Эрл Гарднер - The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith

From the bedroom of the suite came the sound of a crutch and cane, pounding on the floor, and a petulant cry of, “Irene. Irene. Where the devil are you, Irene?”

“Oh,” she said, “that’s my husband. He’s just awakened. You’ll pardon me if I draw all the drapes and switch out the light. He’s just recovering from a very severe eye ailment, and can’t stand any light whatever. Just a minute, Lester. I’m coming.”

Mrs. Randerman fairly flew around the room, drawing the drapes, pulling the curtains, switching off the lights, until the afternoon sunlight, filtering through the drapes, became only a vague twilight which showed the outlines of objects in the room, but gave no opportunity for an inspection in detail.

Betcher, who had moved over toward the jewel case, thought better of it and returned to his chair. Irene Randerman moved quickly to the door of the bedroom.

“Where are you, Irene?” Lester Leith demanded in a high, cracked voice. “Who the devil are you talking with? I hate salesmen. You know that. Tell him we don’t want any.”

Mrs. Randerman’s voice was soothing. “It isn’t a salesman, dear. It’s a detective who’s going to protect our property — the best detective in the business.”

Lester Leith said, “To the devil with all detectives. They’re crooks. There isn’t any one of them that’s worth a button outside of Charles Betcher. Charles Betcher and Sherlock Holmes were the two greatest detectives who ever lived.”

“Hush, dear,” Mrs. Randerman said, in a low voice. “It’s Betcher himself.”

Lester Leith’s voice registered a respect which was akin to reverence. “Betcher himself!” he said in a half-whisper.

“Yes.”

“Let me meet him. Let me shake hands with him,” Leith said, and the sound of his cane and crutch on the floor beat a tattoo of sound as he came hobbling through the doorway into the darkened room. “Where are you, Betcher?” he called. “Where are you? I want to shake you by the hand.”

“Here I am,” Betcher said, smiling affably and arising to stand by his chair.

Leith groped his way toward the sound of the voice. Mrs. Randerman, placing the tips of her fingers on his shoulders, guided him through the darkened room.

Betcher had a vague glimpse of a man bent with age and with arthritis, of a drawn, haggard face, a body which had far too much bloated weight around the waistline, a drooping, gray, walrus mustache, a shock of gray hair, and eyes that were completely concealed behind opaque lenses.

“Where are you?” Leith asked. “I can’t see clearly — those confounded eyes of mine. Want to shake hands with the greatest detective since Sherlock Holmes.”

Mrs. Randerman said warningly, “Not too hard, please. The bones in his hands are affected.”

Betcher placed his hand in Lester Leith’s, squeezed the fingers gently. “Glad to meet you,” he said.

Mrs. Randerman guided Leith’s bent figure over to a comfortable chair, eased him down into the cushions, and said, “Now sit there, dear, and don’t try to move. You know it hurts you when you move.”

Leith said, “What’s Betcher want to see us about?”

She said, “I sent for him. I want to hire him to protect my jewelry.”

“Protect your jewelry — what for?”

“So it won’t be stolen, silly, and so you won’t worry about it.”

“I don’t give a hoot about the jewels,” Lester Leith said. “I worry about thieves. I don’t want thieves snooping around here. My eyes are bad. I can’t see people. Living in the dark that way, you don’t want to think you’re in a room where a thief may sneak up behind you.”

Betcher said, “I have undertaken the job of safeguarding your jewels, and I doubt if you will be troubled by any thieves.”

“That’s fine,” Leith admitted. “How much do you want?”

Betcher said, “The service is rather unusual. I wouldn’t know just how to go about fixing a price. It would depend somewhat on...”

“How much?” Lester Leith interrupted in his cracked, shrill voice.

“Taking into consideration the value of the jewelry and...”

“How much?”

“A thousand dollars!” Betcher snapped. “Cash on the nail.”

Leith, still keeping his high, cracked voice, said, “That’s the way I like to have a man talk. No beating around the bush. Straight out. Businesslike. We’ll talk it over. We’ll let you know in half an hour.”

Betcher said, with dignity, “I am not at all anxious to undertake the employment. I have all the work I can do. You’ll remember that the suggestion I handle this matter came from you, Mrs. Randerman.”

Leith said, “Don’t be a pantywaist, Betcher. You’re in business for money. A thousand dollars is a lot of money. I don’t care how much business you have. If you had a thousand dollars extra, it would be nice gravy.”

Betcher said to Mrs. Randerman, “There will be details to discuss in the event you decide to meet my terms.”

“You bet there will,” Leith said. “When we pay a thousand dollars, we’re going to know what we’re getting.”

“Now, dear,” Mrs. Randerman said. “Don’t get nervous about it. Mr. Betcher is quite right.” Leith said, “He’s a good detective. Best detective since Sherlock Holmes. That doesn’t mean that I’m a fool. He’s too inclined to beat around the bush. He’ll have to get over that if he’s going to do business with us.”

Betcher seemed glad of the opportunity to beat a retreat. “When,” he asked Mrs. Randerman, “will you let me know?”

“Sometime within half an hour?”

Betcher nodded. “That will be satisfactory.”

“You’ll be in your room?” she inquired in a low voice.

“Yes,” he said.

Leith pounded on the floor with his crutch. “Don’t go to him,” he said. “Make him come to us. What’s getting into you, Irene? You’re doing the buying. You—”

“I think you had better go now,” Mrs. Randerman said in a low, confidential voice to the detective.

Betcher nodded and slipped quietly out into the corridor.

“How did I do?” Mrs. Randerman asked Lester Leith when the door closed.

“Fine,” Leith said.

Charles Betcher returned to his suite to find a telephone call from Frank Boyen, President of the Click-Fast Shutter Company.

The conversation which took place over the telephone was not particularly conducive to peace of mind on the part of the detective. Frank Boyen, approached by a man who claimed to have the ear of Judge Mandeville, and who was asking twenty-five thousand dollars for a favorable verdict in the patent litigation, had approached Betcher for advice. Betcher had suggested setting a trap. In the event Mandeville took the money, Boyen, having proof of the bribery, would be in a position to write his own ticket. In the event it was a swindle, Alcott could be placed behind bars.

The net result of Betcher’s activities had been to cost the Click-Fast Shutter Company twenty-five thousand dollars which had disappeared into thin air, to antagonize Judge Mandeville, and to make the management of the corporation the laughing-stock of its competitors and the focal point of a white-hot indignation on the part of its stockholders.

Betcher terminated the conversation as quickly as possible. He assured Boyen that he was “working on the case” and “making progress,” that he expected a “satisfactory termination within a very short time — possibly a matter of hours.”

He hung up the telephone and mopped his forehead. The afternoon was not particularly auspicious for Charles Betcher.

He was just about to pour himself a good stiff drink when the telephone rang again. He answered it, and heard Mrs. Randerman’s voice on the line. She said, “My husband has insisted on seeing you privately. I’m going to bring him down the corridor as far as the door. Draw the curtains and make the room as dark as possible.”