A Fair: Cut Thin to Win

“Show me.”

She led him over to the bathroom and showed him the splintered wood.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Fowler said.

“Let’s see if I get the sketch,” Sellers said to Mrs. Chester. “You went to the bathroom, opened the window and threw out a note. Is that right?”

She beamed and smiled. “That’s right. I wanted my attorney. I thought I had a right to have him here so I threw out a note to an awfully nice little girl who read it and smiled at me and nodded her head to show that she understood. She went to a telephone and called this number Mr. Fowler had left with me.”

Sellers’ face got black. He looked from her to Fowler, then from Fowler to me.

“Where do you fit into this, Pint Size?” he asked.

“I told you where I fitted in it. I was giving you the information you wanted. All this other stuff is news to me. You’re the one who let her go to the bathroom and lock the door.”

“You got any charge against my client?” Fowler asked Sellers. “—In Los Angeles, that is.”

“I don’t know,” Sellers said thoughtfully. He suddenly whirled to Mrs. Chester and said, “Have you ever been in other hit-and-run cases?”

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I—”

“Don’t answer that,” Fowler interposed. “You don’t have to.” Sellers was frowning and chewing on his cigar. “It seems to me I am beginning to remember some things,” he said.

Sellers was frowningly contemplative for a minute. Suddenly he whirled to Mrs. Chester, said, “What’s your name?”

“Mrs. Harvey W. Chester,” she said.

“That’s your husband’s name. You’re a widow.”

“Yes.”

“Your first name is Tessie — T-E-S-S-I-E?” he asked, abruptly.

She said, with dignity, “My first name is Theresa.”

A slow grin spread over Seller’s face. “I get you now,” he said. “Tessie — Tessie the Tumbler, that’s your specialty, doing a flip-flop on the pedestrian crossing and then claiming you’ve been involved in a hit-and-run.”

Sellers turned to me. He was grinning. “Looks like you got taken, Pint Size,” he said. “You fell for the good old tumbling trick— Now, wait a minute... wait a minute.”

Sellers got to his feet, stood with his legs apart, his face thrust forward, chewing on the cigar. The grin remained on his features. “Now,” he said “we’re beginning to get to the real core of the apple. And isn’t that pretty! I’m going to tell you something, Pint Size, maybe you’re just a sucker on this thing, maybe you’re the mastermind, but whoever is the mastermind is going to get into lots and lots and lots of trouble.”

“And,” Fowler said, “just so you don’t get into lots of trouble yourself, Sergeant, I think it would be advisable for you to get out of here, check in at the police station and ask for official courtesies in the official manner.”

Sellers turned savagely to him. “Any time I want anything out of your bailiwick I’ll ask for it,” he said. “Right now I’m on my own.”

He strode over to the telephone, picked it up, dialed information, said, “I want the airport. This is Sergeant Sellers of police, just connect me with the airport.”

A moment later, he asked, “When is your next plane to Denver?”

He frowned and looked at his watch. “Not until then?”

He hesitated a moment, then said, “All right, get me a seat on it. Sergeant Sellers, Los Angeles Police Department.”

Sellers banged up the telephone, turned to Fowler and said, “I’ll be talking with you later.”

He turned to me. “If you actually paid ten thousand bucks in cash,” he said, “it probably lets you out. But if you just paid ten grand in conversation it means you were masterminding the whole thing.”

“I paid ten grand in cash,” I said.

“Let’s hope so for Bertha’s sake,” he said, and walked out.

Fowler held the door open for me, “And I see no need to detain you any further, Mr. Lam.”

I walked out. It was Minerva’s trick all the way.

I drove the rented car up to the motel I’d rented, unlocked the door and went in.

I looked at the door leading to Elsie Brand’s room. It was tightly closed.

I went to the bathroom, gave my hands and face a good scrubbing with a hot washcloth, and came out feeling a little better.

Things were whirling around now like an electric fan. But that’s better than having them get static in an unfavorable position. While things are moving around, it’s always possible to reach in and grab out something that you want. When they freeze in an unfavorable position, you’re frozen, too.

I walked over toward the connecting door intending to knock, when there was the sound of a gentle, almost surreptitious knock at the outer door of my cabin.

I hesitated a moment.

The knock was repeated.

I went to the door, opened it a crack.

Minerva Badger was there.

“Hello, Donald,” she said.

Her voice was dripping with syrup.

“Hello to you,” I said.

I thought I heard a motion behind me.

“May I come in, Donald?”

“Who’s with you?”

“I’m all alone.”

“Where’s this lawyer of yours?”

“Oh, you’ve met him?”

“You know I have.”

“He’s in his office, I guess.”

“How are the trump cards?” I asked. “Still got every one in the deck?”

“Donald, I have to talk with you about that.”

“Go on and talk.”

“Not here.”

“Come on in,” I invited.

She came into the room.

“You act pretty fast,” she said.

“Do I?”

“You just take the bit in your teeth and start going. You don’t give a person a chance to talk with you.”

“You’re talking now.”

“I need you, Donald.”

“ You do?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you had every trump in the deck.”

“That’s the trouble,” she said. “I think I have every trump in the deck, but I don’t know what’s trumps. I think you do.”

“Talk some more,” I invited.

She said, “You know who I am, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know who I was when I got on the plane?”

“I suspected it.”

“How? What tipped you off?”

“Your clothes, your manner, the fact that you had followed me aboard the plane and then dropped into the seat beside me, the approach, the whole thing.”

“What about my clothes?”

“You were too well groomed for a detective or any kind of a woman having a job; you radiated money.”

“I took my big diamond off,” she said.

“I know you did,” I told her, “and the indentation in the flesh of the finger was very obvious.”

“All right,” she said, “you had me spotted and you’ve got me spotted now. But I need you.”

“How?”

“You had a job to do. You did it. You can help me now.”

“In what way?”

“My Denver lawyer has negotiated a property settlement. It’s not a very good property settlement. If I had the proof that my husband had been playing around and I could put my finger on the girl he’d been playing around with, I could make a lot more money.”

“How much more?”

“A whole lot more.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Talk.”

“I can’t tell you anything that will help you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

“You mean because you don’t know, or because of professional ethics?”

“I mean I can’t tell you a thing that will help you.”

She came over close to me, put her hands on my shoulders. “Look, Donald, I admit that I played tag with you on the plane. I wanted to talk with you. I thought perhaps a little sex would win you over and bring you into my camp.