A. Fair: Spill the Jackpot

“Well,” I said casually, “we’ll take the cab back uptown and—”

Bertha’s hand clutched my arm. She swung me around so that I faced her, pushed me back against the wall of the hospital. “To hell with that stuff,” she said. “You can stall those other guys, but you can’t stall me. Where are you going?”

“Out to see Helen Framley.”

“So’m I,” Bertha said.

“I don’t need a chaperon.”

“That’s what you think.”

I said, “Use your head. She’ll be in bed. I can’t go out there and wake her up and say, ‘Permit me to present Mrs. Cool—’ ”

“Nuts. If she’s in bed, you’re not going near her. You’re not the type. You’d stand guard in front of the door. Donald Lam, what the hell are you up to?”

“I told you.”

“Yes, you did. I’m getting so I know you like a book. You’ve got some trick up your sleeve.”

“All right,” I said. “Come along if you want to.”

“That’s better.”

We walked down to the taxicab.

“What is it?” Bertha asked.

I told the cab driver, “I want you to drive out of town until I tell you to stop, then let us off, and wait until we come back.”

He looked at me suspiciously.

“Set your speedometer at zero when you cross the railroad tracks. I’ll want to get mileage from time to time. You’ll get waiting time while we’re gone, but I don’t want the lights on or the motor running. Do you get me?”

He said somewhat dubiously, “I know you’re okay, but on a trip out of town that way where we’re left waiting by a highway, we’re supposed to get—”

I handed him ten dollars. “That enough?” I asked him.

“That’s perfectly swell,” he said with a grin.

“Set the speedometer at zero as you cross the tracks.”

“Right.”

Bertha Cool settled back against the cushions. “Give me a cigarette, lover, and tell me what the hell all this is about.”

“Who murdered Jannix?” I asked, handing her the cigarette.

“How should I know?”

I said, “Someone who was close to Arthur Whitewell.”

“Why?” she asked.

“That’s exactly it. Jannix had been playing the thing from the blackmail angle. Someone double-crossed him.”

Bertha forgot to light her cigarette. “Let’s get this straight,” she said, leaning forward.

“The first part of it is a cinch. Helen Framley didn’t write to Corla Burke. Someone did, someone who gave Helen Framley’s name, and told Corla to reply.”

“Well?”

“Get the idea?”

“No,” Bertha said shortly.

“If Corla had walked into that trap, if she’d gone ahead and married Philip Whitewell, the marriage would, of course, have been bigamous. Her understanding would have been that Jannix would get a divorce. You know what would have happened. There never would have been any divorce. He’d have kept bleeding her white. Once she married Philip, she never could make a move to get the divorce. Jannix had her then where he wanted her.”

“And you don’t think Helen Framley wrote that letter?”

“I know she didn’t.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, she told me so. For another thing, it wasn’t the sort of letter she’d have written to a woman in Corla Burke’s position. Someone must have written that letter — and it was someone who was close to Helen Framley.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he told Corla to send the reply to Helen Framley at General Delivery.”

“Why not send it to her at her apartment?”

“Because Helen Framley wasn’t to get it. When she first went to Las Vegas, she’d been getting mail at General Delivery. Jannix had been picking it up occasionally, and probably held her written authorization to deliver any mail addressed to her.”

“I get you now,” Bertha said.

“The post-office authorities were too obliging. That was something the conspirators hadn’t anticipated.”

“I see, I see,” Bertha said. “Go on from there. They delivered the letter directly to Helen Framley. It didn’t make sense to her. But why did Jannix get killed?”

“Because Jannix was in on it, but he didn’t think it up by himself. Someone was back of him, someone who wanted—”

“To cut in on the blackmail?” Bertha asked

“No,” I said. “That was the bait they held out to Jannix. But whoever did it was someone who knew Corla Burke well enough to know she’d never go through with the wedding under those circumstances. Therefore, it was someone who wanted to stop the wedding. It wasn’t done for the purpose of blackmail.”

“Who did it? Who was back of it all?”

“Any number of people, Arthur Whitewell, any one of the Dearbornes — or all three of them. It might have been Endicott, and it might have been Philip himself.” ‘

“Go ahead.”

“It was a nice scheme. It worked perfectly. The only trouble with it was that after it worked, Jannix realized he’d been played for a sucker. He didn’t like it. So Jannix threatened to talk.”

“And got a dose of lead as a consequence?” Bertha asked. “That’s right.”

Bertha said, “Arthur Whitewell wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“He hasn’t any alibi.”

“How about the Dearbornes?” Bertha pointed out. “They’re a lean, hungry bunch of crusaders. I wouldn’t trust any one of them as far as I could throw a bull by the tail up a forty-five-degree slope.”

“That’s okay with me.”

The cab swung down the lighted expanse of Reno’s main gambling street, jolted across the tracks, and headed out past the tree-lined residential district. Bertha said, “So you’re going to go see Helen Framley and try to get the information out of her?”

“I’m going to leave her out of it. All I’m doing is making certain that the other person leaves her out of it.”

“I don’t get you.”

“When I left you in Las Vegas, I was very careful to leave under such circumstances that you’d make a loud squawk. I wanted you to tell everyone who had any connection with the case just what a heel I’d turned out to be, that I’d run away with Helen Framley. That information wouldn’t have meant much except to one person.”

“Who?”

“The murderer.”

“Fiddlesticks. I don’t think there’s anything to that. You’re in love with that girl, Donald Lam, and because you are, you’re worrying about her. But in case you’re right, I’m going to be in on the finish.”

I said, “You can wait in the cab if you want to.”

“But no one could possibly get out there for a long while.”

“I’m not so certain about that. Remember that Endicott stayed behind at the Reno airport; that Arthur Whitewell didn’t go up to the room with his son; that Ogden Dearborne is a pilot and has a quarter interest in an airplane. He didn’t say anything about placing that at Philip’s disposal. Why?”

“Perhaps because he only owned a one-quarter interest.”

“That may be, and then again he may have wanted to go somewhere in a hurry himself.”

“Or with his ‘sister?” Bertha asked.

“Or his mother.”

Bertha Cool said, “Well, of all the saps! That’s what comes of having a detective get lovesick. I’d have been more comfortable waiting in the hospital. I think you’re nuts.”

“You don’t have to come with me. I told you the cab would take you back.”

Bertha Cool said, “That’s just it. If I stay out here and shiver and freeze, not a damn thing will turn up. If I bawl you out for being lovesick, take the cab and go back to Reno, you’ll trap the murderer within thirty minutes, make a big grandstand and have the laugh on me. Nuts to you, Donald Lam. I’m going to stay with the show.”