A. Fair: Shills Can't Cash Chips

She looked at me. I twisted my arm so that the light reflected from the handcuffs. She stared at them with fascination.

“Well, that’s all very nice,” Dale said. “I hope you recover your health. I might tell you, Miss Deshler, that this means a good deal to me, getting this case solved, because you see my car was pushed into the ditch by a hit-and-run driver. I now have reason to believe that driver was Carter Holgate and that he used this purely imaginary accident he had had with your car to cover up—”

“What do you mean, an imaginary accident?” she asked with cold dignity. “There’s no reason he couldn’t have been in two accidents. If he was drunk—”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Dale interrupted, “that the accident was wholly imaginary.”

“Well, I like that!” she said. “Are you accusing me of lying?”

“Frankly,” Dale said, “I’m accusing you of lying, Miss Deshler. I’m accusing you of having faked the accident to your car and of having conspired with Holgate to involve your car in an accident with him. That was designed to get Holgate off the spot and, in case you’re interested, I used a listening device when you were supposedly in the bathroom with your intestinal upset.

“You telephoned someone and asked him for advice as to what to do. Now, who was it?”

“That,” she said, “was my lawyer and you have absolutely no right to eavesdrop on a conversation with a lawyer. I am going to ask you to leave my apartment.”

“I’ll leave if you insist,” Dale said, “but when I leave it’s a declaration of war. I’m giving you a chance now to come clean.”

“What do you mean, come clean?”

“To tell me the truth.”

“What do you mean you’re... giving me a chance?”

“If you tell the story now,” Dale said, “I’ll give you the breaks. If you don’t, I’ll throw the book at you.”

She bit her lip, hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“I think there is.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “All right, if you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth.”

“That’s better.”

She said, “It all goes back to this man that you have with you, this Donald Lam.”

“And how does he enter into the picture?”

“He enters into it in this way. He’s trying to protect the insurance company that hired him. He bribed Lorraine Robbins, Mr. Holgate’s secretary, to say that she saw Holgate’s automobile after four o’clock, and that it was all right. He’s left a dirty, slimy trail of corruption all through this case. He’s resorted to intimidation of witnesses, he’s resorted to bribery, and he’s committed downright perjury.

“He’s sworn that he was a witness to the accident and he wasn’t a witness at all... That accident took place just as I have described it and if you want to throw your weight around and browbeat somebody, you go get Lorraine Robbins and start working on her and you’ll find out that Donald Lam and she have been in cahoots on this thing all the way through.

“And if you want to know, Donald Lam was out there at Holgate’s place before he ever got in touch with Lorraine Robbins and lured her out there with the excuse that they should look for Carter Holgate. I think he has an accomplice. I don’t know who that accomplice was, but those are the facts in the case and I’m not going to be pushed around by any murderer who is trying to clear his own skirts at my expense.

“Now you’ll pardon me, Chief Dale, but that’s the last statement I intend to make. I hadn’t intended to go that far because I don’t want to accuse anyone else of crime. I believe in living and let live, but I’ve been crowded just too far. I am now going to consult my attorney and I’m not going to make any other statement to you or anyone else except in the presence of my attorney.”

She got up and said, “I’m sorry to be abrupt, Chief Dale, but this interview is terminated.”

Dale said, “Don’t let yourself get all worked up, Miss Deshler. I’m just trying—”

“I’m sorry, but you have questioned my word and I am now satisfied that this whole case has been stirred up by Mr. Lam, who has obtained money under false pretenses, who has made false affidavits, who has tried every dirty, sneaky trick in the quiver in order to discredit me and in order to get the insurance company that retained him off the hook.

“I’m surprised that an officer of your experience would fall for this type of thing. You certainly should consider his interests in the case and what he is trying to do. He is a murderer who is trying to draw red herrings across the trail, and you have fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the whole history of investigative work. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m... I’m going to the bathroom again.”

She made a run for the door, slammed it shut and locked it.

Dale looked at me. I could see doubt creeping into his eyes.

“You going to let her get away with that?”

“Hell’s bells, what are you going to do?” Dale said. “She said she was going to the bathroom. This time she’s smart enough to go there. She locked the door. I can’t smash the door down and drag her out of the bathroom. I haven’t any warrant. I haven’t even anything to go on — except your word!”

He looked at me again and said, “Come on, Lam. I guess we’ll go down to headquarters. I’ll have to notify Los Angeles that I have you in custody.”

He walked over and opened the door. “Come on.”

I followed him out into the corridor.

“When you come right down to it,” he said, “your theory stinks.”

“Why does it stink?”

“What incentive did Vivian Deshler have to fake an accident with Carter Holgate?”

“A whiplash injury,” I said. “Look into her past and I don’t doubt you’ll find she’s been in an automobile accident before, claimed a whiplash injury and received a damned good settlement from some insurance company.”

“Could be,” Dale said, his voice indicating he wasn’t particularly interested.

He led the way to the elevator.

“I’m going to think over your theory of this thing, Lam, and I’m going to talk with this Lorraine Robbins.”

“She’s here in this apartment house,” I said. “You might just as well make a good job of it while you’re doing it.”

“She lives here?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay,” Dale said. “We’ll talk with her. But I don’t mind telling you right now, Donald, that I’m sorry I got the cart before the horse on this thing. I should have talked with her first before I went in and tried to get rough with Vivian Deshler.

“She’s in a position to make quite a squawk if she gets an attorney. I accused her of faking an accident, all on the strength of a theory you had, and your theory is supported on what you say Lorraine Robbins told you.

“I guess my personal interest clouded my judgment a little bit.”

I said, “All right, come on, let’s go talk with Lorraine Robbins.”

“You, Lam, are going down and sit in my automobile. You’re going to be handcuffed to the steering wheel. I don’t want you to try any funny stuff. For your information, your stock has taken a sharp nose dive in the last fifteen minutes.”

He took me back down to the automobile, handcuffed me to the steering wheel, went back to the apartment house.

Minutes passed. Ten minutes became fifteen minutes.

A car drew up, looked around for a parking place, finally found one.

I twisted around as much as the handcuffs would let me.

Bertha Cool and Elsie Brand got out.

Elsie was carrying a scrapbook.

“Bertha!” I shouted.

She didn’t hear me.