“Any objection to our coming back in the morning to see what’s inside?”
“I…I can assure you there is no such jade idol in there.”
“How about the rest of the place?” Sellers asked.
“I have no objection to you looking around,” Jasper said. “I can assure you, however, that this charge is entirely without foundation and any search would be completely fruitless.” Sellers moved over toward the desk.
“I have nothing to conceal,” Jasper said, “but I feel that this is unwarranted—this entire procedure.”
“We’re getting somewhere,” Sellers said to Giddings. “Open up the desk. Let’s take a look.”
“If that desk is opened, you’re going to open it,” Jasper said, “and I don’t think you have a search warrant.”
“I’ll damn soon get one,” Sellers told him. “On the strength of what you’ve said I can get it.”
“No, you can’t,” Jasper said.
Sellers looked at Giddings and frowned.
Giddings looked at Sylvia.
Abruptly Sylvia caught some signal from Jasper and clamped her lips shut in a firm, determined line of silence.
“Now, wait a minute,” Sellers said. “Let’s do some thinking. Little Pint Size was here earlier in the evening, and he got beaten up.…He was looking for something…he was on the wrong track. He had the cart before the horse. He thought Sylvia was the— Now, wait a minute. Did he? Hell, he’s not that dumb. He’s…he’s been bird dogging something.”
“And he got beaten up,” Giddings said.
“No doubt about that,” Sellers told him. “The evidence is there all right.”
“I know nothing about it. I had nothing to do with it. I have never seen this man before,” Jasper said.
“But the officers came here with Lam?” Sellers asked.
“That’s right.”
“And you told them you’d never seen him before?”
“Right.”
“So,” Sellers said to Giddings, “he knew that he was getting involved in things. He’s had an hour or two to clean things up. We probably aren’t going to find anything incriminating in the whole joint.”
“I can assure you, you won’t,” Jasper said. “But not because I have cleaned things up, as you term it.”
Sellers walked over the office looking around.
Jasper, now sure of his ground, said, “Not without a search warrant, Officer.”
“I can phone up and get a search warrant and we can wait right here and see you don’t touch anything,” Sellers said.
Jasper grinned. “Do that. On the information that you have so far, try getting a search warrant.”
Sellers kicked the wastebasket out into the open. “Looks as though you’d been cleaning out a lot of files after you knew that you were in trouble,” he said.
He looked down at the torn envelopes, the crumpled letters, and then suddenly something caught his eye. He shot his hand down into the wastebasket, felt around for a minute, then came up with the jade idol. “Well, well, well,” he said. “What do you know! What do you know!”
Jasper stared at the jade idol as though he had been seeing things.
“Framed!” he screamed. “Framed! You planted that. That’s a plant! That’s a frame! That—”
His voice trailed away into silence.
“What do you know,” Sellers said. “So it’s a plant, is it? You can tell it to the judge—I’ll bet you money this is the missing idol from the Crockett collection.”
Sylvia was on her feet. “You double-crossing sonofabitch!” she shrieked. “You told me you’d taken care of that. You told me over the phone that you had all the evidence removed and—”
“Shut up!” Jasper shouted, with such concentrated venom in his voice that Sylvia caught herself in mid-sentence.
“It’s all right,” Sellers said, beaming at the two of them. “We don’t need your story anymore. We’ve got all we need on both of you right now.”
Sellers picked up the phone, dialed headquarters, said, “This is Frank Sellers. I’m out at the residence of Mortimer Jasper, 6286 Carrolton Drive.…I think the guy is a fence.… We’ve discovered a jade idol in his wastebasket. It’s green jade with a big ruby set deep in the forehead. I think it’s the missing Crockett idol.
“Giddings is here with me. I want a radio car sent out to sew the place up. I’m coming into headquarters with Sylvia Hadley and a private detective named Lam. I’m going to make an affidavit and get a search warrant as soon as we get that idol identified. I want Mrs. Crockett alerted so that we can have her identify the idol.…You got that? All right, have everything in readiness. I want this place sewed up tight until I get back with a search warrant. I think we’re solving the Crockett murder along with the theft.”
Sellers turned to Giddings and said, “You go call a prowl car, Thad. Tell them to keep an eye on this guy. Tell them to get here fast, to handcuff him and arrest him if they have to, for having stolen property in his possession, but I’d prefer to wait until we’ve had a positive identification. However, tell the radio officers to ride herd on him and not to let him out of their sight.”
Jasper’s face was a sickly green. “The Crockett murder,” he said. “Oh, my God!”
Sellers turned to Sylvia. “You’re coming with me, sister.” He jerked his thumb at me and said, “You, too, Lam. Let’s get started. Thad will have a squad car here within two minutes.”
Chapter Nineteen
As we reached the sidewalk after the radio prowl officers had taken charge of Jasper, I said to Sellers in a low voice, “I suppose you’ll want me along to help you when you question Sylvia Hadley?”
“To help me what?” Sellers asked.
“Question Sylvia Hadley,” I whispered.
He threw back his head and laughed. “Listen, Pint Size, don’t get exaggerated ideas. Your partner, Bertha Cool, claims you’re a brainy little bastard. It’s highly questionable, but don’t let your publicity go to your head.”
“You mean you don’t want me anymore?”
“I don’t want any part of you. Get lost. Go home and— I’ll tell you what you do.”
“Yes?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll tell you exactly what to do. Do you know where there’s an all-night drugstore?”
“Sure. But lots of them are open now.”
“All right,” he said. “Go to a drugstore and get two bits’ worth of powdered alum.”
“Two bits’ worth of powdered alum is a lot of alum,” I said. “Then what do I do?”
“Then go home, draw some water in the washbasin and put in the whole two bits worth of powdered alum.”
“Then what?” I asked.
“Then,” he said, “soak your head in it until it gets down to normal.”
With that, Frank Sellers walked over to Sylvia and Giddings. He was in great good humor. “All right, sister,” he said to Sylvia, “we’re on our way.”
They climbed in the squad car. Giddings took the wheel. Sellers slammed the door. “Get lost, Pint Size,” he said.
I had seen a service station three blocks down the street. I walked down to it. It was pretty painful going. I got the service-station attendant to stake me some dimes on the agency’s credit card, and called Bertha.
“Where the hell are you?” Bertha demanded.
“I’m at a service station in the 5800 block on Carrolton Drive.”
“What the hell are you doing out there?”
“I’m in trouble.”
“You’re always in trouble. What is it this time?”
“A couple of goons stole the agency car.”
“What do you mean, they stole the agency car?”
“Just what I said.”
“What would anybody want with that car?”
“They didn’t want the car,” I said. “They wanted to put me afoot. I need an automobile. I’ve got to have transportation. I’ve been beaten up pretty bad.”
“Again?”
“Where did you say you were?”
“At 58th and Carrolton Drive.”
“All right,” Bertha said. “I’ll get out there.”
“I’ve been bloodied up a bit,” I said. “I keep a suitcase packed at the office. If you could pick up that suitcase, I’d have a clean shirt and I could change.”
“All right,” Bertha groaned. “I’ll do it. My God, if there’s anything in the theory of reincarnation, you must have been a football in your past life.”
“Or a punching bag,” I said, and hung up.
I called Phyllis Crockett. “Officers are going to see you to ask you to identify a jade Buddha as the missing statue that was taken the other night. Identify it, but don’t do any more talking than you have to. Tell them you’re waiting for me, that I’ve phoned I’m on my way up there. Be sure to tell them that.
“After they leave, don’t go outside under any consideration. Stay there and wait for me—no matter how late it gets, wait there.”
I didn’t wait to give her a chance to ask questions or argue but hung up the phone.
It was half an hour before Bertha got there.
She said, “My God, you’re a mess.”
“That’s what I told you. You brought the suitcase?”
“Yes.”
“Got any money?”
“What the hell do you mean, have I got any money?”
I said, “Mine’s gone.”
“Now look,” Bertha said, “you’ve got a right to carry a gun. Your license gives you the right to do that. Why don’t you get so you can protect yourself instead of letting everybody beat you up?”
“Guns,” I said, “cost sixty to seventy-five dollars—a good kind of a gun that I’d want to carry.”
“Well, why don’t you get one? But don’t try to charge it as an expense. It’ll be for your personal protection, and you take it out of your personal dividend.”
I said, “Then every time they beat me up they’d take the gun away, and I’d go broke buying guns.”
“You would, at that,” Bertha agreed, without any sympathy. “Now you want a car. How the hell am I going to get back to my apartment?”
“There’s a phone,” I said. “Call a taxi while I’m changing my clothes.”
“Call a taxi! Why you— What do you think I am?”
“Call a taxi,” I said, “and charge it on an expense account to Mrs. Crockett. If you want I’ll phone for the cab and pay for it, but I want some money.”
Bertha took out her purse grudgingly, counted out five dollars and said, “That’s going to last you until tomorrow morning… the idea of having me run around at night, playing chauffeur for you. What happened to the agency car?”
“About tomorrow morning,” I said, “you’ll hear from the police department, maybe sooner. They’ll ask what’s the idea of leaving the agency car parked in front of a fireplug.”
“You think they’ll park it in front of a fireplug?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
“You do the damnedest things,” Bertha groaned, and squeezed herself into the telephone booth to phone for a taxi.
I took the suitcase to the washroom, changed my clothes, sponged off some of the dried blood on my face, and surveyed the swollen wreckage in the wavy mirror.
By the time I came out Bertha had left in the cab.
The service-station attendant seemed quite considerate. “You must have been in an accident,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“What happened to your car?”
“Smashed all to hell,” I told him.
I checked the gas on the car Bertha had brought out. It was half full.
I drove back down Carrolton Drive and took a look at Jasper’s house as I went by. There was a police car in front of the place. They were still sitting on Jasper waiting until Sellers could get back with a search warrant.
I drove down about half a block and parked the car.
Putting two and two together, I knew that while I had been talking with Jasper he had only pretended to hear the phone ring in the other part of the house. What had actually happened, he’d gone to the phone and called his goons, told them to come and take care of me.
In order to do that, the men he called had to be close by. There wasn’t time for them to have come from any distance. I felt pretty certain these men would be abreast of developments and would be keeping an eye on the place, so I checked the license number of every automobile that went past on Carrolton Drive.
A car came by that slowed down as it went past Jasper’s house.
I got my car into motion and caught up with the other car about four blocks down the street. It was a late model sedan, license number NFE 799. Two fellows were in the front seat. They were big guys and I felt pretty certain the man at the wheel was the ape who had kicked at my ribs when I had grabbed his foot and pulled him down to the ground.
They turned to the right on 54th Street. I kept right on going to 53rd, then made a U-turn, beat it back to the place where I’d been, and waited.
In about five minutes the same car drove past again. Once more I followed the car. This time they drove down to the service station and stopped. The big man got out from behind the wheel and went into the phone booth.
I parked half a block down the street.
In about two minutes the big man dashed out of the phone booth, jumped in the car and they went away from there fast. I tagged along behind, taking a chance, keeping as close as I dared.
They made three right turns around the block, got back to Carrolton Drive, turned left, and went to 61st Street. They turned right on 61st, then turned left into a driveway.
I marked the place, and went on down 61st for two blocks, made a U-turn and came back.
Their car was in the driveway. The men were at the front door of a little bungalow. A moment later they entered and lights came on in the bungalow.
I parked my car and hurried over to the sedan in the driveway.
I put on gloves and tried the door. It was unlocked.
I looked inside, using a fountain-pen flashlight.
The car was registered to Lyle Ferguson, 9611 61st Street.
I opened the glove compartment and there was a pint flask of whiskey in there about two-thirds empty.
I picked up the flask by the neck with my gloved hand, closed the glove compartment, gently closed the door of the automobile, went back to Bertha’s car, poured all the whiskey out into the gutter and carefully put the empty flask down on the floor boards. I tied a cord around the neck of the flask so I could hold it without smudging any prints that might be on it and drove to my apartment house.
Holding the empty whiskey bottle by the cord, I let myself into the apartment and proceeded to take the joint to pieces. I pulled out drawers, dumped things on the floor, pulled things out of the medicine cabinet, pulled suits off the hangers and turned the pockets wrongside out, pulled the bedding off the bed and upended the mattress. When I had wrecked the place, I went out and drove to a drugstore near the Crockett apartment house.
I phoned Phyllis Crockett. “Have the passage to the elevator fixed so I can come up,” I said. “I’m going to sneak past the clerk to the elevators. Be sure I can get up to your place without any delay. Leave everything open for me.”
I went to the apartment house and waited until a party came in that looked like they lived in the place. As they went through the door, I timed things so that I entered just behind them. One of the men saw me and held the door open for me.
I thanked him, took out a cigarette, asked him for a light and walked to the elevators with him. I kept him between me and the night clerk.
His party got off at the fifteenth floor. I went to the twentieth.
The door of the anteroom was opened.
I pressed the concealed button which brought the elevator down from the penthouse. I got in and went up.
Phyllis met me.
“Anybody her
e with you?” I asked.
“I’m all alone,” she said. “Good heavens, Donald! What’s happened to you?”
“I’ve been in an accident.”
“What sort of an accident?”
“Some people,” I said, “thought I was a punching bag. It took me quite a while to persuade them that I wasn’t.”
“Donald, you should see a doctor.”
“A doctor should see me,” I said, and tried to grin, but my face was swollen so badly that I knew it was a pretty lopsided attempt.
“What time is it?” I asked.
She looked at her wristwatch. “Twelve minutes past midnight.”
I shook my head.
“What do you mean?”
“Twenty minutes past eleven,” I said.
“Donald, what do you mean?”
I said, “Your watch is off. It’s twenty minutes past eleven.”
“Donald, it can’t be. I’ve been watching television and…I know my watch is right.”
“I got here at twenty minutes after eleven,” I said.
She studied me for a moment, then grinned and said, “All right. Now tell me what happened to your face?”
“I think we’re getting places,” I said.
“In what way?”
“I think the police are going to clear up the case.”
“The police?”
“Always the police,” I said. “Never do anything that would keep the police from being the ones who get the credit. That’s axiomatic in my business.…Nobody has been calling for me?”
She shook her head.
“Bertha Cool, my partner, didn’t call and want me?”
“No.”
I said, “Well, I guess we’re—” The telephone rang.
I nodded to Phyllis.
“If anybody wants to know if you’re here, what do I tell them?” she asked.
“Tell them I’m here.”
She answered the telephone, then turned to me. “It’s your partner, Mrs. Cool. She wants you right away. She says its urgent.”
I went over to the telephone. Bertha said, “Frank Sellers wants you right away, Donald.”
“Where is he?”
“Headquarters. He says you’re to call him at once, that I’m to get in touch with you and have you report at once.”
I said, “Okay, Bertha. I’ll get it.”
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