A. Fair - Gold Comes in Bricks

“How will I know it’s her voice?”

“You can’t miss it,” I said, and slipped out of the room to tiptoe down the corridor. I tapped gently on the door of Mrs. Ashbury’s room, and opened it a crack.

Mrs. Ashbury was in bed with a wet towel over her forehead. She was breathing heavily, and her eyes were closed, but they popped open when she heard the door. She was expecting Henry Ashbury, and was all ready to put on an act. When she saw who it was, she snapped her lids back down again and made up for any false impression I might have had because of her interest in the door by groaning audibly.

Dr. Parkerdale sat at the bedside, wearing his most professional manner, one hand on her pulse, his face grave. A white-clad nurse stood at the foot of the bed. There were bottles and glasses and medical gadgets scattered all over a bedside table. The lights were low. Robert was sitting over by a window. He looked up as I came in, frowned, and raised a finger to his lips.

There was hush in the room — an air of subdued silence which is usually associated with funerals and deathbeds.

I tiptoed over to Bob. “What’s happened?” I asked.

The doctor glanced sharply at me, then back at his patient.

“Her whole nervous system’s been thrown out of co-ordination,” Bob said.

As though the whisper carried to the patient on the bed, she started twitching, making little spasmodic motions with her arms and legs, twisting her facial muscles.

The doctor said, “There, there,” in a soothing voice and nodded to the nurse. The nurse glided around the bed, took the cover from a glass, dipped in a spoon, and held a small towel beneath Mrs. Ashbury’s chin while she tilted the spoon.

Mrs. Ashbury blew out bubbles and spluttered drops of liquid up in the air like a miniature fountain, then swallowed, coughed, choked, caught her breath, and lay still.

Bob said to me, “Where’s Henry? Have you seen him? She keeps calling for him. Bernard Carter telephoned he’d tried every one of the clubs and hadn’t found him.”

I said, “Step in my room a minute where we can talk.”

“I don’t know whether I dare to leave her,” he said, glancing solicitously over toward the bed, but getting up at the same time he started speaking.

We tiptoed out of the room. I looked back over my shoulder, and saw Mrs. Ashbury open her eyes at the sound of the clicking doorknob.

I piloted Bob down the hallway to my room. He looked surprised when he saw Bertha Cool. I introduced him.

“Mrs. Cool,” he said, as though searching his memory. “Haven’t I heard the name somewhere—” He broke off to look at me.

I said, “B. Cool — Confidential Investigations. This is Bertha Cool herself. I’m Donald Lam, a detective.”

“A detective!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were a jujitsu expert.”

“He is,” Bertha said.

“But what are you doing here?”

“Killing two birds with one stone,” I said. “Training Mr. Ashbury and making an investigation.”

“What’s the investigation?”

I said, “Sit down, Bob.”

He hesitated a moment, then dropped into a chair.

“I just missed meeting you earlier this evening,” I remarked casually.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“How long’s your mother been sick?”

“Ever since Ashbury said the things he did to her. By God, I’d like to get my hands on him. Of all the dirty cads, of all the—”

“You didn’t know it until you got home?”

“No.”

“That hasn’t been very long, has it?”

“No. About an hour or so. Why? What made you ask?”

“Because, as I said, I just missed meeting you earlier this evening.”

He raised his eyebrows in a somewhat exaggerated gesture of surprise. “I’m afraid I don’t get you.”

“Up at Esther Clarde’s apartment. It must have given you quite a start when you heard knuckles hammering on the door, and someone said it was the police.”

For a second or two he remained rigidly motionless. There wasn’t so much as the trace of an expression on his face. Even his eyes didn’t move. Then he looked up at me and said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

I dropped into a chair, and put my feet up on another chair.

“You were in with Esther Clarde, the blonde girl who works at the cigar counter,” I said, “the one who was Jed Ringold’s mistress.”

His lips came together. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You’re a liar.”

Bertha Cool stifled a yawn and said casually, “Well, for Heaven’s sake, let’s get down to brass tacks.”

I slowly got up from my chair, intending to point my finger at him as I made my direct accusation. He misunderstood what I had in mind. I could see the sudden flash of fear in his eyes as he remembered my reputation as a jujitsu expert. “Now wait a minute, Lam,” he said hastily. “Don’t get hotheaded about this thing. I lost my temper. That was rather a direct statement you made. I won’t say you’re a liar. I’ll just say the statement is untrue. You’re mistaken. Somebody’s been lying to you.”

I followed up my advantage. I let my eyes close to narrow slits. I said, “I suppose you know I could lift you out of that chair, tie you up like a pretzel, throw you into the garbage, and you wouldn’t get untangled until they lifted you out to put you in the incinerator.”

“Now, take it easy, Lam, take it easy. I didn’t mean it that way.”

Bertha Cool gave a choking cough which sounded almost like Mrs. Ashbury’s reaction to the medicine.

I kept my finger pointed at him. “You,” I said, “were up at Esther Clarde’s apartment tonight. You were there when the cops came up.”

His eyes shifted.

I said, “That business of three detectives getting letters out of Alta’s room is the bunk. The homicide squad might have had three detectives, but the D.A.’s office never had three investigators it could put on a job like that, and the thing had already been dumped in the D.A.’s lap by the police. It was up to the D.A. to uncover his own evidence.”

Bob looked at me and swallowed twice before he said anything. “Now listen, Lam,” he said, “you’re getting me wrong. I was up there. I went up to get those letters back. I knew what it meant to the kid. Nobody thinks I’m worth a damn around here except Mother, but I’m a pretty decent guy just the same.”

“How did you know about the letters?” I asked.

He twisted in his chair, and didn’t say anything.

I heard a commotion in the hallway, voices raised in protest, someone saying, “You can’t do that,” and then the sound of a scuffle. Mrs. Ashbury, attired in a flimsy nightgown and nothing else, jerked the door open. The nurse grabbed at her, and Mrs. Ashbury pushed her away. The doctor trotted along at her side mouthing futile protests. He took hold of her arm and kept saying, “Now, Mrs. Ashbury — now, Mrs. Ashbury — now, Mrs. Ashbury.”

The nurse came back for another hold. The doctor glared at her, and said, “No force, nurse. She mustn’t struggle, and she mustn’t get excited.”

Mrs. Ashbury stared at me. “What,” she demanded, “is the meaning of this?”

Bertha Cool answered the question. “Sit down, dearie, take a load off your feet, and keep your trap shut.”

Mrs. Ashbury turned to stare at Bertha Cool. “Madam, do you know whose house this is?”

“I haven’t looked up the record title,” Bertha said, “but I know damn well who’s throwing this party.”

I said to Bob, “Crumweather hired you to get those letters out of the way. Instead of giving them to him, you arranged with Esther Clarde to use some of them to raise a little dough. You—”