Erle Gardner: Turn on the Heat

The noise made by a typewriter came to a stop, and an auburn-haired girl with brown eyes and white teeth came from behind a partition to ask me what I wanted. I said, “Two things. Your files for 1918, and the name of a good place to eat.”

“Have you tried the Elite?” she asked.

“I had breakfast there.”

She said, “Oh,” and then, after a moment, said, “You might try the Grotto, or the Palace Hotel dining-room. You want the files for 1918?”

I nodded.

I didn’t get any more glimpses of her teeth, just two tightly-closed lips and opaque brown eyes. She started to say something, changed her mind, and went into a back room. After a while she came out with a board clip filled with newspapers. “Was there something in particular you wanted?” she asked.

I said, “No,” and started in with January 1, 1918. I glanced quickly through a couple of issues, and said, “I thought you were a weekly.”

“We are now,” she said, “but in 1918 we were a daily.”

“Why the change?” I asked.

She said, “It was before my time.”

I sat down and started poring through the papers. War news filled the front page, reports on the German drives, the submarine activities. Liberty Loan committees were making drives to reach their quotas. Oakview had gone “over the top”. There were mass meetings, patriots making speeches. A returned Canadian veteran, disabled, was making a lecture tour telling the story of the war. Money was being poured into Europe through a one-way funnel.

I hoped what I was looking for would make a big enough splash to hit the front page. I went through 1918 and found nothing.

“Could I,” I asked, “keep this temporarily, and see 1919?”

The girl brought me the file without a word. I kept on going through the front pages. The Armistice had been signed. The United States was the saviour of the world. American money, American youth, and American ideals had lifted Europe out of the selfishness of petty jealousies. There was to be a great League of Nations which would police the world and safeguard the weak against the strong. The war to end war had been won. The world was safe for Democracy. Other news began to filter into the front pages.

I found what I wanted in a July issue, under the headline: Oakview Specialist Sues for Divorce — Dr. Lintig Alleges Mental Cruelty.

The newspaper handled the affair with gloves, mostly confining itself to the allegations of the complaint. Poste & Warfield were attorneys for the plaintiff. I read that Dr. Lintig had an extensive practice in eye, ear, nose, and throat, and that Mrs. Lintig was a leader of the younger social set. Both were exceedingly popular. Neither had any comment to make to a representative of the Blade . Dr. Lintig had referred the reporter to his attorneys, and Mrs. Lintig had stated she would present her side of the case in court.

Ten days later, the Lintig case splashed headlines all over the front page: Mrs. Lintig Names Co-respondent — Society Leader Accuses Husband’s Nurse.

I learned from the article that Mrs. Lintig, appearing through Judge J. E. Gillfoil, had filed an answer and cross-complaint. The cross-complaint named Vivian Carter, Dr. Lintig s office nurse, as co-respondent.

Dr. Lintig had refused to make any comment. Vivian Carter was absent from the city and could not be located by telephone. There was some history in the article. She had been a nurse in the hospital where Dr. Lintig had interned. Shortly after Dr. Lintig had opened his office in Oakview, he had sent for her to come and be his office nurse. According to the newspaper account, she had made a host of friends, and these friends were rallying to her support, characterizing the charges contained in the cross-complaint as utterly absurd.

The issue of the Blade next day showed that Judge Gillfoil had asked for a subpoena to take the depositions of Vivian Carter and Dr. Lintig; that Dr. Lintig had been called out of town on business and could not be reached; that Vivian Carter had not returned.

There were scattered comments after that. Judge Gill-foil charged that Dr. Lintig and Vivian Carter were concealing themselves to avoid service of papers. Poste & Warfield indignantly denied that, and claimed that the accusation was an unfair attempt to influence public opinion. They claimed their client would be available “in the near future”.

After that the case drifted to the inside pages. Within a month, deeds were recorded conveying all of Dr. Lintig’s property to Mrs. Lintig. She denied that a property settlement had been made. The attorneys also registered denials. A month later, a Dr. Larkspur had purchased from Mrs. Lintig the office and equipment of Dr. Lintig and had opened an office. Poste & Warfield had no comment to make other than that “in due time, Dr. Lintig would return and clear matters up satisfactorily.”

I turned through the issues after that, and found nothing. The girl sat on a stool behind the counter watching me turn the pages.

She said, “There won’t be any more until the December second issue. You’ll find a paragraph in the local gossip column.”

I pushed the file of papers to one side and said, “What do I want?”

Her eyes looked me over. “Don’t you know?”

“Yes.”

She said, “Then just keep right on the blazed trail.”

A gruff, masculine voice from behind the partition said, “Marian.”

She slid off the stool and walked back of the partition. I heard the rumble of a low-pitched voice, and after a while a word or two from her. I retrieved the file of papers and turned to the December second issue. In the gossip column was a paragraph to the effect that Mrs. James Lintig planned to spend the Christmas holidays with relatives “in the East” and was leaving by train for San Francisco where she would take a boat through the Canal. In answer to queries about the status of the divorce action, she had stated that the matter was entirely in the hands of her lawyers, that she had no information as to the whereabouts of her husband, and branded as “absurd and false” a rumour that she had learned of her husband’s whereabouts and was planning to rejoin him.

I waited for the girl to come back out. She didn’t show up. I went to a corner drugstore and looked in the telephone directory under Attorneys . I found no Gillfoil, no Poste & Warfield, but there was a Frank Warfield having offices in the First National Bank building.

I walked two blocks down the shady side of a hot street, climbed rickety stairs, walked down a corridor slightly out of plumb, and found Frank Warfield with his feet on a desk littered with law books, smoking a pipe.

I said, “I’m Donald Lam. I want to ask a few questions. Do you remember a case of Lintig versus Lintig which was handled by—”

“Yes,” he said.

“Can you,” I asked, “tell me anything about the present whereabouts of Mrs. Lintig?”

“No.”

I thought back over Bertha Cool’s instructions, and decided to take a chance on my own.

“Do you know anything about the whereabouts of Dr. Lintig?”

“No,” he said, and then added, after a moment, “He still owes us court costs and retainer fees on that original action.”

I said, “Do you know whether he left any other debts?”

“No.”

“Have you any idea whether he’s alive or dead?”

“No.”

“Or about Mrs. Lintig?”

He shook his head.

“Where could I find Judge Gillfoil, who represented her?”

His pale blue eyes made a watery smile. “Up on the hill,” he said, pointing in a north-west direction.

“On the hill?”

“Yes, the cemetery. He died in 1930.”

I said, “Thank you very much,” and went out. He didn’t say anything as I pulled the door shut.