A Fair: Cut Thin to Win

“You may take a message,” I said. “Tell Badger not to get panic-stricken, to sit tight and continue to be unavailable.”

“I take it this is Mr. Lain talking?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s told me about you,” she said. “Thank you. I’ll see that the message is delivered — if it’s at all possible.”

I took a bath, thought some of ringing the office, decided against it, rang up the airport, asked about Las Vegas schedules, found that there were several planes which had left shortly after I had left with Sellers in his chartered plane.

I rang Elsie Brand’s apartment.

No answer.

I put on clean clothes, mixed myself a drink, waited.

A gentle knock sounded on the door.

I opened it.

Elsie Brand was on the threshold.

“Oh, Donald,” she asked, “Donald, are you all right?”

“So far,” I told her, “I’m all right.”

She came rushing into the apartment and threw her arms around me. “Donald, I’m so glad, so terribly, terribly glad. I was afraid that you’d be... well, in trouble.”

“I am in trouble.”

She laughed and said, “I meant in jail.”

“I’m not in jail,” I said, and then added significantly, “yet.”

“Oh, Donald, you—”

The door which had been left ajar was pushed open, and Minerva Badger stood on the threshold.

She looked at Elsie and said, “I was on the same plane with you, Mrs. Lam, but you didn’t know it. You were in tourist. I was in the first class section.”

She seated herself and said, “All right, what are we going to do about it — but I want to assure you of this much, Mrs. Lam, I had no idea that Donald was married.”

I slipped an arm around Elsie’s waist and said, “I think Elsie is forgiving me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s forgiving you. You tried to buy me with sex.”

“With sex and money,” Minerva Badger said. “Those are the two things I happen to have the most of at the moment.”

I drew Elsie close to me, “Don’t mind her, honey,” I said. “She’s being a little coarse. I never did fall for her.”

“All right,” Minerva went on, “so now we find out the guy is married. It’s okay with me. We’ll leave the sex out of it and start talking money.”

“How much money?” I asked, holding Elsie in my arms so that Minerva couldn’t see her face.

“Lot’s of money,” she said, “provided I get what I want.”

“And what do you want?”

“Let’s not mince words. A nasty little blackmailer named Deering Canby had evidence, lots of evidence. He unfortunately died very suddenly and no one has been able to find the evidence.”

“No one?” I asked.

“No one,” she said firmly. “I retained a Denver attorney and Mr. Canby’s apartment was searched, ostensibly to look for a will, but my attorney had permission from Canby’s heirs to go through the apartment with a fine-tooth comb. He did it. There wasn’t a smell of what we wanted. However, there was enough stuff to show that Canby was a professional blackmailer... Now then, that opens up interesting possibilities.”

“Are you sure he had the stuff you wanted, this man, Canby?” I asked.

“Of course I’m sure.”

The door was suddenly pushed open. Sergeant Frank Sellers, accompanied by Bertha Cool, barged into the room.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Sellers said. “We’ve got in on a family party.”

“Elsie,” Bertha screamed. “What are you doing here?”

Elsie broke away from my arm hastily, with flaming cheeks.

“You didn’t show up at the office,” Bertha said. “I should have known that you were lolligagging around with Donald somewhere. Sending me on wild-goose chases to Nevada!”

Minerva’s face showed a whole series of expressions.

“Who’s the Jane?” Bertha asked.

“Minerva Badger,” I said. “Las Vegas for the purpose of establishing a six weeks’ residence. More recently of Denver, Colorado.”

Sellers said, “All right, Pint Size, I’ve got Bertha Cool with me now and this is it. This is the showdown. Put your cards right out on the table.”

I said, “Okay, I will.”

“Not until I’ve put some of mine on the table,” Minerva Badger said bitterly. “You want evidence that will send this guy to jail and I’ve got it. And for your information I can be had. All I need is a little co-operation.”

Sellers looked at her with interest.

“And for your information,” I said to Sellers, “this woman murdered Deering L. Canby.”

“What?” Sellers exclaimed.

I said, “Canby had some evidence that he wanted to peddle to the highest bidder. He gave Badger the first crack at it. He told him not to be over two minutes late. That meant that he must have had a second appointment provided he and Badger couldn’t come to terms.

“The second appointment was with Minerva Badger here.

“She kept her appointment. She found him groggy, apparently about half drunk. It was a swell opportunity for her to get what she wanted without paying a red dime. She carries a little phial of chloral hydrate in her purse — at one time she was a nurse.

“She fed the guy knockout drops.

“Things had been happening she didn’t know about. The knockout drops were cumulative. He fell over dead. She searched him carefully, couldn’t find the evidence she wanted, couldn’t even find the keys to his apartment. She was baffled. She slipped out of the picture back to Las Vegas and consulted with her attorney.”

There was a sudden, heavy pounding of knuckles on the door, then almost immediately the knob turned, the door opened and Marvin Estep Fowler stood on the threshold. “I got here as soon as I could, Minerva,” he said. “I...” He broke off as he saw the number of people in the room and the tense, strained attitudes.

“And what are you doing here?” Sellers asked Fowler.

“I’m here representing my client, Mrs. Alting L. Badger. And I’d like to know what this is all about.”

“What do you mean you’re representing her?” Sellers asked.

“I’m representing her as an attorney.”

“The hell you are,” Sellers said. “You’re an attorney in Nevada. I didn’t know that the Nevada state line ran into the city of Los Angeles. You ever been admitted to practice law in California?”

“I can advise my client.”

“Just go ahead,” Sellers said, “and I’ll pinch you for practicing law without a license, impersonating an officer of the court and violating the Business and Professional Code.”

I took advantage of the strained silence and said, “Canby was a blackmailer. He had information that he wanted to sell. You know what he had in his mind as well as I do. He was selling it to the highest bidder. He had Badger come first; his wife was to come second. Canby was too smart to have the stuff in his possession, but Minerva here thought he had it in his possession. She slipped him the chloral hydrate and—”

“I’m going to sue you for slander and defamation of character,” Fowler said.

I said to Sellers, “She’s got a little bottle of chloral hydrate in her purse right now. She was planning to slip me a Mickey Finn if she couldn’t do business with me.”

Sellers reached for the purse.

“Don’t you touch that purse,” Fowler warned, pointing a finger at him. “You have no reasonable grounds for search. All you have is the slanderous, defamatory statement of this young man here.”

Sellers hesitated.

I said, “Do you have any objection if we look in your purse, Mrs. Badger?”

“I most certainly do,” she said. “In fact, I’m going to get out of here.”

“Not until I’ve had a chance to question you,” Sellers said.