A. Fair - Up for Grabs

Kramer said, “I’m back and forth to the airport quite a bit. Any time I go, you’re welcome to ride along. I like company. You’re a good egg.”

“Thanks,” I told him.

We got out to the dirt road and turned in. Buck drove the car up to the parking area and stopped. I got up and gave him my hand. “Thanks, Buck.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “I guess a guy in this job gets like a horse. He can size up a rider pretty damned fast.”

I went to my cabin, washed up and decided to stroll out and see what Dolores Ferrol had to say before I tried to make any contact with Helmann Bruno.

Dolores was out on the horseback ride. She occasionally went out when there were women along who needed to be indoctrinated into the informalities of ranch life.

When I came back, a man was standing at the door of my cabin. He apparently was trying to fit a key to the spring lock on my door.

He turned to me with a friendly smile. “Seem to be having a devil of a time making this key work,” he said. Then he turned back to door, and almost in the same breath exclaimed, “Well no wonder! It’s the wrong cabin. Now, how could I have been so stupid? I am not usually troubled with a lack of orientation.”

I walked up on the porch.

“Good heavens, don’t tell me this is your cabin!”

“This is my cabin.”

“Well, well, well, I guess we’re next-door neighbors. I’m A. B. Melvin of Dallas, the ‘A. B.’ standing for ‘Alexis Bott.’ Can you imagine parents inflicting names like that on an offspring?”

“You’re an attorney, I take it, Mr. Melvin?”

“Why, that’s right. How in the world did you guess that?”

“Just from your manner.”

He said, “I didn’t get your name.”

“Lam,” I told him. “Donald Lam.”

He extended his hand, pumped my arm up and down with an excess of cordiality.

“You’re on a vacation, I take it, Mr. Lam?”

“In a way,” I said. “And you’re here on business?”

“Well...” He paused, then grinned and said, “In a way.

“I’m right next door to you, Lam,” he said, pointing to the next cabin, “and we’ll probably be seeing quite a bit of each other.”

“I thought that cabin over there was occupied, I said. Miss Doon, I believe, from Los Angeles. What happened to her?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Melvin said, “but there was some young woman here who left rather unexpectedly — got a telegram about her mother being in serious condition or taking a turn for the worse or something.

“What did this girl look like — rather blonde, slender?”

I nodded.

“I guess that’s the one all right,” Melvin said. “Her mother took a bad turn. She had to go back.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “I thought that she’d been having a rather tough time of it and needed a rest.”

Melvin let that go as of no interest to him. “You’re going to be here for a while, Lam?” he asked.

“I can’t tell,” I said. “How long are you going to be here?”

“I’m leaving,” he said. “I told you my trip was partially on business. I’ve accomplished what I wanted and I’ll be leaving before too very long, but I have an idea we’ll see a good deal of each other.”

I said, “How would you like to quit sparring around and put your cards on the table?”

“Okay by me,” he said. “How’s Homer?”

“Homer?” I asked.

“Breckinridge,” he said. “All Purpose Insurance Company. Quite a guy.”

I unlocked the door. “Come in,” I invited.

Melvin followed me in. “It took me a little while to get you spotted,” he said, “but once I got you spotted I didn’t have any trouble running you down. Donald Lam, the firm of Cool and Lam, private detectives. Breckinridge is working on a new angle this time; before he’s used company adjusters and investigators. This time he’s gone out and hired an independent agency.”

“Sit down,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable. Tell me more about Breckinridge. You interest me.”

“I thought I would. Breckinridge is quite a guy. Dignified, likes to be the big executive type. Married money. His wife’s the principal stockholder in the All Purpose Insurance Company. Quite an interesting person, his wife.

“That’s a good insurance company, however. They’re making quite a bit of money, and I guess Breckinridge manages things all right, but he holds his office dependent on his wife’s pleasure.”

“Are you telling me that for some particular reason?” I asked.

“Sure, I am. You said you wanted to put the cards on the table, I’ll put cards on the table.

“Breckinridge had a pretty slick idea. He’d stage a phony contest. Persons who were making claims against the insurance company would win that contest. The prize they’d win would be two weeks vacation at this place.

“The woman who runs it, Shirley Gage, doesn’t have any idea what it’s being used for. Dolores Ferrol is the connecting link — some link — some connection!

“Boy, oh boy, if Homer Breckinridge’s wife found out about that setup! She knows there’s something doing down here and that Breckinridge has a female operative, but she doesn’t know anything at all about the details.”

“Details?” I asked.

“Got half an hour?” Melvin asked.

“Sure,” I said. “However, mind you, I haven’t said anything yet. You’re doing the talking.”

“Of course I am,” Melvin said. “I’m going to do enough talking so that you’ll have to talk. Then you can go ring up Breckinridge for authorization and we’ll make a settlement.”

“Settlement of what?”

“The Helmann Bruno claim. What did you think?”

“You’re representing him?”

Melvin laughed. “Of course I’m representing him, and I have been from the time of the accident.

“When Bruno came to me and told me about winning this contest,” he said, “it was so darned easy he thought there might be something phoney about it.”

“What did you think?”

“I didn’t have to think. I knew Breckinridge has made three or four settlements on account of stuff he’s been able to do at this place. He’s blasted the claimants in two lawsuits all to hell. That should be enough. The damned fool should have quit while the quitting was good, and thought up something new, but he kept working the same old gag.

“I was in court on one of those damage suits, sitting in the audience. I had a tip-off that the insurance company was going to blast the claimant and I wanted to see how they did it.

“It was a pretty slick piece of work. The fellow was claiming he had a slipped disc and they had pictures of him showing off in front of a couple of women here at the swimming pool, doing fancy dives and then they had pictures of him on the golf course.

“By the time they got through showing those pictures, the plaintiff had collapsed. His attorney virtually threw in the sponge. The jury returned a verdict within fifteen minutes — found in favor of the defendant, of course.

“So when Bruno told me he’d won a prize, a two-week vacation out here at the Butte Valley Guest Ranch, I told him to go right ahead and take the vacation. Just to be careful not to overdue physically.”

Melvin closed his right eye in a wink.

“I just wanted to see what happened this time. I gave Bruno an opportunity to get established and thought he’d be able to tell me what was going on. But he didn’t, so I came up here and found that one of the dudes was using the telephone a lot, going and forth. His name was Donald Lam, so I checked on Donald Lam, and sure enough, found that he was a private detective.

“Now, if you’ll come to my cabin with me, I’ll show you some pictures.”