale at the hotel in New Orleans.

  I had to wait less than three minutes while the operator put the call through; then I heard Hale’s booming voice.

  Central sweetly told me to start depositing twenty-five-cent pieces, and my quarters played a tune on the gong in the pay box.

  It took a second or two for the sound of the gongs to get out of my ear. I heard Hale saying impatiently.

  “Hello. Hello. Hello. Who is this calling? Hello.”

  “Hello, Hale. This is Donald Lam.”

  “Lam! Where are you?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  “Well, why the devil didn’t you report? I’ve been worried sick about you, wondering if you were all right.”

  “I’m all right. I’ve been too busy to get near a telephone. I’ve got Roberta Fenn located.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  “Bully for you! That’s the way 1 like to have things done. No excuses. No alibis. Just results. You certainly are entitled—”

  “You still have the key to that apartment?” I interrupted.

  “Yes, of course.”

  I said, “All right. Roberta Fenn lived there. The landlady will identify her photograph. There was a flimflam on a divorce action. She was doubling for Edna Cutler. Edna Cutler lives at Shreveport in an apartment house that’s called River Vista. She staked Roberta to the money to get out of New Orleans.

  “Get in touch with Marco Cutler. You’ll find him in one of the hotels in New Orleans. Tell him that Edna Cutler worked a clever scheme on him by trapping him into serving papers on a woman that wasn’t the defendant. Tell him to come up and look over the apartment. When he does, be sure that he finds the gun and those old newspaper clippings. Then call in the police. Let the California authorities reopen that Craig murder case. As soon as you’ve done that, get on a plane and come to Los Angeles. I’ll have Roberta Fenn all staked out for you.” Good nature bubbled out of him like coffee in an electric percolator. “Lam, that’s wonderful! Is Roberta Fenn in Los Angeles now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know where?” , “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m shadowing her.”

  “Can you tell me exactly where she is?”

  “Right at the present moment, she’s in a nightclub. She’s just getting ready to leave.”

  “Anyone with her?” he asked eagerly.

  “Not at the moment.”

  “And you’re not going to lose her?”

  “I’m keeping an eye on her.”

  “That’s splendid. Wonderful! Donald, you’re a man in a million! When I said you were an owl, I really—”

  Central interrupted to say, “Your three minutes are up.

  “Good-by,” I said, and slammed the receiver back onto its hook.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE ELEVATOR contained the usual Monday-morning crowd returning to the grind of routine office work, men who had gone without hats on the golf course or the beaches and whose foreheads were flaming with sunburn, girls looking a little weary about the eyes trying by intensive make-up to neutralize the telltale marks of not enough sleep—people who found the gloomy confines of an office doubly distasteful after a taste of a day spent in the open.

  Elsie Brand was in the office ahead of me.

  I could hear the machine-gun clatter of her typewriter as I approached the door marked Cool and Lam, Confidential Investigations.

  She looked up as I entered the door. “Hello. Glad you’re back. Have a nice trip?”

  She swung around away from the typewriter, flashed a quick look at the clock as though determining how much of the partnership time she could afford to give to one of the partners.

  “So-so.”

  “Did a good job on that Florida case, didn’t you.”

  “It turned out all right.”

  “How’s the New Orleans business?”

  “Hanging fire. Where’s Bertha?”

  “Hasn’t come in yet.”

  “Did she make some investigation in that Roxberry Estates matter?”

  “Uh huh. There’s a file—quite a few notes.”

  She got up from the chair, crossed over to the filing cases, ran her finger down the index, jerked open a drawer in the steel file, stabbed at the pasteboard jackets with the swift certainty of one who knows exactly what she is doing, pulled out a file, and handed it to me.

  “You’ll find in there everything we’ve been able to get.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take a look at it. How’s the construction business coming along?”

  She glanced quickly at the door, lowered her voice, and said, “There’s been a bit of correspondence about the business. It’s all in the file. Some of the other correspondence is in Bertha’s office—locked up. She hasn’t sent it out to the file. I don’t know where it is.”

  “What’s that correspondence about?”

  “Getting you placed in a deferred classification.”

  “Did she make it stick?”

  Again Elsie looked at the door. “This would cost me my job if she knew about it.”

  “Don’t I have something to say about that?”

  “Not about that. She’d ride me so I had to quit.”

  “Well, what about it? Did she fix it up?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Last week.”

  “It’s all settled?”

  “Yes.”

  I said, “Thanks.”

  She watched me curiously. A puzzled frown appeared between her arched eyebrows. “Are you going to let her get away with it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh.”

  “What did you expect me to do?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, without looking up.

  I took the file of the Roxberry Estates into my private office, sat down at the desk, and went over it in detail.

  It told me nothing.

  Silas T. Roxberry had done a lot of financing, putting money in various business activities, some of which he controlled, some of which were simply outlets for funds which he held for business investment. He had died in 1937, leaving two children, a son named Roy aged fifteen, a daughter named Edna aged nineteen. Because his affairs had been considerably complicated and a distribution of the estate might have resulted in a shrinkage of assets, it had been decided to assign the rights of the heirs to a corporation known as Roxberry Estates and a decree of distribution had been made to the corporation, the heirs taking stock in that corporation to the extent of their interests.

  Howard C. Craig had been Roxberry’s confidential bookkeeper, had been employed by him for nearly seven years. The Roxberry Estates Corporation employed Craig as its secretary and treasurer. After Craig’s death, a man named Sells had taken Craig’s place. An attorney by the name of Biswill had handled the estate and had become general manager of the corporation. He was carrying on the business in just about the same way that Silas Roxberry had. Because it was a closed corporation, it was impossible to learn anything about the degree of success with which the business was being administered, but Bertha Cool had secured a commercial report to the effect that the business was solvent, prompt in paying its bills, although it was rumored it had, of late, made some poor investments.

  It was, of course, possible that Edna Roxberry was Edna Cutler. I picked up the telephone, got the Roxberry Estates on the phone, said I was a friend of the family who had been away for several years, and asked if Edna Roxberry was married. I was told she hadn’t married as yet and I would find her name in the telephone book. The party at the other end of the line wanted to know who was talking, and I hung up.

  At ten o’clock Bertha still hadn’t showed up.

  I told Elsie I was going out, and went over to the offices of the Roxberry Estates.

  It was possible to tell the whole story in the lettering on the doors of the offices. Originally Harman C. Biswill had had a string of offices. Silas Roxberry had been one of his main clients. With Roxberry’s death, Biswill had moved in on the estate. Having sold the heirs on the idea of making distribution to a corporation, he had become the manager of the corporation. Now, the signs on the doors read, Harman C. Biswill, Attorney at Law. Private. Entrance 619, and on 619 appeared Roxberry Estates, Inc. Entrance. Down below in the left-hand corner was Harman C. Biswill, Attorney at Law. Entrance. The lettering on the door of the private office looked rather faded. It had been Biswill’s old private office, and he hadn’t changed the sign. As he’d gradually abandoned the general practice of law for the more profitable gravy of the estate corporation, he’d changed the sign on the entrance room.

  It didn’t take a first-class detective to tell that Harman C. Biswill had cut himself a very nice slice of cake.

  I opened the entrance door and walked in.

  Biswill had gone hog wild on office machinery. There were bookkeeping machines, typewriters, dictating machines, adding machines, billing machines, addressing machines scattered around the office. An elderly woman was punching an adding machine. A girl was pounding out correspondence on a typewriter, the earpieces of a transcribing machine dangling from her ears.

  There was a switchboard and a little window marked Information, but no one was at the desk. As I came in, a light came on on the switchboard and a buzzer sounded. The woman at the adding machine came over to the switchboard, plugged in a line, said, “Roxberry Estates, Incorporated… . No, he isn’t here…. I can’t tell you just when he will be… . No, I’m not certain he’ll be here at all today… . Was there any message? … Very well, I’ll tell him Thank you.”

  She was past fifty, a woman who had evidently been working all of her life. Her eyes were tired but kind, and there was about her the air of a person who knows exactly what she is doing.

  I followed a hunch. “You’ve been with the corporation since it was organized?”

  “Yes.”

  “And were employed by Mr. Roxberry prior to that time?”

  “Yes. What is it you wish?”

  I said, “I’m trying to find out something about a man by the name of Hale.”

  “What did you want to know about him?”

  “Something about his credit.”

  “May I have your name?”

  “Lam. Donald Lam.”

  “And what company are you with, Mr. Lam?”

  “It’s a partnership,” I said. “Cool and Lam. I’m one of the partners. We’re doing some business with Mr. Hale.”

  “Just a moment, and I’ll see what I can find out,”

  She went into the back part of the office, opened a card index, ran down through a number of cards, pulled out one, looked at it, and returned to the counter.

  “What were the initials?”

  “Mr. Hale’s?”

  “Emory G. Hale. He may have been an attorney when he was here.”

  She looked at the card again, said, “We have no Emory G. Hale. No record of ever having done business with him.”

  I said, “Perhaps you can remember him. He may have been representing someone else, and it’s possible you didn’t have his name, a tall man around six feet. He’s about fifty-seven or fifty-eight years of age, has broad shoulders and very long arms. When he smiles, he has a peculiar habit of holding his front teeth together and pulling back his lips.”

  She thought for a minute, shook her head, and said, “I’m afraid I’m not able to help you. We carried on rather a large and varied business. Mr. Roxberry did both personal and business financing.”

  “Yes, I know. And you don’t remember Mr. Hale?” No.

  “He might even have been going under another name.”

  “No. I’m quite certain.”

  I started for the door, turned back suddenly, and said, “Did you have business dealings with a Marco Cutler?”

  She shook her head.

  “Or,” I asked almost as an afterthought, “an Edna Cutler?”

  “Edna P. Cutler?” she asked.

  “I believe that’s right.”

  “Oh, yes, we had quite a large number of dealings with Edna Cutler.”

  “Do those dealings continue?”

  “No. They were all wound up. Mr. Roxberry did a lot of business for Miss Cutler.”

  “Miss or Mrs.?”

  She frowned and said, “I don’t know. I only remember the name on the books as Edna P. Cutler.”

  “What did you call her when she came in?” I asked. “Miss or Mrs.?”

  “I don’t think I ever saw her in my life.”

  “Her account isn’t active now?”

  “Oh, no. It was some sort of a joint deal she had with Mr. Roxberry. Just a minute. Frances,” she called to the girl at the transcribing machine, “hasn’t all the Edna Cutler business been closed up?”

  The girl stopped typing long enough to nod her head, and then went back to the typewriter.

  The woman behind the counter gave me a tired smile of dismissal.

  I went out and stood in the corridor, thinking.

  Edna Cutler. Many business dealings with Silas Roxberry… . Yet she never came to the office… . Howard Chandler Craig, a bookkeeper… . Out riding with Roberta Fenn. … A mysterious love pirate, and the bookkeeper of the Roxberry Estates, the one who must have had all the financial transactions of Silas T. Roxberry at his finger tips, murdered.

  I rang up the office, found that Bertha Cool hadn’t come in yet, told Elsie Brand I would be in around noon, and if Bertha came in, to tell her to wait.

  I went down to police headquarters.

  Sergeant Pete Rondler of the Homicide Squad had always got a kick out of me. For one reason, he had had a couple of run-ins with Bertha Cool, and hated the ground she walked on. When I started working for her, he’d predicted I’d be a thoroughly broken-in doormat within three months. The fact that I’d worked up to a partnership and that, on occasion, I stood up to Bertha Cool gave him a great deal of private satisfaction.