Bertha asked, “How much of this?”

  “Half or three-quarters of a mile.”

  She turned abruptly. “I’m going back to the car. To hell with it.”

  “All right, take the cab back to town. I have a car that’s good enough to get me where I want to go. I’ll run back to the hospital as soon as I’m satisfied everything’s all right.”

  Bertha turned without a word, started back to the cab. I had covered about fifty yards before I saw the lights flash on again on the cab. I swung to one side of the road as the cab swept into .a turn, waited until the red taillight had become a ruby blot in the distance, and then started trudging along the pavement.

  The streak of light in the east became more noticeable. There was enough light now to see objects as black blotches against a grayish background. Ahead of me I could see the gasoline station with the little house behind it, and then a hundred yards back from the road, the cabin. I slid into the shadows and waited.

  The light in the east was growing stronger. A watcher concealed in the shadows could have seen me approaching along the road—not plainly enough to recognize me, but still I’d been too visible. It was cold. The air was as still as the reflection in a placid mountain lake. I could feel the tips of my ears tingling with the cold. My nose felt cold. I wanted to stamp my feet, yet dared not move. The sound of a car on the highway—remarkable how far you can hear a car snarling along the pavement. I tingled with anticipation. This would be my man. Now that I was here, I wondered just what would happen. Suppose Louie had been drinking again? Suppose the man who was coming had a gun and didn’t waste time in argument? Suppose— The car swung around the corner. The headlights gleamed along the road. It didn’t even slow down, but swept on past and into the distance. The sound of the car diminished into the frosty silence.

  I pushed my hands under my armpits and hugged them. I was shivering now, and my teeth were chattering. My feet felt like chunks of ice. No other cars, no sound, just that still cold.

  I looked at my watch. By holding the face toward the east I could see the time plainly. It would be three-quarters of an hour before the sun would shed any warmth. I simply couldn’t stand that cold any more. I hadn’t realized how the dry air of the desert will suck the warmth right out through your clothes.

  I didn’t want to waken the girl. I tiptoed around to the other window, and called, in a low, cautious voice, “Oh, Louie! Hello, Louie!”

  There was no sound.

  I picked up a little pebble and tapped gently on the window. Nothing happened. I ran the pebble quickly along the side of the house and gave a low whistle. I waited, listened, and heard nothing.

  The east was orange now, and the stars had drifted far back into space. I was seized with a paroxysm of shivering. I tapped on the window with my knuckles and called, “Louie. Oh, Louie. Wake up.”

  The few seconds of silence after that seemed hours.

  I walked around to the front door of the cabin and tapped on it gently. Then when I received no answer, I tried the knob.

  The door was unlocked. It swung inward.

  It had been cold outside, but the air was fresh. In here, there was a stale closeness to the atmosphere which made it seem even colder. I didn’t think I’d ever get warm again. Louie shouldn’t have left the door unlocked. I’d cautioned him particularly about that, and tonight of all times— I locked the door carefully behind me, tiptoed across the room. The boards creaked under my feet. The door of Louie’s bedroom was closed. I turned the knob, opened the door gently, and said in a whisper, “Oh, Louie!”

  Enough light was coming from the east now so I could see the objects in the room clearly. The bed hadn’t been slept in.

  I stood staring at that vacant bed as the significance of what it meant gradually dawned on my mind.

  I whirled and strode toward Helen Framley’s door. 1 didn’t bother to knock, just turned the knob and kicked the door open.

  Her bed was empty. It was half a dozen seconds before I saw the white thing pinned on the pillow. I walked over to it. It was a sealed envelope with my name and address on the outside. There was also a stamp on it. Evidently, she hadn’t been certain I was coming back, and in that event wanted the letter mailed to me.

  I tore it open and read: Darling—I guess this is the only way. You have your life and I have mine. The two never have mixed and never will. You’re you, and I’m me. I’ve got to get out of town. That roll I gave you came from slot machines, and a dick spotted me. I got away, but they’ll be looking for me. After you’d left, I talked with Louie. He’s been around and he knows the way I feel. I can’t work the slot machines without a man who’s handy with his fists, and who knows the racket. Louie sees it the same way I do. Only remember, Donald, it’s strictly a business partnership. That’s understood. And I won’t have trouble with Louie the way I did with Pug. Louie knows where my heart is—and he worships the ground you walk on.

  By this time, I guess you know about Pug. I’m not certain that you didn’t all along.

  It was either him or both of us. He kept that gun in the bureau drawer where he had some of his papers and things that he didn’t want to leave in his rooming-house. I told him I’d give him a drawer in the bureau. I knew there was a gun there. When he began to get so insanely jealous, I took the gun out and hid it in the dishpan in the kitchen. I knew he’d never look there. After he found us together on the street and had that trouble with the cop, he went directly to the apartment. He was wise. He turned off the lights and hid in the closet.

  I came in a few minutes after nine, turned on the lights, and Pug pushed open the closet door. He was crazy. I couldn’t do a thing with him. He swore that he was going to kill us both. He accused me of turning him over to the cops. He hit me, and then made a dash for the drawer to get the gun. I ran for the door. He headed me off. I got into the kitchen and slammed the door. I didn’t have time to lock it. We struggled for a minute at the door, and then he got it open, throwing me back against the sink. I whipped open the cupboard door and reached in the dishpan. He kept coming.

  I’m not the least bit sorry. I had to do it. According to your code, I should have notified the law and stayed there and told them my story, let them probe into my past, ask me about my means of making a living, hold me in jail as a material witness, and all that bunk. Well, that’s not my way of doing it. I walked across to the apartment next door and pounded on the door for Mrs. Clutmer—just to make certain that she wasn’t home. No one answered my knock so I just walked out, and left the door open. I ditched the gun where no one will ever find it.

  I swore I’d never rat, but I can’t hold out on you. There are some things you’ll have to know. The girl with the rabbit nose is named Dearborne. She’s strong for Philip Whitewell. Somebody in Whitewell’s organization who didn’t want the marriage to go through put detectives on Corla Burke. They uncovered her record and turned up Sid Jannix. I didn’t know him by that name. I knew him as Harry Beegan, and called him Pug because he’d been in the ring.

  I think Pug wrote the letter to Corla Burke and signed my name to it. He was pretty good at forgery. He wanted to get Corla Burke where he could squeeze her dry. She was too smart for him. Pug didn’t think up the scheme. It was someone else who did, someone who didn’t want the marriage to go through.

  Philip’s father knew about the letter to me. He wrote to the Dearbornes to look me up. The boy made the investigation, but his sister started cultivating me and trying to work me. She was suspicious of Pug. I don’t know how she knew, but she did know he was connected with Corla Burke. She wanted to pump me. She was so obvious I just strung her along and didn’t bother to take her seriously. I’d had the apartment where you found me for a week. I knew things were coming to a head with Pug, and I wanted a way to leave him for good when I walked out. I knew he’d never think of looking for me in another apartment in the same city.

  But after the killing, I had to sit absolutely tight. I went out to get some grub—and darned if I didn’t run-into the Dearborne girl on the street. She knew I was hiding and offered to see me through. Why, I don’t know.

  Pug had taken the roll from me as soon as I came in, and I didn’t have over thirty cents to my name. The Dearborne girl offered to get grub. Well, I let her.

  We’re taking your car for a few days. I have an idea you won’t need it. When we get done with it, I’ll drop you a note at your office telling you where you can find it.

  I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in the world, and I’m taking a powder because I don’t want anything to interfere with the memory of the time we spent together. I know it’s finished. I know we can’t go on. I know that if I try, something is going to happen to rob that memory of all its sweetness.

  Louie doesn’t understand all the details, but he knows enough to get the sketch. He says if there’s ever anyone you want killed, all you have to do is put an ad in the personal columns of the Los Angeles papers, saying, “Louie, She guy’s name is so-and-so.” Louie would lay down his life for you. Louie says it’s because you’re a real champ, that people feel that way about you. I think it’s because you’re so darn clean and decent. Anyway, we’re both for you and we’re both saying—Good-by.

  I was shivering with the cold and a nervous chill. My hand was shaking so I could hardly hold the letter. I turned on the hot water in the shower. When it was good and hot, I got out of my clothes and stood under the stream, letting the water run as hot as I could stand it. When I got out, I felt a little better. I rubbed myself with a towel, went out into the kitchen, and looked in the wood stove. Leave it to Louie to think of little things like that. He’d laid the fire with kindling and dry wood, so all I had to do was touch a match to it.

  When the fire was roaring into flame, I lifted the cover from the stove and dropped in Helen’s letter. I put on some coffee, and looked through the cupboard to see if, by any chance, there was any whisky. I couldn’t find any. The warmth of the hot shower left me, and I was standing over the stove once more, shivering.

  The east was splashed with vivid crimson, then the sun came up. The wood stove did its stuff, and my bones began to thaw out. The coffee started bubbling, and I had two big cups. By that time, I realized I was hungry. I broke some eggs into a frying-pan, scrambled them, made some toast in the oven, and had another cup of coffee with the eggs and toast. The kitchen was good and warm by that time.

  I tried to smoke a cigarette, but the room gave me the jitters. Every article in it reminded me of her. The whole place was vibrant with memories—and desolate as a tomb.

  I packed my bag and went out to stand in the sunlight. I couldn’t wait in the house any more.

  The man who owned the gas station came out, and unlocked his pumps, rubbing his eyes sleepily. I walked over to him and said, “I’ve got to leave by plane. The others have taken the car and gone on. There are some provisions in the house you can have if you want.”

  He thanked me, looked at me curiously, and said, “I thought I heard your wife and the other man drive away last night.”

  I started for the highway. I’d been walking about three minutes when a car coming out from Reno swerved and slid to a stop. I looked up, my heart pounding in my throat.

  Some woman was rolling down a window. Her arm concealed her face. I started toward the car, running across the pavement.

  The window rolled down. The woman’s arm came away so I could see her face. It was Bertha.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “Getting things straightened out here.”

  “No one showed up, did they?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think they would. It sounded goofy to me. Well, come on. We’ve got work to do.”

  “What and where?”

  “First we get back to Las Vegas. This man Kleinsmidt on the police force is raising merry hell, and you’re the only one who can do anything with him.”

  “What happened with Philip and the girl?”

  She snorted and said, “Loss of memory! Well, it’s all right if he falls for it.”

  “They’ve made up?” I asked.

  “Made up! You should have seen them.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Took a plane for Los Angeles. We’ve got to go back and square things with Kleinsmidt. Come on, hop in.”

  I climbed in the car with her, and she said to the driver, “All right, now we’ll go to the airport.”

  A plane was waiting. We climbed aboard. I wouldn’t talk. Bertha quit trying to pump me after a while. Then gradually the nerve tension left me. I dropped into a sound sleep.

  A car met us at Las Vegas. “Sal Sagev Hotel,” Bertha said, and to me, “You look ‘pretty bad. Get a bath, shave, and then come to my room. We’ll get Kleinsmidt up.”

  “What’s eating him?” I asked.

  “He thinks you spirited a witness away, and he doesn’t like the way everybody pulled out of town last night without saying anything to him. He also thinks he should have questioned Corla Burke. He thinks the murder gave you some kind of a lead on her. You’ve got to square the whole thing. It’ll take a good story.”

  “I know it will,” I said.

  We went to the hotel. I told Bertha a button was loose on my shirt, and asked her for a needle and thread. She became unexpectedly maternal, and offered to sew it on for me, but I stalled her along.

  As soon as her door closed, I beat it for the elevator. It wasn’t much of a walk around to the place where Helen Framley had lived. I stood at the foot of the stairs long enough to make sure no one was around, jabbed the needle into my thumb and squeezed out blood. I tiptoed up the stairs—and tiptoed down.

  Bertha Cool was talking on the telephone as I came in. I heard her say, “You’re certain of that? … Well, pickle me for a herring… . You’ve investigated at the airport? .. . That’s right. We’ll leave here on the afternoon plane. I’ll see you in Los Angeles this evening… . That’s fine. Give them my congratulations. Good-by.”

  She hung up and said, “That’s funny.”

  “You mean that Endicott didn’t show up?” I asked.

  Her little eyes glittered hard at me. “Donald, you do say the damnedest things.”

  “Why?”

  “How did you know he didn’t show up?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Something you said over the telephone.”

  “Nuts: You knew he wasn’t going to show up. Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He didn’t take that San Francisco plane out of Reno. He just disappeared into thin air.”

  I stretched, yawned, and said, “When do we entertain Lieutenant Kleinsmidt?”

  “He’s on his way up now.”

  Knuckles pounded on the door. I opened it, and Kleinsmidt walked in.

  “You,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Quite a heel you turned out to be.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Taking a powder and putting me in Dutch, after the breaks I tried to give you.”

  I said, “I was out working for you.”

  “Thanks!” His voice was sarcastic.

  “As I see it,” I said, “all that interests you is the murder of Jannix.”

  “That’s all, just a little minor matter like that, but the chief gets funny complexes. He’s sort of riding me about it, and there’s been a little criticism here and there, a few suggestions that your departure was rather abrupt, that I might have safeguarded the interests of the taxpayers a little better by seeing that you were provided with room and board. Where’s that Framley woman?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “You went away with her.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Where’d you leave her?”

  “In Reno.”

  “Then what?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Let’s not talk about it. Another guy beat my time.”

  I felt Bertha Cool’s eyes staring at me. Kleinsmidt said, “Who’s the guy this time?”

  “Man by the name of Hazen.”

  “The one who identified the stiff?”

  “That’s him.”

  “He didn’t look like such a lady’s man to me.”

  I said, “I made the same mistake, Lieutenant.”

  He said, “I think I’ll do a little checking on that, Lam.”

  “Go ahead,” I told him. “I can give you the name of the man who runs the gasoline station where we rented a cabin.”

  “What does he know about it?”

  “He told me this morning that he heard my wife and the other-man drive away in the night.”

  Kleinsmidt said, “Too bad. I don’t think you’re looking well. You need a good rest. We have the best climate in the west right here in Las Vegas. We’d hate to have you leave us again unexpectedly. I’m going to make arrangements to see that you don’t.”

  I said, “Well, don’t be in a hurry about it. Here’s something for you to run down first.”

  “What?”

  “Remember Paul Endicott, Whitewell’s right-hand man?”

  “Naturally.”

  “I don’t know whether you heard Whitewell say so, but was going to give his son a partnership interest when he got married. You know, the income-tax people get funny ideas about those things. When the new partnership was organized, they’d want an audit of the books, even if Whitewell didn’t.”

  I saw Kleinsmidt’s eyes showing interest.

  “Keep right on,” he said.

  I said, “I wouldn’t know, but if I wanted to make a bet, it would be that an audit of Whitewell’s books would show the real reason Endicott didn’t want the marriage to go through. That’s why he got Helen Framley to write a letter to Corla Burke that would make her think the marriage couldn’t go through.”

  “What was in the letter?” Kleinsmidt asked.

  “I wouldn’t know exactly, but it seems that Corla Burke’s father walked out and left the family when she was about fifteen. I wouldn’t want to be quoted, but I think the letter told her that her father had been arrested and was serving time in a penitentiary. Naturally, Corla wouldn’t have gone ahead with the marriage under those circumstances. She wouldn’t have thought it was fair to Philip.”