The Count of 9

by Earl Stanley Gardner

  I pushed the paper and the fountain pen over to her.

  She read it and said, “Don’t you want to put the date on there?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not even the date of the burglary?”

  Again I shook my head.

  “Why do you want this?”

  “I may need it.”

  She hesitated a moment, then signed her name.

  I took the paper, folded it, put it in my pocket and said, “Be seeing you, Phyllis.”

  She looked disappointed. “I wish you weren’t always in such a hurry, Donald.”

  “So do I,” I said, and walked out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I drove around the block twice sizing up the place.

  It was dark and I couldn’t tell too much about it, but there was a light on in a front room, and the place seemed quiet and settled. Certainly there were no evidences of excited activity.

  It was steeped in respectability with heavy vines growing all over the front porch. The place fairly radiated quiet dignity.

  I parked the agency car, walked up the steps, and before I rang the bell I took the jade idol I had with me and hid it in the deep shadows of the vine. I didn’t feel it would be a good idea to take that idol in there with me. If the guy was teamed up with Sylvia and she had stolen that idol for him, it was a cinch he’d know all about me and all about the idol by this time.

  I pulled the vine over the idol and rang the bell.

  The man who came to the door was even shorter than I was. He was somewhere around fifty and there was an air of watery-eyed apology about him that reminded me of an alley dog whose tail, tucked down between his legs, indicated that he expected to receive only kicks and stones as he went through life.

  “I’m looking for Mortimer Jasper,” I said.

  “I am Mortimer Jasper,” the man said, the watery blue eyes looking me over with mild curiosity.

  “My name’s Lam,” I told him. “Donald Lam. I’m a private detective. Can I talk with you?”

  “I don’t see why not, Mr. Lam. Would you like to come in?”

  I followed him into the house. We went through a small reception hall and into the front room where I had seen the light glowing in the window.

  This room was fixed as a combination study, den and workshop. There was a big desk, a little jeweler’s bench with some tiny jeweler’s lathes, a big safe with a double combination, a binocular microscope, some books, a big, heavy swivel chair back of the desk and two old-fashioned leather-bottomed chairs on the other side of the desk.

  “Sit down,” he told me in a quiet, gentle voice. “Tell me what I can do for you, Mr. Lam.”

  “I’m on rather a delicate mission.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps you can tell me?”

  I kept watching him, trying to find the best angle of approach. “Do you know a model named Sylvia Hadley?” I asked.

  He picked up a pencil and started doodling on a pad of paper. He waited several seconds before he looked up and asked, “Does it make a difference?”

  “It may make quite a difference.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to talk?”

  I said, “I’m a professional, Mr. Jasper.”

  “A professional?”

  “A detective.”

  “You told me.”

  “I get money for the work I do.”

  “Shouldn’t you?”

  “I came to tell you something that I think may make a difference.”

  “Tell me then.”

  “As I explained, Mr. Jasper, I’m a professional.”

  “As I said, tell me.”

  “You knew that Dean Crockett was dead.”

  “I read the papers.”

  “Dean Crockett had two very valuable carved jade Buddhas. I understand the jade was of beautiful color and texture and without flaws. The carving was exquisite. In the forehead of each Buddha was a blazing red ruby cunningly recessed, which gave the effect of a circle of animate fire within the brain of the Buddha.”

  “Interesting,” he said, still doodling.

  “The night before Crockett was murdered one of these jade idols was stolen. Three weeks before his death, another one had been stolen. Mr. Crockett considered them absolutely priceless.”

  The watery eyes looked up from the pad on which Jasper was doodling, then looked down again and followed the pencil as he made a series of interlacing triangles, put small circles on the points.

  “I know who took the idols.”

  “Do you indeed?”

  “Within a short time the police will know.”

  “How short a time?”

  “Perhaps a few minutes.”

  “Go on.”

  “Sylvia Hadley,” I said, “is an opportunist. She is a young woman who gets around. She is beautiful. She is clever. She is talented. She is uninhibited, and she has had very little experience with the police.

  “When the police interrogate her, she will break down and tell them that from time to time she has, in addition to other things, stolen small but very choice articles of jewelry.” I said nothing and Jasper said nothing. The pencil kept doodling along on the pad, making interlacing triangles and putting circles on the points.

  “She will mention your name,” I said at length.

  “She has no reason to,” he said, without looking up.

  “The police,” I said, “will make an investigation. They are probably securing a search warrant right now.”

  I quit talking and again there was silence, broken only by the whispering noise of the pencil sliding along the paper as it made its endless pattern of interlacing triangles.

  “They will come here,” I said. “There is not much time. Can I be of help to you?”

  “In what way?”

  “I represent the estate of Dean Crockett. I am working for his widow, Phyllis. I have been charged with recovering the stolen idol. There is a reward. If you facilitated the recovery of the stolen idol, you would receive three thousand dollars reward from the insurance company.

  “The insurance company would, of course, want to be certain that it was not dealing with the thief or with any representative of the thief before they would pay the reward. That is where I fit into the picture.

  “I could state that you had called me before the police had any lead to Sylvia Hadley. I could state that you told me you had this article of jewelry; that you had purchased it from a young woman who had said that it had been in her family for some years, having descended through her grandfather who was an old China trader; that it wasn’t until you read of Dean Crockett’s death and a description of the missing idol that you realized perhaps you had the mate to that idol and, therefore, you called me.

  “That would take you off the hook as far as receiving stolen property is concerned, and you would get a three-thousand-dollar reward from the insurance company—perhaps more.”

  “And what do you want in return?”

  This was where I had to make it good. If I made it too cheap, he’d get suspicious; if I made it too steep, he’d throw me out.

  I waited until the watery eyes looked up into mine. “One thousand dollars,” I said. “Cash.”

  “And if I shouldn’t have one thousand dollars—cash?”

  “I think you do have.”

  “Pardon me,” he said. “The telephone.”

  He got up and walked past me out of the room, down the hall. I heard him pick up a telephone and say, “Hello, hello… yes.” Then a door closed and I could hear only the rumble of his voice without making out anything that was said.

  Evidently there were two phones in the house; one in the office and one which was on a separate line which rang in the back of the house.

  I sat there for a while, thinking.

  My ears are good but I hadn’t heard any telephone ring. How did I know there were two separate lines?

  I jumped up, moved over to the desk and picked up t
he telephone gently.

  I was in time to hear Jasper’s voice saying, “You take care of it, then,” and the line clicked.

  I dropped the telephone as though it had been hot and was back in my chair smoking a cigarette by the time Jasper came padding in through the door.

  “My friend,” he said, “you take a lot for granted.”

  “In my business, sometimes you have to.”

  “Perhaps too much.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What assurance do I have that you would play fair?”

  “In your presence, I would telephone Mrs. Crockett. I would tell her that I was telephoning from my apartment; that you had phoned me earlier in the afternoon; that I had gone to see you and that you had told me about having a Buddha which looked like the missing one of the pair; that you wanted her to come and view it, but that I hated to intrude upon her sorrow.”

  Again the pencil started doodling; this time putting circles on top of all of the triangular points and then putting diamonds on top of the circles.

  Jasper looked at his watch.

  I looked at mine.

  “There is not much time,” I said.

  “There is enough,” he remarked.

  I waited for him to go on.

  Abruptly he straightened. He said, “You will write as I dictate.”

  He handed me a pad of paper and a pen.

  “I want to know what you’re going to dictate first,” I said.

  He said, “You will write, ‘I Donald Lam, a duly licensed private detective, received a telephone call from Mortimer Jasper at two o’clock this afternoon. Mr. Jasper told me that he thought he had one of the missing idols from the Crockett collection; that he had bought it in good faith and that he had read with very great surprise the description of the jade Buddhas which had been stolen from the Crockett collection.

  “‘I went to see Mortimer Jasper, and Jasper showed me the idol which he had. I told him that it was an exact duplicate of the idol that had been stolen, and Mr. Jasper turned it over to me, taking this written statement as a receipt and as evidence of his good faith. I am to return the idol to the owner.

  “‘Mr. Jasper told me that he had paid one thousand dollars for the idol and that he wanted to get his money back out of it, but, aside from that, he had no interest in any financial return of any sort.’”

  I played it dumb. “I can get you three thousand dollars,” I said.

  “Certainly,” he told me. “You will get me three thousand dollars and perhaps more. But in the meantime I will have this written statement of yours for my protection. In the event anything goes wrong, I will use this written statement. I will not use it unless it becomes necessary.

  “You have come to me with a proposition that may be fishy. I don’t know. You state that you are representing the estate. That much I do know because I read in the papers that your firm was called upon to guard the collection.

  “Now, my friend, as you have remarked, time is short and we either do business or we don’t.”

  “I’m not in this for my health,” I said. “I get the thousand dollars.”

  “Of course.”

  “That must be in cash. This is a confidential transaction between the two of us.”

  “It is a confidential transaction,” he said.

  “But certainly,” I assured him.

  “Start writing then,” he told me.

  “You’ll have to dictate it over,” I said.

  He dictated it over and I read it, hesitated, then signed it. He opened the upper right-hand drawer in his desk, took out the jade Buddha, took a wallet from his pocket, counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills and handed me both the jade Buddha and the money.

  I pocketed the money, took the jade Buddha, said, “There may not be much time. I want to get out ahead of the police.”

  “I want you to,” he said.

  He escorted me to the door. He didn’t offer to shake hands and I didn’t offer to shake hands.

  I hurried across the sidewalk, jumped into the agency car, switched on the ignition and the headlights, jerked the lever of the transmission over into the driving position and was just starting from the curb when I felt the ominous, cold circle in the back of my neck.

  “Take it easy, buddy,” the voice said. “Drive around the corner to the right. Go two blocks. There’s a vacant lot. Drive into that.”

  I did some fast thinking. “Who are you?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t make any difference.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We’ll tell you.”

  “Cops?” I asked.

  “Don’t ask questions. Just keep driving.”

  I kept on driving, turned the car into the vacant lot.

  “Turn off the engine and the switch,” the voice said.

  I did so.

  “Now the lights.”

  I snapped them off.

  “Put your hands up over your head, clasp your fingers on the top of your head.”

  I did as directed.

  Hands frisked me for a weapon.

  “Get out.”

  I got out.

  Two men got out. They were big men and it must have been hard for them to have crouched down out of sight in the back of the agency car while I was walking into their trap.

  “A little squirt, aren’t you?” one of the men said.

  It was the other one who hit me as I turned; a blow to the side of the head that sent stars dancing in front of my eyes, and made me sick at my stomach. The other man swung a fist and caught me in the solar plexus.

  I went down gasping for air. One of the men kicked me in the ribs. I made a lunge and wrapped my arms around his leg, caught him off balance and pulled him down.

  I heard somebody laugh, then something hit me on the head and that was the last I knew.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was nine-thirty when I recovered consciousness. I was lying there in the dark shadows of the vacant lot. There was no sign of the agency car.

  I moved and it felt as though knives were stabbing me, but I got to my hands and knees and then unsteadily to my feet. I searched my pockets. The thousand dollars was gone, all of my own money was gone; my agency credentials remained, my wristwatch remained. My notebook, fountain pen and keys were still in my pocket. Aside from that, I had been cleaned of everything including the Buddha.

  I tried walking. I made slow and painful progress, but I could move along and gradually the tortured muscles limbered up enough so I could take longer steps. But it hurt too much to straighten up, and I was partially doubled forward.

  I thought I could make it to the light at the corner, but halfway there I began to get dizzy. I felt the sidewalk going round and round and grabbed hold of a mailbox as it came by. I clung to the mailbox and was sick.

  After a while, headlights illuminated me, then I heard a car slide to a stop.

  A voice called, “Hey, buddy, snap out of it.”

  I looked up and tried to grin.

  “Come on over here. Let’s have a talk.”

  It was a police car; a radio prowl. Two officers were in the front seat.

  I walked across to it.

  “What are you celebrating?” one of the men asked.

  “I’m not celebrating,” I said.

  “Hell, that’s blood on his shirt,” the other one said. “Hey, what happened?”

  “A couple of thugs took me in the vacant lot, rolled me and left me for dead.”

  “Got a driver’s license?” one of the officers asked.

  I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out my identification.

  One of the officers studied the wallet with its cards of identification. The other kept his eyes on me.

  The officer with the wallet gave a low whistle. “The guy’s a private eye, Jim.”

  “Private eye, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Name’s Donald Lam.”

  The other one said to me, “What are you doing
out here, Donald Lam?”

  “I was calling on a man in connection with an investigation I was making. While I had my car parked in front of his house, two thugs got in the back of the car and crouched down in the shadows. I jumped in the car without looking and…well, they had me dead to rights. One of them stuck a gun in the back of my neck and told me to drive into a vacant lot down the street.”

  “Where’s your car now?”

  “Evidently they took it.”

  “You got the license number and all that?”

  “That’s right.”

  “All right. We’ll put out a bulletin on it and maybe catch them—you look beat up pretty bad.…Who were you calling on out here?”

  “A man who lives around here.”

  “Let’s have his name.”

  “It was confidential business.”

  “Who the hell you think you’re kidding? Let’s have his name.”

  “Mortimer Jasper,” I said.

  “Where does he live?”

  “About a block and a half down and turn to the right.”

  “Get in,” the officer said. “Show us.”

  I got in the car and directed them to Jasper’s house.

  “All right, Lam. Out you go,” the officer said.

  It was agony getting out, but one of the men helped me while the other one stayed with the prowl car to monitor the shortwave radio.

  I went up the steps of the house, and the officer rang the bell.

  After a minute the door was opened.

  Mortimer Jasper stood in the doorway, his manner apologetic, his watery blue eyes mildly curious. “Is there something?” he asked.

  “I’m an officer,” the man said. “This fellow claims he was calling on you earlier this evening on a matter of business. Two men jumped on him and rolled him.”

  “Calling on me?” Jasper asked, his voice rising at just the right note of incredulous surprise.

  “That’s right.”

  “But that is impossible. I have had no callers all evening.”

  “Take a look at him,” the officer said, turning me around so the light from the doorway came on my features.

  Jasper said, “I don’t know what kind of a racket this is, but I have never seen the man before in my life.”