"So what did you do?" I asked.

  "Well I was in something of a spot, so I swung clean over to the right-hand traffic lane and trailed along in the blind spot of the Cad and to one side of Mrs. Grail's Buick."

  "Good stuff," I said, "unless they happen to turn left."

  "Well," Bertha snapped, "he turned left."

  "And you lost him?"

  Bertha said, "Shut up ! I'm not that dumb ! "

  She puffed angrily at the cigarette for a moment, then said, "When I saw he was going to turn left, I slowed for the car that was directly behind me to go on past, then I was going to cut across to the left-hand lane of traffic. The car behind me was driven by a buck-toothed little bitch who didn't like the way I was driving. She slowed when I slowed, then suddenly pulled up abreast of me and yelled at me, something about why didn't I tell her I was going to spend my two weeks vacation in that one spot, then gave it the gun and shot on past.""And then?" I asked.

  "And then," Bertha said, "she looked to see where she was going just a little too late. Another car coming from the opposite direction was making a left-hand turn. I don't think this trollop ever saw him until half a second before the crash. Even then she might have put on the brakes and saved herself, but she was going fast and she tried to whip around to the right and cut inside of him. She didn't make it."

  "Anybody hurt?"

  "The man wasn't, but the woman with him pulled a faint. They blocked me absolutely and completely. There was traffic behind, and this mass of wreckage right square in front of me.”

  “And that was when Stanberry turned left?"

  "Don't be silly," Bertha said. "Traffic at that intersection was all jammed to hell. It took a cop five minutes to get it moving. And the buck-toothed trollop flagged a taxicab that was swinging left into a parking station and rode away just as calmly as you please, leaving her goddamned car right in my road."

  "Without getting the names of witnesses, or seeing who ?"

  Bertha said, "She gave her name and address to the driver of the other car, and she went over to Stanberry's car, got his name and address, then went around to the other cars. She even came to me. That was while traffic was jammed. It was through her that I got Stanberry's name and address."

  "How come?"

  "Traffic was all snarled up. The traffic coming towards town on the boulevard kept lnching past and you couldn't bust into it with a chisel. Stanberry seemed very decent about it. Of course the cars behind were raising hell. The driver of the other car didn't go around any, but he was writing down licence numbers. The buck-toothed biddy was turning on personality and getting names and addresses. I saw she had Stanberry's name in her book so when she came to me, instead of telling her to go to hell, I smiled sweetly at her and told her I'd be glad to, but that she'd have trouble spelling my name, and I'd better write it down for her."

  "What did she do?"

  "Did just what I hoped she'd do," Bertha said. "She gave me the little notebook and told me to write it down. The name directly above mine was Rufus Stanberry, 3271 Fulrose Avenue. I fumbled around with her pencil getting a good look

  at the names and addresses so I'd remember them, and then I wrote down a name for her."

  "Your own?" I asked.

  Bertha glared at me. "Don't be a fool. I thought up the damnedest Russian spelling I could think of and gave the first address that popped into my head out in Glendale, smiling sweetly at the pop-eyed little wench, and handed it back to her. Then I started signalling for the traffic behind me to get out of my way and tried backing up."

  "And then what?"

  "And then," she said, "I had to argue with some damn bird behind me who couldn't back up because there was somebody behind him who wouldn't back up. There was a lot of tooting horns, and I lost my temper. I tried to slam the car back and locked bumpers with some dumb egg who had come up too close behind me, and this traffic cop came along and poured acid all over everybody, and the damn horse-toothed cluck that had caused the whole business gave a sweet smile to the traffic cop, caught a taxi that was turning left into a hotel parking stand over on Mantica and went away and left her heap right in the street."

  "What did you do?"

  Bertha said, "I finally stood on my damned bumper while the other man lifted on his, and got the cars loose. By that time ..."

  "Did the woman get Mrs. Grail's name?"

  "Sure. It was a couple of names above Stanberry's. I saw it was there. I didn't bother with the address because we have it. I was trying to find who the man was."

  "Did Stanberry see Mrs. Grail's name?"

  "No. I'm the only one who wrote down my own name in the book. She'd done the writing on the others, also their licence numbers. You can bet I didn't write my licence number for her."

  "So what did you do when you got free of the other car—come directly back here?"

  "No. I figured she'd probably be taking Stanberry home, so I beat it out to 3271 Fulrose Avenue. I cased the joint and found it had a private switchboard, hung around there for a while, and then when they didn't show up, I decided to hell with it and came back to the office. What did you do?"

  I said, "I got kicked out of the Rimley Rendezvous."

  "Flirting with women?"

  "No. The manager invited me in, bought me a drink and told me to get out and stay out."

  "He's got a crust."

  "He's right," I said. "He's running a joint where married women drop in for an afternoon pick-up, where a few tired business-men hang around after the merchant's lunch to do a little casual dancing. A private detective is as welcome there as a case of smallpox on an ocean liner."

  "How did he know you were a private detective?”

  “That," I said, "is what gets me. He knew it. He knew my

  name, knew everything about me, knew all about you."

  "Did he know what case you were working on?" Bertha

  asked.

  I said, "I'm wondering whether he put two and two together; that call for Mrs. Grail, and then no one being on the telephone; the fact that Mrs. Grail and Stanberry must have left at just about the time I was being entertained in the office, and then all of a sudden Rimley wanting to terminate the interview. That could have been after he'd received a signal that Mrs. Grail had made her getaway. I don't think it occurred to anybody that you'd be waiting outside to pick them up, and ..."

  The telephone rang.

  Bertha Cool scooped up the receiver. I heard Elsie Brand's voice coming through, then a click and another voice. Bertha was all suave smiles. "Yes, Miss Rushe," she said, "we're making progress. Mrs. Grail was at the Rimley Rendezvous this afternoon with Mr. Stanberry."

  There was silence for a while, then Bertha said, "I'll let you talk with Donald. He's here."

  She passed the phone over to me and said, "Miss Rushe wants a report."

  I picked up the telephone. Georgia Rushe said, "Do you have anything to add to Mrs. Cool's information, Mr. Lam?”

  “I think so," I said.

  "What?"

  I said, "You say the present Mrs. Grail was formerly Irma Begley, and she got acquainted with Ellery Grail through an automobile accident?"

  "That's right."

  "Grail struck her car?"

  "Yes."

  "She sustain personal injuries?"

  "Yes. A spinal injury."

  "Think she really has it?"

  "It seems to have been definitely authenticated by X-rays."

  I said, "Well, she probably got it a year or so earlier in another automobile accident. If we could prove that, would that mean anything to you?"

  "Would it ! " she said ecstatically.

  "Well, don't get excited about it, and don't try any amateur detective work. Let us handle it."

  "You're sure about this other automobile accident?" she asked.

  "No, of course nat. It's simply a lead."

  "How long will it take you to find out?"

  I said, "It depends upon when I can locate the other party to the accident, a man named Philip E. Cullingdon, and find out what he says."

  "How long will it take you to do that?"

  "I don't know. I'm starting on it right away."

  She said, "I'll be waiting to hear from you, Mr. Lam. You folks have my telephone number up there. Call me at once in case you find anything. At once, please."

  "Okay, I'll let you know," I said, and hung up.

  All of a sudden Bertha began chuckling.

  "Why the amusement?" I asked.

  Bertha said, "I'm thinking of the way that little strumpet bawled me out when she went past, and then came back with that sickly sweet smile when she wanted me to be a witness for her. And I'm also thinking of the sweet time she'll have when she goes messing out around the address I gave her in Glendale trying to find a woman by the name of Boskovitche."

  Chapter Five

  PHILIP E. CULLINGDON turned out to be a middle-aged man with tired grey eyes from which spread a network of fine wrinkles. There were calipers around the edge of his mouth, and a certain firmness about the jaw. He gave the impression of being a kindly, somewhat quizzical man who would be slow to anger, but who could really go to town if he was once aroused.

  I didn't beat around the bush any with him at all. I said, "You're Philip E. Cullingdon, the general contractor who was the defendant in the case of Begley versus Cullingdon?"

  The tired grey eyes sized me up. "What's that to you?"

  "I'm checking up on the case."

  "What about it? It was all settled."

  "Sure it was. You carried insurance, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you know the amount of the settlement?"

  "I know the amount of the settlement, but I still don't know to whom I'm talking, or why you want to know."

  I handed him a card. "Donald Lam," I said, "of the firm of Cool & Lam, private investigators, and we're checking up on the case."

  "For whom?"

  "A client."

  "Why?"

  "I'm trying to find out something about Irma Begley, the plaintiff in the action."

  "What about her?"

  "I want to find out about the nature and extent of her injury."

  He said, "I guess she was injured all right. The doctors say she was—doctor on both sides. Somehow, I never felt right about that case."

  "What about it?"

  He scratched his head.

  I did a little prompting. I said, "I notice from the complaint that it was filed just about eleven months after the date of the accident. Were any previous demands made on you?"

  Cullingdon said, "No. That's because the woman didn't think she was injured at first, didn't think it was anything serious. She had a little trouble, I guess, which gradually got worse. She went to a doctor who gave her some routine treatments and didn't think much of it; then finally she went to a specialist who told her she'd developed a complication from an injury she'd sustained—an injury to the spine."

  "And that went back to the automobile accident?" He nodded.

  "So then she got some attorneys and sued you?"

  Again he nodded.

  "And your insurance company made a settlement?"

  "That's right."

  "At your suggestion?"

  "As a matter of fact," Cullingdon said, "I was quite a bit put out about that. I didn't want the insurance company to settle it—not for any big sum."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, I didn't think it was my fault."

  "Why?"

  "Well, it was just one of those things. I thought she was a lot more to blame than I was. I'll admit I was trying to beat a signal, and I may have squeezed through a little bit, but just the same she was as much to blame as I was. Of course, the way it looked at first, no great damage was done. We busted a couple of headlights, crumpled a fender or two and punched a hole in my radiator. She jumped out of the car as spry as you please, and I thought I was in for a tongue-lashing, but she just laughed and said, `Naughty, naughty, you shouldn't try to beat a signal.' "

  "What did you say?"

  "I told her, `Naughty, naughty, you shouldn't go through an intersection at forty miles an hour.' "

  "Then what?"

  "Oh, we took each other's licence numbers and exchanged cards, and a few people came up and gave advice, and then someone kept yelling to get the intersection cleaned up, and that was about all there was to it."

  "Make any settlement with her?"

  "She never submitted a bill."

  "You didn't submit a bill to her?"

  "No, I kept waiting, thinking something might come of it. Then when nothing did—well, to tell you the truth, I had just about forgotten about it when the action was filed."

  "How much did the insurance company pay?"

  "I don't know as they'd like to have me tell."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, it's—well, it was a good round figure. Apparently she really had a spinal injury."

  "I'd like to know how much."

  He said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll ring up my insurance people tomorrow and ask them if there's any objection. If there isn't, I'll telephone your office and let you know how much it was."

  "Will you tell me who carried your insurance?"

  He smiled and shook his head. "I think I've told you about all I want to—going at it blind this way."

  I said, "It's an interesting case."

  "What interests me," Cullingdon said, "is what you're investigating. Do you think there was something fishy about it?"

  I said, "Don't get that idea through your head. I might be just checking up on her general financial responsibility."

  "Oh, I see," he said. "Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Lam, unless she spent that money foolishly, she should be a pretty good credit risk for anything within reason. She got a mighty nice settlement out of the insurance company."

  "Thanks," I told him. "You get in touch with them tomorrow, and give our office a ring and tell us how much it was —in case there's no objection. Will you?"

  "Okay, sure."

  We shook hands. I went down to the agency car and was just switching on the ignition when I saw another car pull up to the kerb behind me and stop.

  The young woman who got out of that car was a slender-waisted, smooth-hipped, easy-moving package of class. I looked at her twice. Then I recognised her.

  She was the girl who sold cigars and cigarettes at the Rim-ley Rendezvous.

  I switched off the ignition of my car, lit a cigarette and waited.

  It was about a five-minute wait.

  The girl came out, walking rapidly, pulled open the door of her car and jumped in.

  I got out of my car and raised my hat with something of a flourish.

  She waited while I walked over to stand beside the door of her car. "You have to have a licence for that, you know," I said.

  "For what?"

  "For acting as private detective."

  She flushed and said, "You certainly do get around, don't you?"

  "So so. Not half as much I should have."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  I said, "I'm a dumbbell when it comes to being a private dick."

  "Looking at it from my angle, you don't seem to be dumb."

  "I am."

  "Just why?"

  I said, "The county clerk's office is closed now."

  "Well?"

  I said, "I thought I was smart. I checked back on the Register of Actions, found where Irma Begley had been the plaintiff in a suit to recover damages from an automobile accident and thought I'd done something smart."

  "Hadn't you?"

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "Because I quit."

  "I don't get you."

  I said, "As soon as I found where she had been a plaintiff in one suit, I made a note of the name of the defendant, the attorneys for the plaintiff, and walked out."

  "What should you have done?"

  "Kept on looking."

  "You mean ..."

  "Of course I do." I grinned at her. "I'm hoping you weren't as dumb."

  "Why?"

  I said, "We can pool information and it will save me going to the County Clerk's Office tomorrow."