Erle Gardner - Turn on the Heat

Bertha Cool said, “For God’s sake, Donald, don’t think everybody is dumb. I got the play as soon as you threw it over the transom. We aren’t going to have to use it. It’s nice, but it’s dynamite.”

“She says something about Harbet in there,” I said.

“Spilled the whole beans. All about how Harbet wanted to bring pressure to bear on Dr. Alftmont.”

I said, “I want to put in a telephone call for Harbet. I’ll tell him confidentially that we have—”

Bertha said, “You’ll have a hell of a time reaching him. Harbet has taken a powder. The D.A. here telephoned Santa Carlotta about the suicide. Harbet got up from his desk, walked out, and hasn’t returned. He won’t return.”

I thought that over. “I wanted to be the one to tell him,” I said.

“You’re a vindictive little cuss, Donald.”

“What did she say happened to the real Mrs. Lintig?”

“She didn’t know. Amelia married Wilmen, and went down into Central America somewhere. They never showed up again. Amelia left her trunk with Flo. Flo kept it in her place for a while, then put it in storage, and finally went through it and took out what she wanted. She figured Amelia was dead.”

“But she can’t prove it.”

“No”

I said, “That’s what I was afraid of. Insist that this woman is Amelia Lintig. Perhaps we can get by with it and get a certificate of death.”

Bertha said, “There you go again, Donald, thinking you have to point out every play for me. For God’s sake, don’t you give me credit for—”

The nurse came back down the corridor. A doctor was with her. The doctor said gravely, “I’m sorry, Mr. Lam, but orders are that as soon as you’re able to leave here, you’re to go to the district attorney’s office.”

“You mean that I’m under arrest?”

“It amounts to that.”

“For what?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Those are orders. I think that you’ve been under a great strain lately. You are wiry and strong. Organically you’re as sound as a nut, but your nerves can’t stand the terrific whipping you’ve been giving them lately. I dislike to have you subjected to any undue strain, but those are orders. A detective is on the way to pick you up.”

I said, “Can Mrs. Cool go along? I’d like to have her corroborate parts of my story.”

“I don’t think so,” the doctor said. “You’ll have to ask the detective about that.”

He went away. The nurse kept sticking around. After a while a detective came in and said, “Come on, Lam. We’re going to run over to the district attorney’s office.”

“Who wants me over there?”

“Mr. Ellis.”

I said, “What’s the charge?”

“I don’t know that there is any.”

Bertha Cool said, “He’s intensely nervous. He’s in no condition to questioned or bullied.”

The detective shrugged his shoulders.

Bertha Cool took my arm and said, “I’ll come right along, Donald.”

The detective said, “You can go as far as the D.A.’s office. After that, it’s up to Mr. Ellis.”

We went to the district attorney’s office. A secretary said Mr. Ellis wanted to see me, and Bertha Cool tagged right along. The secretary said, “Only Mr. Lam,” but Bertha couldn’t hear her. Her attitude was filled with the maternal concern of a setting hen. She held open the door of the office marked Mr. Ellis and said, “Go right on in, Donald,” as though she’d been talking to a five-year-old child.

I walked in. Mr. Ellis was one of these good-looking God’s-gift-to-women guys. I looked at him and could tell his story with that one glance — a nice college boy, an athlete by the looks of his shoulders and the bronze of his complexion, a football player for dear old Southern California, a model student with a high scholastic record, friends everywhere, and a habit of ingratiating himself with his professors. They’d manipulated him into the district attorney’s office as a deputy, and he was filled to the collar button with the abstract legal lore of a law school.

He said, “Mr. Lam, your activities in this case have been rather remarkable.”

I said, “Haven’t they?”

He flushed.

I said, “It’s an awful shock to learn that my own aunt is guilty of a murder.”

“And, by a remarkable coincidence,” he said, “in a case which you were investigating.”

I raised my eyebrows and said, “A case I was investigating?” and looked blankly at Bertha Cool.

Bertha Cool said, “There’s some mistake. Donald is working for me. We weren’t investigating any murder.”

“Why did he go to Oakview?” Ellis asked.

Bertha said, “I don’t know. That was private business. He asked for time off. It had something to do with finding his aunt. They’d been estranged for a while, and he wanted to look her up. He found her in Oakview, you know.”

Ellis frowned and said, “Yes. I know.” And then, after a moment: “Perhaps, Mr. Lam, if you had no interest in the Evaline Harris murder, you’ll be kind enough to tell me why you took it on yourself to run Miss Dunton into your rooming-house as your cousin, and—”

“Because I thought she was in danger,” I interrupted. “I formed a friendship with Miss Dunton while I was in Oakview.”

“So it would seem,” he said.

I said, “I got worried about her. She told me that she could identify a man she had seen leaving that apartment. Of course, at the time I thought that he was the murderer — sort of took it for granted, you know.”

“That’s a nice story,” he said, “but I happen to know that you were trying to keep her out of circulation. You were hiding her so we couldn’t find her.”

“So you couldn’t find her!” I exclaimed. “Good heavens! I don’t know— Oh, yes, I told her that I was going to notify you of her new address. That’s right. I forgot to do that. This business with my aunt came up and—”

“What business with your aunt?” he interrupted.

I said, “She was going to marry a man who was only interested in her money. I wanted to investigate him. I spoke to Mrs. Cool about it, and she said that she’d use the agency and see what could be done.”

Ellis picked up a telephone and said, “Send Miss Dunton in.”

A few moments later there were quick steps in the hall and Marian Dunton opened the door. I think she expected to find us there. She smiled and there was concern on her face. “Donald, how are you?” she asked, and came over to give me her hand. “I heard you were at the receiving hospital. You’re white as a sheet.”

I took her hand, and her left eye, the one that was farthest from Ellis, closed in a slow, solemn wink.

She said, “You’re trying to do altogether too much and you’re worrying too much, Donald. When you got worried about me, you should have communicated with the authorities instead of taking it on yourself to—”

“That’ll do, Miss Dunton,” Ellis said sternly. “I’ll ask the questions. I’d prefer that the information came from Mr. Lam.”

I said, “What information do you want, Mr. Ellis?”

“How did that apartment get all mussed up?”

“What apartment?”

“The one where Miss Dunton had been staying.”

I said, “I wouldn’t know.”

“You wouldn’t know anything about the blood either?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I know all about that. You see, I’d been having terrific nosebleeds at intervals during the day. I went up to pack some things for Miss Dunton and my nose started to bleed. I had a lot of trouble with it, trying to stop it. I was afraid I was going to have to go to a doctor. I couldn’t take her things. I was holding my nose. I left the apartment, headed for a doctor’s office, but my nose stopped bleeding before I found one.”