“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“I can’t remember. Several.”
“Well, well, well,” Sellers said. “We’re getting more and more chummy. Now, what does Mortimer Jasper do? What’s his line?”
“He’s retired.”
“What does he have to occupy his mind? What keeps him from going to seed mentally?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he talk about when he was with you?”
“I couldn’t tell you that. We discussed various things.”
“Sex?”
“I told you no.”
“Making money?”
“I think he has plenty of that.”
“Art?”
“Yes. He’s interested in art.”
“Jewelry?”
“Well, he’s interested in precious stones, but not so much jewelry.”
“Any particular branch of art?”
“No particular branch. He discussed the beautiful.”
“He included you in that category?” Sellers asked.
“He didn’t say so.”
“But he looked you over?”
“How do I know what he was looking at?”
“My, but you’re being cooperative,” Sellers said. “You know, we could make things a little rough for you in this thing, Miss Hadley. Perhaps you’d better be a little more cooperative.”
“About what?”
“About Mortimer Jasper, to begin with. You ever give him any money?” Sellers asked.
“No, of course not. Why should I give him money?”
“Okay,” Sellers said. “Did he ever give you any money?”
She hesitated.
“Remember,” Sellers said, “we have ways of finding these things out. We can get a subpoena on his bank account, and—”
“He gave me a check for a thousand dollars.”
“Well, what do you know,” Sellers said, rubbing his hands. “What do you know! We’re beginning to get places!”
“No, you’re not,” she flared. “It was just a…a loan.”
“For what?”
“I wanted some things. I wanted some clothes, and I wanted to get caught up on my car payments.”
“What do you know,” Sellers said.
“I wish you’d quit saying that over and over,” she blazed. “Don’t you know anything else? You’re getting on my nerves.”
Sellers grinned and said, “Now, look, Sylvia, you’re getting a little angry. Don’t do that. You wouldn’t want to do anything that would forfeit my friendship, would you?”
“You can take your friendship and—”
“Tut-tut,” Sellers interrupted. “You’re going to need it, Sylvia.”
“Why the hell should I want the friendship of any dumb cop?”
“In the first place, I’m not dumb. In the second place, you get along very well with your friends. Here’s a guy that’s old enough to be your father; you go out to dinner with him, you discuss art, you don’t have anything particularly in common, he isn’t interested in you as a woman but only as a dining companion who talks about art. You can’t remember when it was you met him or how you met him—just sort of a casual acquaintance—and the guy digs up a thousand bucks. Now, you take a girl that has friends like that and she can go a long ways.”
Sylvia turned toward me. “How does this guy fit into it?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Donald Lam here.”
“Well, we just took him along to keep him out of circulation for a while,” Sellers said. “You know, Donald gets into trouble if you let him run around loose.”
She said, “If I thought Donald Lam was responsible for this, I’d…I’d tell a lot more things.”
“Well, well,” Sellers said, “what do you know. What other things, Sylvia?”
“I’ve said all I’m going to say.”
“That’s what you think,” Sellers said. “What do you say, Thad?”
“I think we ought to check,” Giddings said.
“So do I,” Sellers said. “Get your things on, Sylvia. You’re going places.”
“Where?”
“Just a little ride.”
“You can’t take me to headquarters and question me any old time you want to. I’ve got a date.”
“Ain’t that too bad,” Sellers said. “Another guy gets stood up—well, that’s the way it goes. The best-looking guys always cop the prize. You’re going for a ride.”
Sylvia looked at me and said, “Somehow I have an idea you’re tied up in this. If you are, I’m going to—”
She stopped, but continued to look at me.
“You’re going to what?” Sellers asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
“I think this is worth looking into a lot further,” Giddings said to Sellers.
“So do I,” Sellers said. “I think we’re hitting pay dirt. Come on, Sylvia, get your things on.”
She started for the bedroom.
Sellers got up and followed her.
“Give a girl some privacy,” she blazed. “I don’t want a man looking over my shoulder while I’m getting ready to go out.”
“All you need is a coat,” Sellers told her, “and I’ll help you on with it.”
“How do you know what I need?”
“I can tell by looking at you,” Sellers told her.
He helped her on with a coat. She adjusted a hat in front of a mirror.
“Come on,” Sellers said.
We went down in the elevator and got in the squad car. After a few blocks, Sylvia said, “This isn’t the way to headquarters.”
“Who said anything about headquarters?” Giddings asked.
“You mean you aren’t— You don’t have any right to take me anywhere except to headquarters.”
“We’re going to call on your friend, Mortimer Jasper,” Sellers told her. “We want to check into that thousand dollars he gave you.”
“Yes,” Giddings said. “We’re investigating another crime now.”
“What crime?”
“Contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” Sellers said.
“Aren’t you funny!” she snapped. “I’m twenty-four years old and I was delinquent for ten years before I ever saw Mortimer Jasper.”
“They always try to talk you out of it,” Giddings said. “You take these kids fourteen and fifteen that are trying to buy drinks, and darned if they won’t have some kind of a fake birth certificate, or license or something, always claiming they’re old enough to do as they please and that nobody has a right to tell them what to do and what not to do.”
“That’s a funny thing,” Sellers said. “Now, you take this babe. She may be nineteen or twenty, perhaps, but—”
“Oh, I’d put her under eighteen,” Giddings said. “I would for a fact.”
“Well, she talks older,” Sellers said.
“Sure, she does. That’s because of the very thing we’re investigating. Men take advantage of them and it makes them hard and—”
Sylvia said, “I could spit on both of you guys.”
Sellers laughed and said, “That’s what comes of trying to tell a woman her age, Thad. Now, you wait another ten years and if you take four or five years off her age she’ll beam and grin all over her face. But when a kid’s a minor she wants to act grownup.”
Sylvia said something under her breath.
Sellers said, “I didn’t hear that so well, Sylvia, but I hope it wasn’t what I thought I heard. That’s a naughty word.” Sylvia sat in tight-lipped silence.
The officers drove the car for another five minutes, then eased it to a stop in front of Mortimer Jasper’s house.
“What’s the plan? We all go in?” Giddings asked.
“We all go in,” Sellers said.
We got out of the car, moved slowly in a compact group up the cement walk.
Sellers rang the bell.
After a minute Mortimer Jasper opened the door.
&
nbsp; “Officers,” Sellers said. “We want to talk with you, and—”
Jasper looked past him to me and said, “How long is this going to keep up? This is the second time this lying sonofabitch has been out here with officers. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
“Never?” Sellers asked. “Never in my life.”
“Not even when the officers brought me out the first time?” I asked.
“You smart-aleck shyster, you crook, you bloodsucker, you—” Jasper caught himself.
“You seem to know a lot about him for a guy you’ve never seen before,” Sellers said. “Take a look at this young lady. Do you know her?”
Giddings pushed Sylvia Hadley forward. She had been hanging back in the background.
“I tell you,” Sylvia said, “I only—”
Giddings put his arm around her neck, clapped his hand over her mouth, said, “Shut up. This is Jasper’s party. Let him do the talking.”
“I…I think it’s Miss Hadley,” Jasper said, blinking his eyes. “I can’t see so good out here. It looks like—”
“That’s fine,” Sellers said. “We’ll come in, where the light’s better.”
Sellers pushed his way in. Inspector Giddings was keeping a tight hold on Sylvia Hadley.
I started to go in the door, then stumbled, fell to one knee, tried to catch myself, sprawled flat on the cement and lay there groaning.
“Come on, come on,” Sellers said over his shoulder. “Get going, Donald.”
I got to one knee, crawled to the edge of the porch and started retching.
Jasper said, “I demand to know the meaning of this.”
“Come on,” Sellers shouted angrily, “get the lead out of your pants, Donald. Every minute you give this guy he’s thinking.”
“I can’t help it. I’m sick,” I said.
“It’s a stall,” Giddings said. “He’s trying to give the guy time to think.”
“And why should I be needing time to think, please?” Jasper asked.
Sellers pushed Jasper on into the house, said, “Come on, Giddings. Bring Sylvia in, then you can go back and drag Lam in.”
As they went through the door, I groped for and found the jade idol I had concealed in the vine, slipped it in my pocket and started crawling on hands and knees toward the door.
Giddings came out, grabbed me under the arm, jerked me erect and planted a knee in the small of my back. “Get going, you little bastard,” he said. “This is a crucial time and you have to pull a stunt like this.”
“I can’t help it,” I moaned.
“Get the hell in there.”
“I’m being sick.”
“Get sick on the guy’s rug, for all we care,” he said. “Get in.”
Jasper was trying to spar for time. Sellers didn’t intend to give him any time.
“All right, Jasper,” Sellers said, “what’s the pitch with you and Sylvia Hadley here?”
Sylvia said, “I told them, Mortimer, that—”
Again Giddings lunged toward her and clapped his hand over her mouth.
“We’re doing the talking,” Sellers said to Sylvia. “One more crack out of you and you’ll spend the night in the detention ward. Now, Jasper, start doing some talking. Don’t sit there trying to think up a good story because we’re not going to give you that much time. Tell us the truth and start now.”
Jasper said, “I know this young lady, but that is all. I’ve met her, and—”
“And why did you give her a thousand bucks if you scarcely knew her?” Sellers asked.
Jasper blinked his eyes, “Who said I gave her a thousand bucks?” he asked belligerently.
Sellers pushed toward him, stuck his face within six inches of Jasper’s face and said, “ I say you gave her a thousand dollars!”
Jasper tried to glance at Sylvia for a signal, but Sellers kept his face in the way. “Come on,” he said, “start talking, start talking.”
“She had a friend who wanted the thousand dollars,” Jasper said. “This friend wanted to sell me an article of jewelry which I thought I could sell for a profit—I knew I couldn’t go wrong at the thousand-dollar price. Sylvia was the intermediary. She said she was representing this friend, and I advanced her the thousand dollars but told her not to pay over a dime of the money until she had the merchandise in her hand.”
“Did she get it?”
“I don’t think so. I haven’t heard. She is the one to tell you that.”
“What was it?” Sellers asked.
“A jade idol, carved jade. As she described it, it was a very exquisite and…beautiful piece of Chinese workmanship. She said she could get it for a thousand dollars. Her friend was willing to sell it because she had to have some cash money.”
“Did she say who her friend was?”
“No.”
“Say it was Phyllis Crockett?”
“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
“Are you familiar with the two jade Buddha pieces Dean Crockett had?”
“No.”
“Do you think this could have been one of them?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say, because I haven’t seen anything yet. It could have been. She told me her friend said that it had been in the family for a long time. The friend wanted to dispose of it. She said this friend needed some money very badly; that she had to have a thousand dollars, and Sylvia thought she could get it for a thousand dollars.”
“Hell, you’re going over and over the same story time after time trying to think,” Sellers said. “Get your needle out of the same groove and go on to the rest of it. Did Sylvia turn over the money to this friend?”
“Not unless she got the merchandise. Unless, of course, she violated instructions or unless I was taken. After all, I know very little about Miss Sylvia Hadley. If she is in love, she might feel she would be willing to sacrifice Mortimer Jasper for her boyfriend. Women in love will do anything.”
“How long ago did you give her this thousand bucks? Remember now, we’re going to take a look at your books and trace the payment.”
“It must have been…three or four weeks ago.”
They were studying Jasper’s face with the hard skeptical eyes of law enforcement officers. No one was paying any attention to anything other than his face, his voice, his watery meek eyes.
I slipped around behind the desk. There was an embossed leather wastebasket half full of papers. I eased the jade idol out of my pocket and dropped it in among the papers.
“You just gave her the thousand bucks on the strength of her say-so?” Sellers asked.
“That’s right. I relied on her honesty.”
“How long had you known her before you gave her this thousand bucks?”
“Not very long. I tell you I really know very little about her.”
“How did she happen to come to you with this story?”
“I met her.”
“Where did you meet her?”
He tried to look to Sylvia for a signal. Sellers grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around.
“She came to me,” Jasper said. “She had heard I was interested in certain objects of art. She wanted to know if it would be worth a thousand dollars to me to get a very old, very beautiful piece of jade.…”
“That was the first time you met her?”
“That was the first time.”
“And you told her it would be worth it to you?”
“Yes.”
“And gave her the thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Without any more description of the jade piece than that— you gave a girl you had never seen before a thousand bucks.… Come on, Jasper, you’re going to have to do better than that. We know you’ve been out with her. You’ve had her out to dinner—”
“That was after the thousand dollars.”
“Not before?” Sellers asked. “Think carefully now, because you’re going to find yourself in one hell of a jam in a minute.”
“I can
’t think. I’m rattled,” Jasper said. “I—”
“Before the thousand bucks?” Sellers asked.
“Yes,” Jasper said.
“That’s better. Now tell us the true story.”
“I knew she was an artists’ model,” Jasper said. “I saw a painting of her. I wanted to know the model’s name. I got her name and address and…well, I looked her up. I— Okay, what the hell. I was on the make.”
“On the make, eh?” Sellers asked. “Did you get anywhere?”
“That’s an embarrassing question,” Jasper said.
Sylvia’s half-scream sounded as though it was an epithet she was mouthing, but Giddings’ hand over her mouth kept the sound from being articulate. It was only an animal squeal of rage.
“I gave her a thousand dollars,” Jasper said.
“For a piece of jade?”
“For the friend who wanted to sell me the jade idol. She promised she would deliver it to me. I trusted her by that time. I had used the thousand-dollar deal to become friendly.”
“How friendly?”
“Very friendly. I gathered that went with the deal as a part of it.”
Sellers nodded to Giddings. Giddings took his hand down from Sylvia’s mouth.
“You lying sonofabitch!” Sylvia screamed at him. “I’ve been around, but I wouldn’t let you touch me with a ten-foot pole. You commissioned me to get those jade idols from the Crockett collection and promised me a thousand bucks apiece. You didn’t give me the thousand dollars until I gave you the first idol. I’d have got both of them at one time, but Dean Crockett had one of them locked up when I grabbed the first one.”
“Now, that’s better,” Giddings said, seating himself. “Sit down, folks, let’s be comfortable.”
“What do you know!” Sellers said, grinning.
“That is a complete fabrication,” Jasper said with dignity. “In view of the accusation, I am going to insist that I be permitted to get in touch with my lawyer.”
“Any objection to our looking around?” Sellers asked.
“For what?”
“To see if you’ve got a jade idol of that sort kicking around here.”
“I can assure you I don’t have anything of the sort.”
“How about that safe?”
“There’s a time lock on it. It can’t be opened until nine o’clock tomorrow morning. That is for my protection in case of burglars. That is all.”
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