Dames Don’t Care

by Peter Cheyney

  I get up an' I hold out my hand.

  "Fine, Burdell," I tell him. "I reckon you're a wise guy to come clean. I'm beginning to think that this Henrietta bumped Granworth all right, an' if she did, well she'll have to fry for it.

  He shakes hands with me an' I scram.

  I say so- long to the dame with the french heels outside, an' I take the elevator down. I ease along pretty quick to the caretaker's office on 'the entrance floor an' flash my badge an' grab the telephone. I get chief operator at the telephone exchange.

  I tell the chief operator who I am an' I also tell him that I have just left Burdell's office an' that I have got an idea that Burdell will be puttin' a long-distance call through to somebody at Palm Springs pretty quick. I say that they are to listen in to that call an' take a note of it an' who the guy is at the other end who takes it. I say that they are to keep this shorthand note for me to call for an' that they can check up on my authority in the meantime.

  The chief operator says OK.

  I then go back to my hotel an' give myself a swell cigar. First of all it is quite plain to me that this second story of Burdell's is not so hot either. I'll tell you why.

  Supposin' he did know that Henrietta had taken the letters outa the desk drawer because they proved she'd seen Granworth on the night he died. Well, wouldn't it have been sensible for Burdell to think that she took 'em to destroy 'em, not to carry 'em about with her? How did be know they was at Palm Springs? There's only one way he coulda been certain of that an' that was if somebody dovin at Palm Springs had told him that she still had 'em an' had 'em in the rancho where she was stayin'.

  So I reckon that after I have got out of his office he is goin' to telephone through to this guy an' say that I have blown in an' tell him that I have fallen for this story an' that everything is OK, an' that the job has been played the way this Burdell bird wants it played.

  An' this brings me to another little thing. What about that picture of me cut out of the Chicago Times an' sent down to somebody at the Hacienda Altmira at Palm Springs? Don't it look like Burdell sent that too? An' the reason he sends it is easy. When he has sent me the anonymous letter he knows I will scram out to Palm Springs so he gets 'em good an' ready for me. He searches around until he finds a newspaper that has gotta picture of me in it an' he cuts it out, writes 'this is the guy' on it, an' sends it down to the Hacienda.

  An' this Burdell bird is goin' to slip up plenty in a minute. Mind you, the guy has got brains - plenty brains. He knows that I can figure out that it was him that wrote the anonymous letter to me, an' St he has a swell story all ready for me when I blow in; but what he don't know is that I am wise to that picture business, an' that is just where he is goin' to slip up.

  I reckon that you will agree that this bezusus is gettin' good an' interestin'. It is beginnin' to get me interested-almost!

  I stick around till it is six o'clock, an' then I get another idea. I think that I will ring through to the New York 'G' Office an' ask 'em if they have despatched them pictures of the Aymes' servants, the butler, the chauffeur an' the maid, that they was goin' to send to me at Palm Springs. I am lucky. They tell me that they have sent off one lot but they have got a duplicate set an' they fix to send these around to me at the hotel. I also ask 'em to send somebody around to the main exchange office an' see if they have gotta transcript of the shorthand notes of any telephone conversation that Burdell has had since I went outa the office, an' they say they will do this.

  After which I give myself another shower to pass the time an' change into a tuxedo just so's I can feel civilised for one night anyhow.

  At seven o'clock things begin to happen. An agent comes round from the 'G' Office with a note of a conversation that Burdell has had with Palm Springs. He leaves this an' he leaves the packet of duplicate pictures an' after he has had a little rye with me he goes. I read the note of the Burdell conversation, and do I get one big kick outa it. Here it is:

  New York Central Exchange Time: 5.24 pm

  Report of long-distance telephone conversation from office of Langdon Burdell Central 174325 and Hacienda Altmira, Palm Springs, Calif.

  Call from Burdell Office 5.24

  Burdell Office: - Hello. Long-distance call please. This is Central 174325, office of Langdon Burdell, calling Palm Springs 674356.

  Operator: - You are Central 174325 Langdon Burdell calling Palm Springs, California. Palm Springs 674356. Hang up please I will call you.

  Time: 5.32

  Operator: - Hello, Central 174325. Here is your Palm Springs number. Take your call please.

  Burdell Office: - Hello, hello, Hacienda Altmira?

  Hacienda: - Yes, who are you? What do you want?

  Burdell Office: -This is Langdon Burdell. Is Ferdie there?

  Hacienda: - Sure. I'll get him. How you makin' out, Lang-don? Hang on, I'll get Ferdie.

  Hacienda: - Hello, Langdon?

  Burdell Office: - Is this you, Ferdie?

  Hacienda: - You betcha. What do you know?

  Burdell Office: - Listen kid. Get an earful of this an' don't make any mistakes. Are you listenin'? OK. Well, this afternoon this goddam Caution comes bustin' around here askin' plenty questions. He has fell for this business an' he is on to me for writin' the anonymous letter to him an' startin' him off after the letters at Palm Springs. I tell him the works. I tell him how I tried to cover up for the Aymes dame until this counterfeitin' business starts an' then I get a screwy idea that after all she has probably bumped Granworth an' that I do not want to be a party to a murder rap so I am cashin' in with the truth. The big mug listens with his ears flappin' an' then shakes me by the hand an' scrams. I have also wised him up to the fact that the original bonds that was given to Henrietta was OK an' that she musta got the phoney ones herself. Now listen, Ferdie, I reckon that he is comm' back to Palm Springs plenty quick an' that he is lyin' to pinch Henrietta just as soon as he can get his hooks on her. Because if he can pin the murder thing on her an' she gets the chair, the Feds are goin' to take it for granted that she pulled the counterfeitin' too because that will be the easiest way to close the case down. You got all that?

  Hacienda: - Swell, Lan gdon. Okie doke. An' 1 play it the way we said.

  Burdell Office:-You bet your life. What you gotta do is to get hitched up to the dame. You gotta make her marry you. You can do it easy. When that big mug Caution conies back an' starts gumshoein' around she's goin' to get good an' scared. Then pull your stuff. You tell her that the only way she can beat this murder rap is if we say that our original evidence was right - that she wasn't in New York the night Granworth did the high divin' act. After that everything's easy. You got all that, Ferdie?

  Hacidenda: - You said it. I got it OK.

  Burdell Office: - Give Periera a lovin' kick in the pants for me an' tell him I'll be seem' him directly this job's finished an' we get where we wanta. So long, Ferdie. Keep your nose clean baby an' no gun play if you can keep oft it.

  Hacienda: - 'Bye, Langdon. An' don't you get your nose dirty either. I'll be seem' you.

  Call ends.

  Operator: - G. O. Tarnet.

  Shorthand notes by V. L. O'Leary.

  Is this sweet readin' or is it? It looks like I am dead right in my ideas about this Burdell guy, an' I reckon that before I am through with him I am goin' to hand him something for callin' me that big mug Caution. It is an extraordinary thing how all these guys who are up to funny business always think that any kinda policeman is a mug. It's a sorta rule with them, but now an' again they find out that the drinks are on them.

  But believe me I ain't said nothin' yet. When I have read through the notes I undo the package of pictures. There are three of 'em - Dubuinet the maid, Palantza the butler an' Termiglo the chauffeur, an' when I look at this last mug do I get a kick? Because Termiglo the chauffeur is nobody else but Fernandez, the big guy at the Hacienda AItnura, the guy I smacked down, an' threw down the stairs! Boy, is this beginnin' to look good or is it?

&nb
sp; So Fernandez was the chauffeur in the Aymes family under the name of Juan Teriniglo, an' now he is Fernandez the big gambler out at the Hacienda. Now I am beginning to understand about the picture of me that was sent down there. Burdell sent it all right an' he sent it to Fernandez so's he would know who I was, an' it was Fernandez who let Burdell know where Henrietta's three letters was.

  But wait just one little minute! Let's get this straight. How did Fernandez know where Henrietta had got them letters hidden?

  I reckon that he knew where they was hidden because he was the guy who planted them there. Didn't I tell you that I found them letters a durn sight too easy? The way they was stuck in that cut out book of poetry looked to me as if they was just shriekin' to be found by anybody who had enough sense to look in the right sorta places.

  An' if I am right about this-an' I believe I am - then Burdell is a double liar. All that stuff he told me about Henrietta findin' them letters in Granworth's desk an' takin' 'em away is just a lotta punk.

  OK. So we found something out ain't we? Something that is beginnin' to look good. I have already got a bunch of ideas stewin' around in my head about this new set-up.

  I grab a piece of paper an' a pencil an' I write it down just to sorta analyse it in my mind. Here it is:

  Point 1: -Burdell gets the servants to say at the inquest that Henrietta is outa town on the night of Aymes' death. He gives the Cotton's Wharf watchman one thousand bucks to keep his mouth shut about the woman in the car.

  Point 2:- When the counterfeit dollar bond is passed by Henrietta and Caution is brought on in the job, Burdell tells him the same story as he told at the inquest. Right then he gets the three letters which he has found in Granworth's desk an' sends them to Fernandez who is out at the Hacienda and tells him to plant them somewhere where they will be found easy in Henrietta's room at the rancho. He then writes an anonymous letter to Caution an' tells him to get out to Palm Springs an' grab the letters which will tell him a lot.

  Point 3 - Caution goes to Palm Springs, finds the letters, and also the picture and begins to think there is something screwy going on. He comes back to New York and sees Burdell. Burdell tells Caution a swell story which explains his change of front. Caution makes out that he is falling for this an' checks up on the next 'phone conversation.

  So what do we know? We know one thing certain an' that is that the Burdell-Fernandez set-up are tryin' to pin a first-degree murder rap on Henrietta.

  OK. Well if this is so perhaps you can tell me something? If these two guys are tryin' to frame Henrietta for the murder of Granworth Aymes, then why in the name of everything that is sizzlin' is Burdell so keen that Henrietta should get herself married to Fernandez?

  Ain't that a sweet question? Because that is the thing that is stickin' in my mind an' I have gotta find the answer somehow, otherwise this case is goin' to get me nuts in a minute.

  But there's one thing you can rely on. The explanation is always durn simple. They always are when you finally find 'em out, but at the time they look tough.

  Like once when I was in Oklahoma a dame who I was very stuck on hit me right on the top of the head with a tent mallet.

  When I Come to an' I asked her how come she said she was gettin' so durn fond of me that she knew that unless she done something about it she would break up her home an' family because she was so fond of my ugly mug. She said that she had thought it all out an' the best way out was for her to sock me one with a tent mallet because it would create a situation that would clean things up.

  She was right. After she had one sock I left Oklahoma.

  The point is that I am goin' to use the same technique - as the professors call it. I am goin' back to Palm Springs an' I am goin' around with a tent mallet bustin' guys wide open until somebody stops two timin' me an' comes across with a spot of real honest-to-god truth.

  An' here we go!

  CHAPTER 6

  WOMAN STUFF

  WHILE I am flying back to Palm Springs I think out how I am goin' to handle this bezusus. First of all it is a cinch that it is no good my jumpin' around pretendin' to be Mr Selby T. Frayme of Magdalena, Mexico, any longer, because it looks to me like all the guys that I don't wanta know I am a 'G' man have known about it for a helluva long time. Here is where we come right out into the open.

  As far as Henrietta is concerned I reckon I have got enough on her to make her talk, because you have gotta realise that although I am certainly partial to this dame I have never allowed my personal feelin's to interfere with my business, well, not much, an' after all the fact that a jane is pretty don't mean a durn thing because it is always the hotcha numbers who get into jams.

  I reckon if you was to stick an ugly jane on an island where there was a coupla hundred tough guys stickin' around nothin' much would happen; but you plant a little lady who has got this an' that in the middle of a jungle you can betcha sweet an' holy life that some guy will be busy startin' a big lion hunt just to show her what a swell guy he is.

  I will go so far as to say that a travellin' salesman in Missouri once told me that if there wasn't any dames in the world there wouldn't be no crime. We talked this thing over an' after he had had half a bottle of rye he got all sentimental about it, an' said that anyway he reckoned he would sooner have crime an' dames.

  He got his way all right, because eighteen months after some jane slugged him with a car spanner after which he handed in his order book an' took a one-way trip to the local cemetery.

  Just how Henrietta is breakin' with these guys out at the Hacienda I do not know. This is another thing I have got to find out because it certainly looks a bit funny to me that she is stickin' around in a place actin' as hostess an' bein' kissed by some big guy who used to be the chauffeur. Maybe this Fernandez has got some pull over Henrietta, an' is makin' her toe the line which would account for her tellin' me that she might have to marry him.

  It is eight o'clock when I pull in at the Miranda House in Palm Springs, an' I am good an' tired, but I reckon that I am goin' to getta move on with business an' not let any grass grow in my ears while I am doin' it.

  After I have had a shower an' a meal I put a call through to the Hacienda an' ask if Mrs Aymes is around. Some guy at the other end - an' I reckon by the way he talks it is Periera-says what do I want with her, an' I tell him that what I want with her is my business an' that if he don't get her to the 'phone pronto I will come out there an' slug him one with a blackjack. After this he decides to go an' fetch her.

  Pretty soon I hear Henrietta cooin' into the telephone an' I ask her if she knows where Maloney is. She says yes he's around. I tell her that I am the guy who said he was Selby Frayme an' that I am not Selby Frayme but Lemmy Caution, a Federal Agent, an' I wanta see Maloney pronto, an' that he had better get around to the Miranda House good an' quick because I wanta talk to him.

  She says OK an' about nine o'clock Maloney blows in.

  I take him up to my room an' I give him a drink.

  "Now see here, Maloney," I tell him. "I reckon that you are stuck on this Henrietta, an' that maybe you wouldn't like to see her get into a jam, because it looks right now that that is the way things are goin'. I reckon that Henrietta has told you who I am, an' what I am doin' around here, so I don't have to exphin any of that, but what I do wanna wise you up to is this little thing. When I come down here first of all I wasn't interested in how Granworth Aymes died or whether he committed suicide or was bit to death by wild spiders, I was just musclin' around tryin' to get a line on this counterfeitin' business. All right. Well, now I reckon that I am very interested in the Granworth business because it looks to me like the two things are tied up.

  "Since I have been to New York I have found out a lotta things that make it look pretty bad for Henrietta. Maybe they're right an' maybe they ain't, but it's a cinch that she's gotta watch her step-or else...

  "Now murder ain't a nice charge. Maybe it's my duty to advise New York about this suggestion that Henrietta bumped Granworth, but I
ain't goin' to do that. I ain't goin' to do it just for one reason an' that is it won't help me any in the counterfeitin' business, an' that is the thing that I wanta clean up right now. If Henrietta did bump Granworth then she'll fry for it some time, but maybe she didn't an' if she didn't then I'm goin' to advise her to talk plenty an' quick, otherwise she may find herself elected for the hot squat an' they tell me that dames fry just as quick an' sweet as hombres.

  "OK. Well here's the first thing I'm askin' you to do. You get back to the Hacienda an' you have a talk with Henrietta, an' you tell her that I'm comin' out there tonight around midnight an' that I want a statement from her an' that she'd better make it the truth. If I think she's tryin' to pull anything on me or hidin' anything then tell you I'm goin' to hold her right away as a material witness in this counterfeitin' business, hand her over to Metts, the Chief of Police here, an' produce what I know about her bein' tied up with Granworth's death. An' if I do that there's goin' to be plenty trouble for Henrietta. Got that?"

  He nods. He is lookin' durn serious.

  "I got it, Caution," he says, "an' I'm certainly goin' to advise her to come clean to you. It's the only thing she can do. But," he goes on, "I tell you she didn't murder Aymes. She couldn't do a thing like that. Why...

  "Can it, Maloney," I bust in. "You don't know a thing. Just because you are stuck on the jane you think she couldn't kill somebody. I have known dames who usta go to church twice Sundays who have killed guys so I don't wanta hear you tellin' me why Henrietta couldn'ta done it. She can do that for herself."

  He shrugs his shoulders and lights himself a cigarette.

  "All right," I go on. "Now here's something else you can do. Before I went to New York I had a talk with her, an' she said that she might have to marry Fernandez. Now I reckon that was a funny thing for her to say, because I have got the impression that she is stuck on you. Maybe you got some idea about that, huh?"

  He shrugs his shoulders again.