Fools Die On Friday E-Book

Erle Stanley Gardner

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 350

Beschreibung

From Perry Mason-creator Erle Stanley Gardner comes a lost classic of detective fiction featuring private eyes Donald Lam (once played by Frank Sinatra!) and Bertha Cool. Cool & Lam are back, in the case Raymond Chandler called "about the best of the series since the first two…perhaps since the very first." Hired to prevent a poisoning that hasn't happened yet, Donald Lam tries playing mind games with a prospective killer, only to wind up with two poisonings to solve – and two dangerous femme fatales, not to mention an adulterous dentist, a questionable real estate scheme, and a scientific system for betting the horses that someone might kill to keep secret…

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

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Title Page

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Copyright

Author’s Note

Chapter One: Pattern for Poison

Chapter Two: Low-Pressure Salesman

Chapter Three: Anchovy Paste and Soft Soap

Chapter Four: Psychological Handcuffs

Chapter Five: A Hellcat on Wheels

Chapter Six: A Slight Case of Homicide

Chapter Seven: The Invisible Room

Chapter Eight: Moonbeams on Flypaper

Chapter Nine: Pretty Powerful Medicine

Chapter Ten: Donald Buys a Lot

Chapter Eleven: Playing for Keeps

Chapter Twelve: How to Beat the Races

Chapter Thirteen: A Bear by the Tail

Chapter Fourteen: Murder Keeps on Happening

Chapter Fifteen: The Contents of a Locker

Chapter Sixteen: Hotter Than a Stove Lid

Chapter Seventeen: Dead-to-Rights

Chapter Eighteen: All Head and Some Heart

Chapter Nineteen: Voices of Death

Chapter Twenty: Cupid Closes a Case

Chapter Twenty-One: Chain Reaction

Rave Reviews forErle Stanley GARDNER!

“The best selling author of the century…a master storyteller.”

—New York Times

“Gardner is humorous, astute, curious, inventive—who can top him? No one has yet.”

—Los Angeles Times

“Erle Stanley Gardner is probably the most widely read of all…authors…Hissuccess…undoubtedly lies in the real-life quality of his characters and their problems…”

—The Atlantic

“A remarkable discovery…fans will rejoice at another dose of Gardner’s unexcelled mastery of pace and an unexpected new taste of his duo’s cyanide chemistry.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“One of the best-selling writers of all time, and certainly one of the best-selling mystery authors ever.”

—Thrilling Detective

“A treat that no mystery fan will want to miss.”

—Shelf Awareness

“Zing, zest and zow are the Gardner hallmark. He will keep you reading at a gallop until The End.”

—Dorothy B. Hughes,Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster

“Both doors are locked on the inside,” I said.

Sellers looked at me. His eyes were eloquent. Then his big hand gave me a shove. “Out of my way,” he said.

He went back a half a dozen steps, lowered his shoulder, braced his elbow, ran forward and hit the door like a football player hitting a line of opposing players.

The seat of the knob pulled out with an explosive, splintering crash.

The crumpled figure of a woman lay on the tiled floor. She was dressed for the street, but sprawled now in unconsciousness, the skirts up almost to the hips; the legs, neatly stockinged, bent at the knees; the garters showing a V against the pink flesh. Her head lay face-down and her hair was in complete disarray. One arm was stretched straight out, her fingers extended as though they had been trying to get a fingerhold on the smooth, white octagon tiles.

I stepped around to feel of her wrist.

There was no pulse…

OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKSBY ERLE STANLEY GARDNER:

THE COUNT OF 9

THE KNIFE SLIPPED

SHILLS CAN’T CASH CHIPS

TOP OF THE HEAP

TURN ON THE HEAT

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKSYOU WILL ENJOY:

LATER by Stephen King

FIVE DECEMBERS by James Kestrel

THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS by James M. Cain

BRAINQUAKE by Samuel Fuller

THIEVES FALL OUT by Gore Vidal

QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

SINNER MAN by Lawrence Block

SNATCH by Gregory Mcdonald

THE LAST STAND by Mickey Spillane

UNDERSTUDY FOR DEATH by Charles Willeford

THE TRIUMPH OF THE SPIDER MONKEY by Joyce Carol Oates

BLOOD SUGAR by Daniel Kraus

ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? by Brian de Palma and Susan Lehman

KILLER, COME BACK TO ME by Ray Bradbury

CALL ME A CAB by Donald E. Westlake

THE NEXT TIME I DIE by Jason Starr

THE HOT BEAT by Robert Silverberg

Fools DieON FRIDAY

byErle Stanley Gardner

WRITING UNDER THE NAME ‘A. A. FAIR’

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A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-157)

First Hard Case Crime edition: February 2023

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright © 1947 by Erle Stanley Gardner

Cover painting copyright © 2023 by Ricky Mujica

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-1-80336-012-6

E-book ISBN 978-1-80336-013-3

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www.maxphillips.net

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

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Author’s Note

There are many people who do not know that from time immemorial Society has decreed there shall be thirteen steps to the gallows. There may be, therefore, readers who miss the significance of the title of this story. In California, as in many other states, executions invariably take place on Friday.

FOOLS DIE ON FRIDAY

Chapter One

Pattern for Poison

I nodded to the receptionist, crossed over to the door of my private office, opened it, scaled my hat onto the shelf of the coat closet, and said to Elsie Brand, “What’s new?”

She looked up from the typing. “Donald, is that a new suit?”

“Uh huh.”

“You look—”

“Well?” I asked.

“Swell,” she said.

“Thanks,” I told her. “What’s cooking?”

“Bertha wants to see you.”

“Client?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go in.”

I walked out to the reception room, gave a perfunctory tap on the door that was marked B. Cool—Private, and walked in.

The girl who sat across the desk from Bertha was just opening her purse. Bertha’s greedy little eyes were glittering. She turned away from the purse to frown at my interruption and then said to the girl, “This is Donald Lam, my partner.” To me she said, “Miss Beatrice Ballwin. She’s a client.”

I bowed and smiled and said the four-word formula of pleasure. And, somehow, Miss Ballwin seemed relieved and reassured. She said, “How do you do, Mr. Lam,” and then added, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Bertha’s chair creaked as she twisted her hundred and sixty-five pounds of hard muscle impatiently. Her eyes were back on the purse in the girl’s lap.

“I hope we can be of some assistance,” I said.

Bertha said impatiently, “I’ll tell you about it afterward, Donald. I have all the data. We won’t take time to go over it now. My notes cover everything.”

Her diamonds glittered as she moved her hand in a sweeping gesture over some scribbled notes on her desk.

I looked over Bertha’s shoulder and saw that the notes consisted of half a dozen names and the figure $500 written out half a dozen times all over the yellow sheet of legal foolscap.

Bertha liked to doodle with figures.

The girl’s hand hovered over the half-open purse, but didn’t make any effort to bring out a checkbook.

Bertha’s office chair squeaked again in high-pitched protest. She said, “Well, dearie, I guess that’s all,” and then added, “I’ll make you a receipt. Let’s see, two hundred and fifty dollars now and two fifty more tomorrow.”

The girl’s hand went down inside the purse, came out with some bills neatly folded together.

Bertha’s chair gave a quick, impatient squeak as she reached forward for the money. Then she started scrawling a receipt.

While she was writing, the girl looked up at me and smiled; then she took a cigarette case from her purse, raised her eyebrows in silent invitation.

I shook my head. “Not now, thanks.”

She took out a cigarette, tapped it on the edge of the cigarette case. The cigarette case was silver with gold initials brazed onto the silver.

The initials were C.H.

She saw me looking at the cigarette case and her hand slid over to cover the initials.

Bertha Cool handed her the receipt. The girl dropped it in her purse, took a cigarette lighter, and lit the cigarette.

Her hand was shaking a little.

She dropped the lighter back into the purse, folded the receipt, said, “Well—thank you so much. You can start work immediately?”

“Immediately,” Bertha said, unlocking a cash drawer in the desk and dropping in the money.

“It’ll have to be fast,” the girl said, “because I think—well, I think there’s some danger right now. You’ll have to find some way to frighten her.”

“Don’t worry, dearie.”

Bertha beamed.

“And you’ll protect me?”

“Of course.”

“I’m your client?”

“Naturally.”

“So you’ll always have my interests in mind?”

“Certainly.”

“Even if—well, even if someone should try to buy you off?”

“We can’t be bought off.”

“How long,” I asked, “will you want us on the job?”

“For a week. I think that’s the period of greatest danger.”

“Starting when?”

“Starting right now.”

“Our rates were for a week,” Bertha said.

“I understand, Mrs. Cool.”

The girl got up, took a deep drag at her freshly lit cigarette, then ground it out and dropped it into the ashtray.

“Thank you,” she said to Bertha. Her eyes turned to mine. They looked at me for a long two seconds; then she was moving forward and I was holding the door open for her.

She was a nice number, brunette, trim, with nice curves and I liked the fit of her skirt in the back. I watched her cross the reception room.

“Well,” Bertha said, “don’t stand there gawking all morning. I—”

“Just a minute,” I told her.

I slipped quickly into my office, grabbed the back of Elsie Brand’s stenographic chair, and jerked her away from the typewriter.

“What in the world!” she said, protestingly.

I said, “A cute little trick in a grayish skirt and jacket, with a fluffy green blouse collar, a brown handbag, tan shoes and stockings, twenty-four or twenty-five, about a hundred and twelve. She’s just at the elevator now. She hasn’t seen you. If she takes a taxicab, get the number of it. If she doesn’t, try to tail her but don’t let her know she’s being tailed.”

“Oh, Donald, I can’t do that sort of thing. I’m no good at—”

I pushed her out through the door.

“Get started.”

She walked across the office and out through the door to the corridor. I went back to Bertha Cool’s office.

“For God’s sake,” Bertha said, looking me over.

“What’s the matter?”

“Another new suit.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“What’s wrong with it! Are you going to spend all of your money on clothes?”

“Not all of it.”

“Well, I should hope not. There’s an income tax, you know.”

I opened my eyes wide with surprise. “The deuce there is! You mean the government’s finally passed one?”

Bertha’s face got red and then almost purple. “Sometimes I could kill you.”

I sat down in the client’s chair and lit a cigarette. The chair was still warm from Miss Ballwin’s occupancy.

“Well, what’s it all about?”

“Her name’s Beatrice Ballwin.”

“You told me that before.”

“Her uncle is Gerald Ballwin. He’s in some sort of a real estate business. His wife Daphne is going to poison him. He doesn’t suspect anything. We’re to stall for time and scare the wife.”

I blew smoke out through my nostrils, “She live in the same house with her uncle?”

“No. She has an apartment of her own. She does some sort of research work, but she says we aren’t, under any circumstances, to call her at her apartment because she has a roommate who is very curious and very suspicious.”

“How do we get in touch with her?”

“We aren’t supposed to. She’s going to call us. But if anything should happen, if there should be any emergency, she says that we can call Gerald Ballwin’s house and ask that Mrs. Ballwin’s secretary come in at once for another fitting on her suit. She says she’ll get that message and understand what it means.”

“Just how are we going to go about keeping this Ballwin guy from getting cramps?” I asked.

“How the hell should I know? That’s in your department, Donald.”

“Okay. I’ll do some thinking,” I said, and went back to my own office and opened the morning newspaper to the sporting section.

Chapter Two

Low-Pressure Salesman

Elsie Brand was back in about five minutes, her face beaming. “I had a lucky break, Donald.”

“Good! What was it?”

“There was a cab just pulling in to the curb as I came out. She was in a hurry to catch that cab as it discharged its passengers, so I was able to follow closely and get the cab’s number.”

“You didn’t hear the address she gave?”

Elsie shook her head. “Gosh, was I supposed to do that?”

“Not one chance in a hundred,” I told her. “I thought perhaps you might have. Okay, give me the number of the cab.”

She passed a piece of paper across to me. “I wrote it down so there wouldn’t be any chance of forgetting it,” she said.

I took a look at the number, said, “I think we’re in luck, Elsie. That cab hangs out at the hotel down at the next corner. I’ll go down after a while and see if I can find out anything.”

I picked up the paper, turned to the classified ads, and chased down through the real estate opportunities. I found an ad of the Ballwin Real Estate Company, listing about a dozen choice buys. Running through the ads, I detected a couple more with a street address that was the same as the Ballwin Realty Company—225 West Terrace Drive.

I told Elsie I probably wouldn’t be in until after lunch, and went down and got the agency car out of the parking lot.

I went out to 225 West Terrace Drive. It was up in the hill country on the edge of a subdivision. Apparently Gerald Ballwin had played papa and mamma to this new tract.

The office was one of those screwy little houses with a freak peaked roof, curved gables, and a colonial arched doorway, that are so typical of California real estate subdivision offices. Probably they are built on the theory that the subdivision promoter wants an office the customer can’t possibly mistake for a residence. Anyone who has seen California architecture realizes a man has to build something pretty bizarre to get something that can’t be taken for a house.

I would have said offhand that the style of this was Chinese-Mission-Colonial. The only thing it lacked to be complete was a minaret.

I opened the door and walked in.

A girl was seated at a desk, pounding away at a typewriter, making out some contracts. She looked up at me, then turned back to the typewriter and kept on pounding.

I walked over to stand at a counter that ran the full length of the office.

The girl at the desk kept on typing.

I coughed significantly.

The girl stopped copying long enough to call out, “Miss Worley.”

Nothing happened.

The girl got up, walked to a desk, and pressed a button. Almost instantly a door marked Private at the far end of the room popped open and a young woman came out.

She was smiling as she came out of the office, and she kept a smile as she walked directly toward me. She had left the door open behind her, and looking past her over her shoulder I could see a man of about thirty-five seated at a desk. He kept his profile toward me. If he noticed that the door had been left open, he didn’t do anything about it. Perhaps it was all part of the act.

He had nice, wavy dark hair and a straight nose. He’d put on too much weight and his double chin detracted from the nice features. He was picking up papers, studying them, and putting them down. His eyes were unblinking in concentration.

I decided it was an act.

Miss Worley, I gathered, was his secretary and also the contact girl who received customers. The girl at the typewriter looked thoroughly competent, but they evidently felt it took a little sex appeal mixed in with real estate statistics to sell lots in West Terrace Heights.

Miss Worley wore a sweater.

“Good morning,” Miss Worley said. “I’m Mr. Ballwin’s secretary and assistant. Is there something I can do for you this morning?”

“I wanted to find out the prices of lots,” I told her. “I’d like to look around a bit, if you don’t mind.”

She had nice teeth and kept showing them. “Unfortunately all of our salesmen are out at the moment,” she said, “but I expect one of them will be back very shortly.”

“Could you,” I asked, “give me a map of the subdivision with the various lots that haven’t been sold, and the prices—”

She interrupted me, smiling so sweetly that I wouldn’t have noticed my mind was being changed for me if I hadn’t been concentrating more on the man in the private office than on Miss Worley’s personality.

“Oh, no,” she said, “we couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Her eyes were smiling, and she waited until mine shifted from the figure at the desk to meet hers. Then she said, “You’ll pardon me, but we do so much of this we perhaps know a little more about—Well, let me put it this way. Suppose you went into a shoe store to buy a pair of shoes. You wouldn’t like it if the owner of the store simply turned you loose to walk among the shelves and pick out the pair of shoes that you wanted.”

“Why not?”

“Because the function of a clerk in a shoe store is not to sell you a pair of shoes, but to help you find the shoes that you want. He selects from a large stock the proper size and style to fit your needs.

“Now it’s the same way in selecting a lot in a subdivision. We’d want to know what sort of a lot you wanted, whether you wanted it for residential purposes, whether you expected to put up a twenty-thousand-dollar house or a ten-thousand-dollar house, whether you were perhaps buying the property for speculation, or just what you did have in mind.”

The man at the desk, apparently moved by some telepathic warning, got up from his swivel chair, walked across and closed the door.

I said, “I’m not intending to build right away. I hope to build sometime in the future a house that will cost around twelve or fifteen thousand dollars. I thought that I’d buy the lot now and—well, I felt that it wouldn’t go down in value.”

She nodded brightly.

“If it goes up high enough,” I said, “I might be tempted to sell, but the primary purpose in buying is not for speculation.”

She walked around to the end of the counter, pressed a concealed catch, raised up a section of the counter, pushed out a gate, and came around to join me.

She said, “I think that’s very, very wise, Mr.—er—er—”

“Lam.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Lam. I didn’t mean to be inquisitive. Many people don’t like to give their names to a realtor, but you seemed so different, so sort of friendly. Did you want your wife to look at the property with you?”

“I haven’t got a wife. I have hopes—that’s why I want the lot.”

“Yes, indeed, I think you’re very wise, Mr. Lam. You’re making a very wise decision. Now let’s see—there should be someone I can send you out with. One of our men is off today and one of the others is out showing some business property at the other end of town. You see, Mr. Ballwin has a great many interests.…Now let me see.”

She walked to the door and I walked along with her.

The girl at the typewriter looked up, giving me one mildly curious glance in which I thought for a moment I detected a flash of sympathy. Then her eyes were back on the document she was copying, pounding away at her typewriter.

Miss Worley ran along in a conversational stream, evidently trying to keep my attention distracted much in the manner of a stage magician keeping up a line of patter.

“I didn’t give you my name, Mr. Lam. It’s Ethel Worley. I’m secretary to Mr. Ballwin, and when he’s busy I try to take as much detail as I can off his shoulders. You caught us at something of a disadvantage this morning. But there should be a salesman along just any minute—just any minute. I wonder if this car is one of the salesmen. No, it isn’t.”

“Perhaps another customer,” I suggested, hopefully.

“No,” she said, shortly, and I could see that the approach of this car that was coming up the grade was simply an added complication.

The car came to a stop. A tall, thin man with gray, dejected-looking eyes pushed the door open, languidly slid out, and said, “Hello, Beautiful!”

“Good morning.”

“Why the formality, Precious? Aha, I see. A customer. The boss in?”

“He’s in, but he’s terribly busy.”

“Never too busy to see Carl Keetley.”

She turned to me with a note of desperation in her voice. “Would you mind waiting here for a moment? Please don’t go away. I must go to see Mr. Ballwin for a moment.”

I nodded my head in a silent promise.

She said to Keetley, “Wait just a minute. I’ll tell Mr. Ballwin that you’re here. I know he’ll see you if it’s possible, but I’m afraid he’s just too busy.”

“Don’t get yourself all worked up, Wiggle-Hips,” Keetley said. “I’ll go in and tell him myself.”

“That’s just what I don’t want you to do. Excuse me a moment.”

She flounced into the office and took the precaution of slamming the door shut behind her.

Keetley looked at me and grinned. “Nice weather.”

I nodded.

“Warm.”

“Isn’t it.”

“Not unusual for this time of year, however. We have a nice climate here. Particularly nice in this section.”

“Meaning the West Terrace Heights?”

“Sure. Best climate in the whole damn city right here. What are you doing, buying a lot?”

I nodded.

“That’s fine, my boy. You can’t do anything better. Old Gerald will sell you the best lot in the whole damn subdivision, wrap it up in cellophane and put your deed in a nice little envelope with flowered decorations on it. Gives you a feeling of substantial security, eh what?”

I nodded.

“Beautiful view from up here,” he went on. “Look out over the city and—let’s see if I can quote my distinguished brother-in-law. The entire city spreads before you in a beautiful panorama, looking like a collection of doll houses by day, a sea of stars by night. Here the blue sky reaches down to the horizon, while fleecy clouds drifting—”

The door opened. Ethel Worley said, “He’s too busy to see you, but I’ll take a message to him.”

“Tut, tut, what a rebuff. Tell Gerald that my business with him is personal, Bright Eyes.”

“I’ll take the message to him.”

“It’s personal.”

She pushed her chin up. “How much?” she asked.

“I need two hundred. You see, I—”

The door slammed.

Keetley grinned at me. “Had a little bad luck with the ponies yesterday. Gerald doesn’t approve of playing the races. Not even when I win.”

I said, “You can’t always pick winners.”

“How right that is,” Keetley agreed.

“You said he was your brother-in-law. You’re his wife’s brother?”

“His former wife’s brother,” Keetley said.

“Divorced?”

“She died.”

I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be personal.”

Keetley’s eyes were no longer listless. They were looking me over with calm insolence. “The hell you didn’t!” he said.

The door opened. Ethel Worley came out and handed Keetley a twenty-dollar bill. Her manner was that of a woman giving charity to a beggar.

Keetley took it without a word, folded it, pushed it down into his pocket.

Ethel Worley’s eyes looked beseechingly at me. “Please wait just a few moments, Mr. Lam. I’m certain one of the salesmen will show up.”

“Hell,” Keetley said, “climb in the car. I’ll show you around. What’s your name? Lam?”

Ethel Worley said, coldly, “That’s not at all necessary, Mr. Keetley. One of the salesmen will be here any minute—”

“How do you know?” Keetley asked. “What school of telepathy did you graduate from? Do you take the Morse Code, or does the stuff just come to you in flashes?”

She glared at him.

Keetley said, “Don’t run up your blood pressure. I think you’re getting fat, Grapefruit. Your girdle looks a little tight this morning. Gerald likes curves, and your sweater looks great, but—Well, come on, Lam, get in the car. I’ve got a map of the place here somewhere with a key to all the prices and—”

“You don’t know what lots have been sold,” Ethel Worley said. “You don’t know a thing about it. You haven’t kept up with—”

“Now don’t get yourself in an uproar,” Keetley said. “It’s bad for you. Didn’t dear Gerald brief me on my duties as a real estate salesman? Didn’t he suggest I come up here and go to work?”

“And didn’t he also suggest that you quit?” Ethel Worley flared.

“Sure he did. That was because my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t have the enthusiasm. In other words, I told clients the truth. Come on, Lam, do you want to see this place, or don’t you?”

I looked at my watch and said, “Well, I can’t wait much longer.”

“Come on, come on. Get in. It isn’t going to cost anything. I’ll drive you around the place and show you the best buys. I hope you’re not looking for anything cheap because dear old Gerald doesn’t give the boys that much of a break. But it’s good. Oh, yes, definitely good.”

I said to Ethel Worley, “I’m sorry, but I can’t wait any longer,” and walked over and got into Keetley’s car.

Ethel Worley turned on her heel and went back into the crazy little real estate office. She slammed the door so hard she must have cracked the plaster.

Keetley walked around the car, opened the door on the other side, and jackknifed himself in behind the wheel.

“What kind of a lot you want, buddy?”

“Something that I can build on later. A lot around two thousand.”

“How much later for the building?”

“I don’t know.”

“How big a house?”

“Maybe fifteen thousand.”

Keetley started the motor. “Okay, let’s look around.”

He swung the car around one of the contour drives. “Now here on the left we’ve got some very choice lots at three thousand bucks,” he said. “Do you like them?”

“They look pretty good.”

“The trouble with them,” Keetley said, disgustedly, “is that they’re on the wrong side of the street. When these other lots are sold off and people build on them, they’ll shut off your view. In place of the panorama of the city by day and the sea of stars at night, you’ll be looking into your neighbor’s front bedroom. If his wife is pretty, you’ll still have a desirable view. If she’s a crabby old bitch, you’ll lose your enthusiasm for women every time you look out of your window. I wouldn’t advise one of these.”

“How about the lots on the other side, then?”

“Thirty-five hundred. They’re pretty much on a sidehill. Your house will be four stories high on the low side and one story on the street side. If you want to know the truth, my opinion is that this whole damn hillside will start settling when a lot of houses are put on it and the rainy season comes along. There’ll be a lot of excavation for foundations and stuff, and by the time the place is built up there’s going to be a lot of extra weight put on this hill. The way these lots run, you’ll have your entrance and front rooms on the street. Only the back part of the house will get any sort of a view. If you want a view in your living room, you’ll have to put it under your bedroom or vice versa. You’ll have to put your kitchen and your backyard on the part of the house that opens on the street, or else you’ll have to put it way downstairs and run back and forth upstairs with dirty dishes and food for the dining room. That’s the worst of these steep sidehill lots.”

“They don’t sound very desirable,” I said.

“They aren’t. And if you put your bedroom on front, the guys who will have built on the three-thousand-dollar lots will be watching your wife.”

“What else do we have?” I asked.

“In the price range that you want to pay, not a damn thing.”

“After all,” I said, “a view isn’t everything.”

“That’s right.”

“Those lots up there on the rolling, hilly ground might be all right, particularly if one put up a two-story house and could look across the roofs of the houses on the other side of the street. As you so neatly point out, those houses must necessarily be limited to one story on the street and three stories on the side of the hill.”

“That’s right. You’re a better salesman that I am. Want to sign a contract?”

“Let’s look some over.”

“Of course,” Keetley went on, “you have to assume the assessments.”

“What are those?”

“You pay them just like you pay taxes. You’ll hardly notice them.”

“What do they amount to?”

“Oh, forget it. It’s just like taxes.”

“Tell me more about the assessments.”

“You’ll have to ask at the main office about those. The subdivision has washed its hands of them.”

“I’m afraid I don’t get it.”

“It’s okay. Nothing to worry about on assessments now. Of course, there was a time when Gerald did what everyone else did.”

“What was that?”

“Used the assessments to pay for the property. They all worked that stunt. Well, let’s say most of them did.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Know anything about law?” Keetley asked.

“I was a lawyer once.”

He looked at me in surprise. “The hell you were!”

I nodded.

“What happened?”

“I got disbarred.”

“For what?”

“For telling a man how to commit a murder and get away with it.”

“Would it work?”

“It would if the courts maintained a consistent position. It’s already been decided in the California courts. Of course, they might change their minds.”

“They do that once in a while. I must remind you to tell me how to commit a good murder some day.”

“Do that,” I said.

“I will. Well, we were talking about assessments. If you know law, I can short cut things. You look under your general laws and you’ll find any quantity of different improvement acts. A couple of them are dillies that the boys slipped across in the days of legislative credulity and rapidly increasing real estate values. A company gets property. They engage a contractor to pave the streets, to put in sewers, electric conduits, and all that stuff. Then they issue bonds to pay for the stuff and the city can approve the subdivision and underwrite the bonds. After that they become a lien on the property and are collected just like taxes.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Keetley said, “except the smart boys used to arrange with the contractors to pad their bids so that they not only included enough to pay for the improvements, but also enough to pay for the whole damn subdivision as well. The contractor would get his money, hold out his share of the take, and kick back to the owners of the subdivision. That would give them what they’d paid for the property in the first place, and everything after that would be velvet.”

“That isn’t done in this case?”

“I don’t know,” Keetley said. “Heavens, I hope not—for your sake.”

“They’re nice lots.”

“Aren’t they?”

“A beautiful view.”

“Fine.”

“The air must be nice and bracing up here, well away from the grime and soot.”

“Marvelous.”

“Plenty of sunlight.”

“You said it.”

“A nice breeze.”

“Sure is. You want a lot?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think you did. Let’s go back.”

We drove back to the crazy-looking real estate office. Keetley brought the car to a stop. “What’s your game?” he asked.

I grinned at him.

“Okay by me,” he said. “Dear old Gerald is getting too smug lately. He’s becoming positively legitimate. You don’t have anything in the third race this afternoon, do you?”

“Not a thing.”

“Oh, well, I can make a killing on the second. I’ve got a sure thing there. Want to go back inside the office and meet the beautiful Miss Worley again?”

“I don’t see any reason why I should.”

“Okay. Sorry you wouldn’t buy.”

We shook hands. I walked over to the agency car, and out of the corner of my eye saw Keetley take a pencil and notebook from his pocket. I turned and walked back to his car.

“The heap over there,” I said, “is registered in the name of B. Cool. Look her up in the business directory and you’ll find the name of Cool and Lam. We’re partners.”

“What’s your line?” Keetley asked.

“We call ourselves private investigators.”

“Why the interest in dear old Gerald?”

I grinned and said, “You can’t tell. It might be Ethel Worley.”

“Oh, oh!” Keetley said.

“And then again,” I told him, “it might be you.”

Keetley said, “Get the hell out of here. I’ve got some thinking to do. You’re just the sort who would tell the truth, make it sound like a lie, and go away smiling. Or you might tell a lie and make it sound like the truth. I suppose you noticed Miss Worley’s sweater?”

“Not particularly.”

He shook his head sadly. “That lie doesn’t sound the least bit like the truth. Get the hell out of here. I have to think.”

I got in the agency car and watched him in the rearview mirror for a minute. He took the crumpled twenty-dollar bill Miss Worley had handed him from his pocket, smoothed it out, took a roll of bills that would choke a horse from his hip pocket, slipped the twenty on the outside of the roll, and snapped a rubber band around the roll.

I started the motor and drove away.

I went down to the hotel and hunted up the taxi driver who had picked up our client. He remembered the ride. It was out to the twenty-three hundred block on Atwell Avenue. “A big house,” he said, “sort of a Colonial type.” He remembered there were round, white pillars and an arch over the doorway.

I slipped him a buck and went back to the office. Bertha Cool was just getting ready to go out for lunch, standing up in front of the mirror putting on her hat. A hard-boiled steam roller of a middle-aged woman, whose personality would have dominated anything she could have put on her head, she was getting a dinky little hat adjusted to just the right angle. Perhaps she was trying to look coy.

She said, “Hello, Donald, darling. You’ve been working, haven’t you?”

“Uh huh.”

“Bertha likes that in you, Donald. You’re energetic, and when we get a case you don’t let any grass grow under your feet. What have you found out, lover?”

I said, “Did you notice the initials on the cigarette case?”

“What about them?”

“C.H.,” I said.

“Well, what does that mean?”

I said, “The name she gave us was Beatrice Ballwin. This cigarette case says her initials are C.H. I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like what, darling?” Bertha asked ominously.

“The setup.”

“Why not?”

I said, “Look, someone comes to us and tells us that Gerald Ballwin’s wife is getting ready to slip poison in his coffee. We’re supposed to protect him. How are you going to protect a man from having his wife give him a teaspoonful of arsenic over the intimacy of the morning breakfast table? You certainly aren’t going to do it standing around watching the front of the house.”

“Well?” Bertha asked.

I said, “You’d have to be inside sitting at the table. You’d have to grab the wife’s arm when she started to put the sugar in the coffee, and slap her wrist and say, ‘Naughty, naughty.’ You can’t do that.”

“What are you getting at, Donald? Tell Bertha.”

I said, “In the first place, you can’t get in the house. In the second place, you can’t be sitting at the breakfast table, and in the third place, you can’t tell until after the man begins to get cramps whether that’s arsenic in the sugar, or just sugar.”

“Go ahead,” Bertha said.

“But,” I told her, “suppose somebody intends to slip ground glass in Gerald Ballwin’s coffee. He sends someone up to tell us that Gerald’s wife wants to ease him out of the picture. While we’re running around in circles, Gerald gets a tummy ache and joins his ancestors, as the Chinese so nicely put it. We tell our story. The agency was on the job trying to protect him. We’ve accomplished two things: We’ve directed suspicion on the wife, and we’ve shown ourselves up as bunglers.”

“So what, lover?” Bertha asked, cooingly.

“So,” I said, “I don’t like it. The initials on the cigarette case show the girl is a phony.”

Bertha strode angrily over to the desk, took a key from her purse, unlocked the cash drawer, jerked it open, pulled out the neat package of ten-dollar bills, and said, “And that dough says she’s a client.”

She slammed the money back in the drawer, closed the drawer, locked it, and went out to lunch.

Chapter Three

Anchovy Paste and Soft Soap

I rang up a couple of operatives who work around for different agencies and arranged to have a shadow put on Mrs. Ballwin, one of the men to work days and the other to work nights until midnight. Not that I had any idea she’d walk into a drugstore and buy poison “to take care of those bothersome rats in the basement,” but one never could tell, and I didn’t intend to overlook any bets.

I had lunch and stopped in at a delicatessen store afterward.

I looked the place over pretty thoroughly. There was a full carton, which had just been opened, containing two dozen tubes of anchovy paste. It was a brand I’d never heard of before, and I bought the whole carton.

I drove out to the Ballwin residence on 2319 Atwell Avenue, parked the car, walked up the front steps, and rang the bell.

A butler answered the door.

He was a young chap about twenty-six or -seven and good-looking in a weak-mouthed sort of way. His livery looked out of place on him and he was as self-conscious in it as a man is in his first full dress.

“You’re the butler?” I asked just to watch his expression.

“The butler and the chauffeur. Whom did you wish to see?”

I gave him my best smile and said, “I’m representing the Zesty-Paste people, and we’re looking for women who are prominent socially, the sort of woman who represents the average, high-class American housewife. We’re going to do some advertising—”

“Mrs. Ballwin is definitely not interested,” he said, and started to slam the door.

I said, “You don’t get the idea. I’m not selling anything. All I want is to get Mrs. Ballwin to pose for a picture that will be used in all of the big national magazines under the caption, ‘Society Woman Uses Zesty-Paste for Hors D’Oeuvres.’ My name’s Lam and I’m head of the advertising department.”

The butler hesitated, said dubiously, “I don’t think…”

I interrupted, “If you pass up an opportunity for Mrs. Ballwin to get a made-to-order social status and have it advertised in all of the national magazines, you’ll be back waiting tables in a beanery. Get my message to her and see what she says.”

He flushed, started to say something, caught himself, turned his back, said, “Wait there,” and closed the door in my face.

Five minutes later he was back. “Mrs. Ballwin will see you,” he said with frigid dignity, and a manner that said more plainly than words that he very much disapproved of the entire business. He’d been hoping he could tell me to go jump in the lake and slam the door in my face. Now he had to invite me in.

He ushered me through a reception hallway into a living room. Mrs. Ballwin made a regal entrance. She wasn’t a bit hard on the eyes. I suppose she was thirty-one, or thirty-two, but she managed to look quite a bit younger until one made a pretty careful appraisal.

“You’re Mr. Lam,” she said. “Won’t you be seated? I’m Mrs. Ballwin. Now, perhaps you can tell me just what it was you had in mind.”

She was cordial without committing herself. She was all fixed either to be polite and gracious, or cold and haughty, depending on which way the cat jumped.