"Put yourself in my position. In order to run a place like this, one has to be on the black side of the ledger. One has to make money."

  "Naturally."

  "In order to make money, one has to put himself in the position of his customers. What do they come here for? What do they want? What do they seek? What do they get? What do they pay for? Obviously, Mr. Lam, if you'd put yourself in my place, and remember I am trying to think in terms of customers' wants, you will readily understand that the unannounced visit of a private detective is—well, it's something to be reported to me."

  "Yes, I can see that. Do you know all the private detectives?"

  "Certainly not. But I know the ones who are smart enough to be dangerous."

  "How do you segregate?"

  "I don't. They segregate themselves."

  "I'm afraid I don't follow you."

  "Being a private detective is like following any other profession. The incompetent ones have a tendency to weed themselves out. The ones who can just get by remain unknown, with only a nominal business. The ones who have what it takes begin to attract atention. They begin to get more and more business. People begin to talk about them. I know all of those."

  "You flatter me."

  "Don't be so damn modest. Before you enlisted in the Navy, you'd made quite a name for yourself, a little guy with guts—guts and brains; a daring operator who played a no-limit game and always brought his clients out on top. I watched your career with a great deal of interest. I thought I might need you myself, sometime.

  "And, then, of course, there's your partner, Bertha Cool. Rather an outstanding figure."

  "You've known her for some time?"

  "Frankly, I never bothered with her until you teamed up with her and organised that partnership. Bertha was on my list, of course—one of the few agencies that would take domestic-relations cases. But nothing that needed to occupy my personal attention. She handled routine stuff in a routine way. Then you came along and you began handling routine stuff in a very unconventional manner. The cases you handled ceased to be routine."

  "You know a lot about me," I said.

  He nodded calmly, matter-of-factly, as one agreeing with an obvious fact. "I know a hell of a lot about you."

  "And why am I honoured this afternoon?"

  Knuckles tapped on the door.

  "Come in," Rimley called.

  I noticed a slight movement on the right side of his body, heard a muffled click. The door opened and a waiter came in bearing a tray with glasses, a bottle of Johnny Walker Black

  Label, a container filled with ice cubes, and a quart bottle of syphon water.

  The waiter put the tray down on the corner of the desk, walked out without a word. Rimley poured two big slugs of whisky into the glasses, dropped in ice cubes, squirted in soda, handed me a glass.

  "Regards," he said.

  "Regards," I replied.

  We took a sip from the glasses. Rimley swung round in the chair, smiled, and said, "I hope I don't have to dot the i's and cross the t's."

  "You mean that you don't want me here?"

  "Definitely."

  "Is there," I asked, "anything you can do about it?"

  His eyes were hard now, but his lips were still smiling. "Quite a bit," he said.

  "I'm interested. Barring the minor subterfuges of telling me the tables are all engaged, or instructing the waiters not to wait on me, I don't see anything very subtle or very effective that you could do."

  He smiled and said, "Have you ever noticed, Lam, that the persons who talk about what they're going to do very seldom do what they say they're going to do?"

  I nodded.

  "I never talk about what I'm going to do. I do it. And, above all, I wouldn't be so foolish as to tell you what I was going to do to keep you from being a regular visitor. Working on some particular case?"

  I smiled and said, "Just dropped in because I wanted a little social life."

  "Obviously," Rimley said smiling, "you can appreciate the reactions of my customers if someone should point you out and say, `That's Donald Lam of the firm of Cool & Lam, private detectives. They're one of the firms that handle divorce cases.' I rather fancy there'd be lots of diners who would very suddenly remember they had engagements elsewhere."

  I said, "I hadn't exactly thought of that particular angle."

  "Suppose you think of it now, then."

  We sipped our drinks.

  "I'm thinking of it," I said.

  I wondered if Mrs. Grail and her escort had left the place yet, and if Bertha Cool was on the job. I also wondered if Pittman Rimley's aversion to private detectives might not bedue, at least in part, to the fact that he may have had some idea that a sale of the building in which his club was located was in process of negotiation—and did his lease have a clause that changed its terms in the event the premises were sold?

  Rimley said, "Well, don't let it get you down, Lam. How about freshening up your drink?"

  He reached across for my glass with his left hand, held the bottle of Scotch over the glass, gurgled in amber liquid and squirted in syphon water.

  I don't know just how it happened that my eyes dropped down for a casual glance at the very expensive wrist chronometer with its sweep-second hand circling the dial, but they did. It was a big watch and only a big man could have worn it, but it was a watch that could keep time to a split fraction of a second.

  The watch said four-thirty.

  I did mental arithmetic. It couldn't have been that late. I wanted to look at my own watch, but somehow it didn't seem to be just the thing to do.

  Rimley freshened up his own drink, smiled at me across the brim of his glass. "After all," he said, "just so we understand each other."

  "Certainly," I told him. "That's all that's necessary." I looked around the office very casually.

  There was a clock on top of a filing case, one of those nautical affairs mounted inside the spokes of a bronze wheel.

  I waited until Rimley was looking at something else then flashed my eyes back for a quick glance at the face of the clock.

  The time was four-thirty-two.

  I said, "You must have your problems running a place of this kind."

  "It isn't all gravy," he admitted.

  "I suppose you get to know your customers pretty well?”

  “The regular ones, yes."

  "Have trouble getting liquor?"

  "Some."

  "I've got a client who wants to bring suit against some people for an automobile accident. Know any good lawyers?”

  “Is that the cave that you're working on now?"

  I simply smiled.

  "Pardon me," he said.

  "Know any good automobile accident lawyers?" I asked.

  "No."

  "Guess there are some pretty good ones around."

  "There should be."

  I said, "Well, it's nice liquor and I've enjoyed my visit. I suppose you'd prefer I didn't go back to my table?"

  "Go right ahead, Lam. Make yourself at home. Enjoy yourself. Relax. Have a good time. And when you leave, don't bother about the check. Just get up and walk out. There won't be any check. But don't ... come ... back!"

  He'd been holding me with liquor and talk. Now both the liquor and the talk had dried up. It was quite all right for me to go back to the Rendezvous—now. Why had he been so anxious to get me out of the place a few minutes before and was so willing to let me return now? Could it be because Mrs. Ellery Crail and her escort had left?

  I tossed off the last of the drink, got up, and extended my hand. "Nice meeting you," I said.

  "Thank you. Make yourself at home, Lam. Have a good time, and I wish you every success with whatever case you happen to be working on. Just remember to work on it some place other than here."

  He followed me to the door and bowed me out.

  I went back to the main dining-room.

  I knew I didn't have to look. I did it just to make sure.

  The table where Mrs. Ellery Crail had sat with the unsmiling individual in the double-breasted grey suit was vacant.

  I looked at my watch.

  The time was three-forty-five.

  I didn't see my cigarette girl, so I asked a waiter casually, "Cigarette girl here?"

  "Yes, sir, just a moment."

  A girl came towards me, legs, apron, tray, but it wasn't the same one.

  I bought a packet of cigarettes. "Where's the other girl?”

  “Billy? Oh, she went home an hour early today. I'm filling in for her."

  My girl friends over at the other table kept looking in my direction. I went over there. I didn't dance but just chatted for a minute. I was, I told them, being arrested for nonsupport of my wife and seven children. I was going to have to arrange bail, and could they do something to keep me out of jail?

  I saw they were puzzled, and interested. And the waiter

  came along again. Mr. Rimley's compliments and would my friends care to join me in a drink on the house, some champagne, perhaps, or some of that Black Label Johnny Walker?

  The young women stared as though they were seeing and hearing things. "My God," one of them said, "he must be the Duke of Windsor!"

  They all laughed.

  I smiled at the waiter. "My thanks to Mr. Rimley," I said. "Tell him that I enjoyed his hospitality, but I never drink more than I can hold comfortably. However, my friends will probably accept a drink on the house. I'm leaving."

  "Yes, sir. There's no check, sir. Mr. Rimley's taken care of that."

  "So I understand. But I suppose a tip would be in order?" He seemed positively embarrassed. "If you don't mind, sir, I'd rather not."

  I nodded, turned, and bowed to the three most startled women in the city. "A business appointment," I assured them gravely, and walked out of the main dining-room.

  I recovered my hat from the hat-check girl and she was perfectly willing to accept the two-bits I handed to her. I took the elevator to the ground floor, tried to be nonchalant as I walked out and headed for the agency car. I'd misjudged the owner of the big Cad. Not only had he gone out before I did, but he'd calmly shoved his car into low gear and pushed the agency car forward so that it was right in front of the entrance of the building. A cab had moved into the place where the Cad had been parked.

  A cab driver moved over to me. He had a broken nose and a cauliflower ear. "Your car?"

  "Yes."

  "Get it the hell out of here."

  "Someone shoved it out here. I didn't leave it here."

  He spat insultingly. "I've heard that one so many times it put this tin ear on me. I had to let a passenger out of my car way out from the kerb. It cost me a dollar tip."

  He held out his hand.

  I regarded the outstretched hand gravely. "You mean you lost a dollar?"

  "Yeah."

  I reached for the door of the agency car. "I'm sorry, Buddy. I'm going to make it up to you."

  "That's the general idea."

  I said, "I'm from the income tax department. Take it off your return and tell the department I said it was okay." I started the motor.

  He lunged towards me, met my eyes, hesitated.

  I slammed the car door shut and drove off.

  It was four twenty-three when I got to the office.

  Chapter Four

  BERTHA came in just before five. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittering. She jerked the door open, strode into the office, took one look at me and said all in one breath, "Donald, why the hell don't you go in the private office and read the newspaper?"

  "I've seen the newspaper."

  "Well, sit in there and twiddle your thumbs then. Don't sit out here. It takes Elsie's mind off her business."

  "She's been typing right along," I said. "Anyhow it's quitting time."

  "Well," Bertha snapped, "it takes her mind off her business just the same. I'll bet she's been making mistakes."

  She strode over to the typewriter, looked at the last two pages Elsie had done and pointed an accusing finger. "There you are," she said. "An erasure, another erasure. Here's a third one."

  "What of it?" I said. "Rubber companies pay dividends out of selling typewriter erasers. They know that stenographers are going to make mistakes once in a while. Three mistakes on four pages isn't too much."

  "Humph! That's what you think. Look at these."

  She ran through several other pages. There wasn't so much as the evidence of an erasure on them.

  I looked at Elsie. Her cheeks were flaming red.

  "A fine detective you are," Bertha grunted. "Come in."

  I started to say something, but Elsie's eyes were pleading

  with me not to, so I followed Bertha into the private office.

  "A hell of a mess," Bertha said angrily, slamming back the

  cover of a humidor and helping herself to a cigarette. "What's the matter, did you miss them?"

  "No, I picked them up all right. She's Mrs. Ellery Crailand she's driving a Buick Roadmaster that's registered in her name. The man with her is Rufus Stanberry. He's the man who owns the building. He lives at 3271 Fulrose Avenue in the Fulrose Apartments. That's a swanky place with lots of liveried servants and a lot of gingerbread on the lobby entrance. He drives a big Cadillac."

  I said, "It looks to me as though you've done a pretty good job, Bertha. What's the trouble?"

  "Trouble ! " Bertha all but screamed at me. "Of all the dirty damn messes ! "

  "Go ahead, unburden yourself."

  Bertha controlled herself with an effort, said angrily, "God knows what it is. I guess it's a knack you have—something like an evil eye. Whenever you start in on a case, it never nuts smooth. Something always goes sour."

  I fished out one of the packets of cigarettes I had bought from the girl at the Rendezvous and shook out a cigarette.

  Bertha's hand jerked towards the humidor on the desk. "Use one of these, lover, during office hours. I charge them to office expense."

  I conveyed my cigarette to my lips, put the packet back in the pocket, struck a match and said, "This is on the expense account, too."

  "How come?"

  "I bought it from the girl at the Rendezvous."

  Bertha started to say something, then thought better of it.

  I took all three packets from my pocket, placed them on the desk.

  Bertha glowered. "What the hell's the idea?"

  "Nothing," I said casually. "They're my brand, and she had pretty legs, that's all."

  Bertha all but choked.

  "Go ahead," I invited.

  "Damn you," Bertha said, "I don't know whether you realise how much you irritate me."

  I met her angry eyes. "Want to dissolve the partnership?”

  “No!" she yelled.

  "Then shut up," I said.

  We locked eyes for a minute, then I gave her a chance for a diversion. "What happened when you shadowed Mrs. Crail?"

  Bertha took a deep drag at the cigarette, exhaled, said, "I sat out in front of the Rendezvous. I've been there perhaps five minutes when the door opens and these two people come

  out. You've described them to a tee. It's like shooting fish in a rain barrel.

  "They stand in front of the building for a minute, then separate. The man looks at a wrist watch, then gets in a big Cadillac. The woman goes tripping down the street. I have to make up my mind. I pick the man."

  I nodded. "The man was the one I wanted."

  Bertha's eyes glittered at me. "You'd jammed the agency car right up against this big Cad, and he just shoved it the hell out of there without even trying to inch his way out. Made me so damn mad I all but gave him a piece of my mind."

  I didn't say anything.

  "You shouldn't have left the agency car there. You'd squeezed right up against this big Cad."

  I took a drag at the cigarette.

  "Well," Bertha went on, "I tailed this Cad. He drove pretty fast to Garden Vista Boulevard. Then he went down the boulevard and damned if there wasn't some car tagging along behind me! I took a gander, and it was Mrs. Grail following this Cad."

  I raised my eyebrows.

  "Well, I pulled off to the right to see whether she was trying to tail me, and she slowed right down, waiting for some other car to move in. She didn't want to get close enough to the Cad so the driver could see her."