Fletcher Flora - The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™ - 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

Banty listened for a few seconds, his head cocked, and then he pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway and stopped the car and listened for a few seconds longer before twisting around slowly and looking over the back of the seat. I had a wild notion all of a sudden that I was seeing and hearing things that weren’t there, he seemed so unconcerned, but then he cursed softly under his breath and pinched the end of his nose, which was a gesture he had when he was puzzled by something, and I knew she was there, all right, and Banty saw her.

“Wake her up and throw her out,” he said.

That suited me fine, because I don’t mind saying that I’m afraid of strange women who turn up all of a sudden in places where they aren’t wanted or expected. I reached over the back of the front seat and shook her a little, but she only turned away on her side and made a little whimpering sound, and drew up her knees like a kid sleeping, clutching them in her arms.

I shook her again, harder, and said, “Come on, come on, you crazy dame, get out of there!” and pretty soon she came wide awake in an instant and sat up with a jerk. She yawned and rubbed her eyes and began to scratch in her short, tousled hair.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re in the back seat of my car, that’s where you are,” Banty said.

“Really? Is that really where I am? Actually in the back seat of your car?”

“That’s what I said,” Banty said, “and what I want to know is how the devil you got there.”

She kept on scratching in her short hair, staring at us with wide eyes, but she didn’t seem to be scared or confused or anything like that. In fact, there was a little smile on her face that gave me a notion she thought it was all pretty funny, a good joke on someone, but I couldn’t see the joke. What I could see, now that she was sitting up looking at us, was that she was too pretty for her own good, and maybe mine and Banty’s, and I wished she would pull down her dress, which was one of these sheaths that keep riding up.

“Well,” she said, “I confess I’m a little vague about it, to tell the truth, but I must have simply come out of the Roman Gardens and crawled into your car and gone to sleep. I can’t think of any other way it could have happened, so that must be the way.”

“What’s the Roman Gardens?” Banty asked. “Is that the place back up the highway with all the hedges and plants and things growing around?”

“That’s it. It’s a nightclub, and I went there with a friend of mine named Tommy. I drank quite a few martinis, and so did Tommy, and he was getting some unacceptable ideas, and matters were complicated by all the martinis I had drunk, which made it impossible for me to be as clever defensively as I usually am. Finally, as I recall, I went to the powder room and then on outside with the intention of getting some air to clear my head. I was feeling dizzy from the martinis, and I thought I’d sit down for a while until I wasn’t dizzy anymore, and the back seat of a car seemed like a good place to sit. I got into one which was handy, and which now turns out to be yours, and it would have been all right, of course, except that I apparently went to sleep, and here I am.”

“Here you are, and there you go,” Banty said. “Get out of here and go back to Tommy.”

“How far have we come?”

“About a hundred miles.”

“In that case, don’t be absurd. A girl can hardly walk a hundred miles anytime at all, let alone on high heels at night by herself on a highway.”

“That’s your problem, sister. I didn’t invite you go crawl in my car and go to sleep.”

“Well, that’s no reason why you can’t be a gentleman about it. What was done is done, however unfortunate, and you will simply have to take me back where you found me.”

“This is where we found you, sister, and this is as far as we take you.”

She was looking at Banty with this queer little smile still on her face, as if she was still convinced that she was a good joke on someone, but I could have told her, knowing Banty, that the joke was on her, and it wasn’t a very good one, either.

“I promise to make it worth your while if you take me back,” she said.

“How much?”

“A thousand dollars.”

“Come off. Where would a tramp like you get a grand?”

“You might be surprised. Take me back, I’ll give it to you.”

“Let me see it.”

“You insist upon being absurd, don’t you? You must not be very intelligent. I don’t have it with me, of course.”

“You don’t have it anywhere. I may not be very intelligent, sister, but I’m intelligent enough to know when a common little tramp is telling a fat lie. Besides, I happen to need about three grand at the moment, and I couldn’t take less for my trouble.”

“All right. Three thousand. It makes no difference to me. It isn’t my money.”

“No? Whose is it?”

“My father’s, of course.”

“Oh, sure. You old man’s a millionaire, that’s what he is.”

“That’s right. He is.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name is Arnold Gotlot, and I’m Felicia Gotlot, and we live at Number One, Gotlot Place. It’s a private street that belongs to my father, and so it’s named after him, and we have the only house on it.” Well, if she was a liar, she was a good one. She said it casually, with the sound of truth, as if it were something she was used to saying, and she couldn’t have picked a better old man if she had tried all night, for Arnold Gotlot was a millionaire, sure enough, and everyone knew that much about him, although not much more than that, for he was a reclusive old devil who didn’t say much and wasn’t seen much and, in fact, made a kind of principle or something out of his privacy.

Banty had begun to pinch the end of his nose now, which might be a good sign or a bad sign, depending on what caused it and what came of it, and he and Felicia Gotlot, if that’s who she was, were still staring at each other and seemed to be taking each other’s measure. I was on Banty’s side in whatever might develop, but I was beginning to have an uneasy feeling that I might not be backing the winner.

“In my opinion,” Banty said, “you’re a liar.”

“In my opinion,” she said, “you’re a fool.”

“Get out,” he said.

“If I do, you’ll be sorry.”

“You’re the one who will be sorry if you don’t,” he said.

“Kidnapping’s a serious offense,” she said. “Isn’t it Federal? Don’t they put you in the gas chamber for it?”

Well, now, just like that! Just like explaining something simple to a kid. I felt as if I’d been hit in the belly with a ball bat. It even shook old Banty up. His mouth popped open, and he stopped pinching the end of his nose, and I could tell that he was trying to keep a clear head in spite of being surprised and confused by what she’d suddenly said.

“What do you mean, kidnapping? Who’s kidnapped anyone?”

“That depends on whether you take me back to Kansas City,” she said. “If you don’t, I’ve been kidnapped, and you’d better believe it.”

“You think you can get away with something like that? You just told us you were loaded on gin and went to sleep in the back seat.”

“That’s what I told you . What I tell my father and the police could be something else entirely.”

“Banty,” I said, “I don’t like it. Let’s take her back and be done with it.”

“Wait a minute. I’m thinking.” Banty was pinching the end of his nose again, staring at Felicia Gotlot with odd intensity, and it was apparent that he was thinking hard and fast about something that just come into his head. “I’m beginning to believe this dame. She is Felicia Gotlot, all right. Look at that dress. It doesn’t look like much, and there isn’t much to it, that’s for sure, but I’ll bet it cost three, four hundred at least, if it cost a penny. Look at that bracelet on her wrist. Those are real diamonds, if I ever saw one. Look at that fur piece. It could be mink, and I’ll bet it is.”