Erle Gardner - Turn on the Heat

I was interrupted by an indignant pounding on the door. I walked over and opened it. Mrs. Eldridge was glaring at me from the threshold. She didn’t say a word, but pushed the door open, took a chair, slammed it down so that it held the door open, turned, and pounded down the corridor.

Marian Dunton looked at me and burst out laughing.

I dropped in at Bertha Cool’s apartment shortly before midnight. She said, “For God’s sake, where have you been?”

“Out working,” I said. “Where’s Marian? Do you know?”

“No. I called her four or five times, trying to get in touch with you. I thought you were out with her.”

“I went over and saw her,” I said.

Bertha Cool stared at me. “Well, can me for a sardine!”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“That girl did nothing while you were gone but keep Elsie Brand busy answering the telephone. She’d ring up four or five times a day to ask if we’d heard anything from you, when we expected you back, and if we thought you were all right. I’d have bet my diamonds that the first night you were back she’d make you trot her out to dinner and a movie and hold her hand during the performance.”

I said hotly, “Marian’s a nice girl.”

“Sure, she’s a nice girl,” Bertha Cool said, “but that doesn’t keep her from having her head completely turned as far as you’re concerned.”

“Bunk! She’s fascinated by that deputy district attorney.”

Bertha Cool snorted and said, “Who was telling you?”

“You were.”

“Well, don’t fall for that line of hooey. I was just throwing a scare into you. She’s stuck on you — nuts over you.”

“Well,” I asked, “what’s new? Have you located Flo Mortinson?”

Bertha Cool nodded. “She’s Flo Danzer now,” she said. “She used to be Flo Mortinson. She’s staying at the Mapleleaf Hotel, keeps a room there by the month. She hasn’t been in that room for about a week, but I’m registered in the hotel and all moved in.”

“She have a trunk?” I asked.

“Uh-huh, and I’ve moved in a trunk big enough to cover hers no matter how big it is. I figured that’s what you wanted. Mine’s down in the basement. So’s hers.”

I said, “That’s swell. Let’s go do a little trunk lifting. What name did you register under?”

“Bertha Cool,” she said. “I didn’t see any reason for beating around the bush, and someone might know me anyhow.”

I said, “We’ll have to take a couple of suitcases full of old clothes along with us.”

“Why?”

“To act as padding in case your trunk is much too big. We don’t want hers rattling around inside of it.”

“Why not wait until morning?” Bertha asked. “It’s pretty late to pull a stunt like that.”

“We can get away with it. Send yourself a telegram before we go over. When the telegram is delivered, it’ll give you an excuse to pack your trunk and beat it.”

Bertha Cool took a cigarette from the humidor on the table, carefully fitted it into the ivory holder, and said, “I’m not going any further blind, Donald.”

“The light,” I said, “might hurt your eyes.”

“And if Bertha doesn’t know where the fire is,” she said, “she might get her fingers burned. Bertha wants a showdown, lover.”

I said, “Wait until we get that trunk, and then I’ll know whether I’m right.”

“No. If you’re right, it doesn’t make any difference. If you’re wrong, Bertha wants to know where to find a cyclone cellar. And remember, if you’re wrong, Bertha is going to toss you overboard. You’re taking the responsibility, and it’s your party.”

I nodded absently.

“Come on,” Bertha said. “Sit down and quit frowning. Give me the low-down. Otherwise—”

“Otherwise what?” I asked.

Bertha thought for a minute, then grinned and said, “Damned if I know, Donald — unless I pasted you on your sore nose. We’re in this together, but Bertha wants to know what she’s in and how deep.”

I said, “All right. It’s just a theory so far.”

“Never mind that part of it. I know it’s a theory. It has to be, but I want it.”

I said, “Here it comes. Mrs. Lintig and her husband split up twenty-one years ago. Mrs. Lintig leaves Oakview. Oakview becomes afflicted with economic atrophy. The town dries up until the money in the bank vaults dies of inaction and loneliness.”

“What’s all that got to do with it?” Bertha asked.

I said, “Simply this. The Lintigs associated with the younger set. After the town dried up, the younger set moved away looking for more action, more opportunities. The last place on earth where Mrs. Lintig would find any of her own crowd would be in Oakview.”

“All right,” she said, “I don’t follow you all the way, but go ahead.”

I said, “For twenty-one years no one in Oakview cares anything about Mrs. Lintig. Then all of a sudden a man shows up and starts asking questions. Two or three weeks later, Evaline Harris shows up and starts collecting photographs. Now, why did she want those photographs? Apparently she snooped out every single photograph in existence that had Mrs. Lintig in it, and bought those photographs.”

Bertha Cool’s eyes showed interest.

“Then,” I. said, “she comes back to the city and gets murdered.”

“For the photographs?” Bertha asked. “Surely net for those, lover. They aren’t that important.”

I said, “I go to Oakview to look the situation over. Twenty-four hours after I hit town, a cop in Santa Carlotta knows all about it. He shows up, gives me a spanking, takes me out of town, and drops me. Why?”

“So you’d get out of town,” Bertha said.

“But why did he want me out of town?”

“So you wouldn’t get the information.”

I shook my head and said, “No, because he knew Mrs. Lintig was going to come to town, and he didn’t want me there while Mrs. Lintig was there.”

Bertha Cool puffed thoughtfully on the cigarette for a few seconds, and then said with interest, “Donald, you may have something there.”

“I’m pretty certain I have something there,” I said. “This big cop is a bully, and he’s yellow. If someone had beat him up and kicked him out of town, he’d have been afraid to go back. I’ve always noticed that people consider the most deadly weapon is one that they fear the most, without regard to what the other man may fear the most. That’s psychology and human nature. If a man’s afraid of a knife, he figures the other guy is afraid of a knife. If he’s afraid of a gun, he thinks a gun is his best bet in a jam.”

“Go ahead, lover,” Bertha said, her eyes glistening with interest.

“All right. Mrs. Lintig shows up. That was a programmed appearance. There was nothing accidental about it. She breaks her glasses or fixes it so the bellboy breaks them for her. She says she’s ordered another pair. The other pair never came. Why?”

Bertha said, “I told you about that tonight, lover. It’s because the man from whom she had ordered the glasses knew she wasn’t going to stay there long enough to receive them.”

I said, “No. There’s one other explanation.”

“What?” she asked.

“That she never ordered them.”

Bertha Cool frowned. “But I don’t see—”

I said, “She wanted to dismiss that divorce action. She knew her close friends had moved away. But there would be some people left in town who would know her, people she’d be expected to know. They’d be ones who remembered her vaguely, not former intimates, but people who had seen her simply as part of the social background of twenty-one years ago. Twenty-one years is a long time.”