A. Fair: Shills Can't Cash Chips

“How in hell do they figure you could have picked up Holgate’s body and shoved it into the trunk of the agency automobile?”

“They figure I might have had an accomplice,” I said. “Those things do happen.”

“Phooey!” Bertha said. “It would take an accomplice that was strong as an ox and— Who the hell would be so involved as to get mixed up in murder with you?”

I looked her straight in the eyes. “You.”

“Me!” Bertha screamed.

“You,” I said.

“What in hell are you talking about?”

I said, “I’m talking about police thinking. After they get done manufacturing a case against me and looking for an accomplice that would stand by me in a murder, someone who was sufficiently interested to go all the way in the thing, they’ll start thinking about you.”

“Fry me for an oyster!” Bertha said.

“They may do just that,” I told her.

Bertha said, “How do you know this Mrs. Troy isn’t lying? She may—”

“She is lying,” I said. “They’ve got the party who killed those two people at the bus stop. It wasn’t Holgate at all. Mrs. Troy made a mistaken identification. She didn’t identify a man, she identified a mustache and some western clothes.”

Bertha’s diamonds glittered as her pudgy fingers started drumming on the top of the desk.

“Of all the damned cases!” she said.

That gave me a grin. I said, “This is one that you picked, remember? You wanted one of the nice, quiet, respectable kind of cases. You were tired of the spectacular hairbreadth escape cases that I dreamed up.”

“Where’s Sellers now?” she asked.

“At the Ace High.”

“You get the hell down to your office,” she said, “and you let me talk with Sellers. If he comes messing in here with any of his accomplice theories, I’ll pin his ears back, but good.”

“Remember,” I told her, “that anything you say may be used against you.”

I looked back as I went out the door. She was sitting there with her mouth open, so damned mad she was temporarily speechless.

Elsie Brand was waiting for me in my office. “Did it pan out, Donald?” she asked eagerly.

I shook my head. “It didn’t pan out,” I said, “and dammit, it should have. Everything would have fitted in nicely but—”

“Why didn’t it pan out? I thought—”

“It didn’t pan out because a fellow by the name of Swanton had his conscience bothering him and the minute the police pointed a finger at him, he started confessing all over the place.”

“You mean to the murder?”

“No, no. To the hit-and-run. You can cross that off your books now. That’s solved.”

“Oh, Donald,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

Her eyes were sympathetic. She seemed almost on the point of tears.

I said, “Well, there’s no use wasting sympathy at this point, Elsie. We’ve just got to start thinking constructively.”

“Can I help?” she asked, her voice showing that she wanted to help, that she desperately wanted to help.

“I don’t know,” I told her.

“Of course, Donald, you asked for the hit-and-run accidents on the evening of the thirteenth and as soon as I told you about that one in the bus stop you grabbed on it, but actually there were two and—”

I looked at her for a moment, then suddenly jerked her up out of the chair, put my arms around her and started dancing around the office.

“Donald!” she exclaimed. “What in the world are you doing?”

“Sweetheart,” I said, “I love you. I—”

“Oh, Donald!”

“Why in hell didn’t you take a chair and club me over the head when you saw me pulling a bonehead like that?”

“A bonehead like what?”

“Taking one case and not asking if there were any more. Quick, Elsie, what’s the other one?”

“This one was written up as kind of a gag,” she said. “It doesn’t amount to much but it was a hit-and-run and—”

“Where is it, where is it?” I asked. “Come on, quick. Give.”

She said, “This, of all things, is the chief of police of Colinda. Someone sideswiped his car, knocked it into the ditch and then kept right on going.”

“The chief of police of Colinda,” I said. “How nice. What’s his name?”

“Let’s see,” she said. “It’s a funny name for a police officer. I’ll look it up. It’s more like the name of a movie star. It’s— Wait a minute, it’s Montague A. Dale. You understand, Donald, it wasn’t his private car, it was the city’s car, the one they furnish the chief and — well, it seems that the thing happened so suddenly Chief Dale was busy trying to keep his car from upsetting and didn’t get a good look at the car that went past other than it was a big car, and I believe he said he thought it was a Buick. But he didn’t get the license number, and the city council were inclined to be a little sarcastic about—”

“Darling,” I said, “never mind any more. Did that happen on the thirteenth?”

“On the thirteenth,” she said.

“And at what time?”

“At five-thirty.”

I pulled her to me and kissed her. “Elsie,” I said, “you’re a dear. You’re a lifesaver. You’re the sweetest thing ever invented. You’re a combination of molasses, sugar, saccharin and honey. If anybody wants me, tell them to go to hell.”

I went tearing out of the office.

I got in touch with Montague Dale just as he was closing up his office for the evening, and he wasn’t in too good a mood.

“It’ll have to be brief, Lam,” he said when I gave him my card. “I’m late now. I’ve been working in connection with that Holgate case, and my wife is having some friends in for cocktails and dinner. I’m late and you know what happens when a man’s late for a shindig of that sort.

“Moreover, I understand from the sheriff’s office and the Los Angeles police that you’re mixed up in this Holgate case in a big way and I guess it’s my duty to warn you that anything you say can be used against you. Now, I don’t have any personal hard feelings. Thank heavens, the Holgate case is out of my jurisdiction because it’s beyond the city limits of Colinda. It’s in the hands of the sheriff and the metropolitan police in Los Angeles. On account of the conditions under which the body was found — apparently nobody knows just where the guy was murdered.

“Now then, what’s on your mind?”

I said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with the Holgate case — at least, not directly.”

“All right, what is it?”

I said, “Your car was sideswiped a while back and you were run into the ditch and—”

His face suddenly purpled. He said, “Now look, Lam, I’ve discussed that all I want to, and there’s no need trying to needle me...”

“I think I can perhaps help you solve that accident,” I said.

He stared at me. “You think you can find who did it?”

“I think you can find who did it,” I said. “ I give you a clue.”

His face suddenly relaxed. He went over to his office desk, picked up the phone, dialed a number and said, “Hello, darling. An emergency has just come up... Yes, yes, I know... You carry on. I may be just a little bit late... All right, honey, that’s the way it goes.”

He hung up the telephone, gestured toward a chair and said, “Sit down, Lam. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Now tell me about it.”

I said, “I’m going to put the cards right on the table with you, Chief.”

“That’s the best way to do. Go ahead.”

I said, “I have an idea about what happened on the thirteenth of August. I’ve tried to sell that idea to the Los Angeles police. Sergeant Sellers investigated it with me and we thought we’d struck pay dirt. Then the thing blew up in our faces and he’s off me. He’s off the whole theory.”