“The point is,” Peel said, “breach of promise suits don’t stand up against married men.”
“Is that a fact?” There was mockery in Wilma’s voice.
Peel frowned. “Yeah, and furthermore, Wilbur’s wife knows he’s a chaser. She bawls the hell out of him every time some dame snitches on him. But what’s a bawling-out worth?”
“You tell me.”
“We usually pay fifty bucks. If the dame wants more, Wilbur takes the bawling-out.”
Wilma nodded thoughtfully and seated herself in an armchair across the room. “All cut and dried, eh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Old stuff to you.”
“Yep.”
Wilma got to her feet. Her lips were pursed up and she nodded thoughtfully. “Mmmm. Will you excuse me a minute, while I slip on something?”
She headed for the bathroom door. Joe Peel’s eyes clouded, but he decided to play it through. “Go right ahead.”
She went into the bathroom, closing the door carefully behind her. Joe Peel got up instantly, strode to the door and put his ear against it. All he could hear was the rattle of clothes hangers.
He went back to his chair, saw a paper-backed book and picked it up. It was a lurid, old-fashioned dime novel, entitled Malaeska, The Indian Wife of a White Trapper.
Pretty strong reading for Wilma Houston. The bathroom door opened and Wilma came out. She was carrying a black dress on a hanger.
“Excuse me,” she said and headed for the kitchen. She went into the kitchen and closed the door. Joe Peel looked at the bathroom door. She had left it partly open. He swiveled, looked at the kitchen door.
He got up and went to the bathroom door. He pushed it open a few inches more, stuck in his head. The bathroom and dressing closet were empty. He frowned and went back to his chair.
After a moment he opened the paperback dime novel and began reading. He read two pages before Wilma came out of the kitchen. She had the dress on now. It didn’t conceal much, but at least the shoulders stayed up.
“Now, about Wilbur,” she said, “it’s all been very interesting, but I don’t know him.”
Joe Peel sighed wearily. “I thought we’d covered that.”
Wilma looked over her shoulder toward the kitchen. She nodded.
Joe Peel started to turn — and lightning struck him. Actually it was the fist of a very rugged, very angry man, but Joe didn’t know that. He didn’t know anything — for quite a while.
When he regained consciousness he was up on Mulholland Drive.
There was a throbbing lump behind his right ear. His legs were as weak as milk. The lights of Hollywood, in the valley below, were a shimmering mass. Joe Peel picked himself off the ground, staggered to the edge of the road-bed and stood there for three full minutes until strength flowed into his legs. A quick reach into his trousers pocket told that robbery had not been the motive for his slugging. His money was intact. He started walking along the pavement. A few cars passed him, but none stopped to give him a lift. The people who go for drives along Mulholland Drive at night don’t pick up hitchhikers.
After fifteen minutes or so he reached Laurel Canyon and cursed roundly. The man who had knocked him out and dumped him up on the mountain had certainly made it tough for him.
It took Peel almost forty-five minutes to reach Hollywood Boulevard and there, at Schwab’s Drugstore, he discovered that it was twelve-thirty. He had been knocked out around eight-thirty and had recovered consciousness about eleven-thirty. Three and a half hours.
Peel shook his head and stepped into a taxicab at the curb. Ten minutes later he climbed out before his hotel on Ivar. The little lobby was deserted, save for the clerk and Joe Peel would just as soon have missed him. But the watchdog spotted him.
“Oh, Mr. Peel,” he called, “Mr. Hathaway left orders for me to ask you about…”
“The rent.”
The clerk scowled. “That’s right. He said that you were…”
“Skip it, chum. I’m not in the mood, here—” Peel reached into his pocket and brought out a fifty. “Apply this on the account — and give me a receipt for it. The last time I trusted a night clerk he went south with the money and I had to pay it all over again.”
“I beg your pardon!” said the clerk, huffily. He wrote out a receipt. Peel stuffed it in his pocket and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
He unlocked a room that was all of ten by twelve feet in size and contained a bed, a chest of drawers, one chair and a maple table that was supposed to be a desk. It was home.
Peel stripped down to his shorts and climbed into bed. Two minutes later he was asleep.
4
The good California sun was shining into Joe Peel’s room when he awakened. He guessed that it was after eight by his watch in the pawnshop on Western Avenue. He yawned, then winced. He had forgotten the lump behind his ear.
He climbed out of bed and went into the tiny bathroom. The lump was down somewhat but was now discolored. Joe Peel scowled. Somebody was going to pay for that.
He dressed and was about to leave the room when he discovered that his right coat pocket contained something bulky. He reached in and brought out the old dime novel he had picked up in Wilma Huston’s apartment. He had been reading it while Wilma dressed and when she re-entered the room he had automatically stuck it into his pocket.
He looked at the booklet a moment, then shrugged and tossed it on the desk. Turning, he left the room.
On the comer of Hollywood Boulevard he went into a Thrifty Drugstore and had a breakfast of orange juice, hot cakes and coffee. After that he lit a cigarette and strolled leisurely to the office of the Beagle Detective Agency. It was a quarter after nine and Otis himself never got in much before eleven.
He rode up to the second floor in the elevator, walked around a corridor and saw someone standing in front of the office door. Joe Peel blinked. A customer; and what a customer!
She was in her early twenties, fairly tall and wearing a gray suit that could have been a Hattie Carnegie model but wasn’t. She had hair the color of young corn silk, a complexion that matched and the best-looking nose Joe Peel had ever seen. He whistled under his breath as he walked up to the door and reached up to the transom for the key.
“ ’Morning,” he said casually. “Waiting for me?”
“Are you Mr. Beagle?”
“Joe Peel is the name,” Peel replied smoothly. “Beagle’s a figurehead. I run the shop.”
He unlocked the door and stepped aside politely for the girl to enter. That was the impression she made on him.
She went into the office and Peel pulled out his own swivel chair for her to sit down. He went around to Beagle’s chair.
“Something I can do for you, Miss… Miss…?”
“Huston.” The girl hesitated briefly. “Wilma Huston.”
Joe Peel looked at her steadily. This was not the girl he had talked to in Wilma Houston’s apartment the night before. Definitely not.
“I’m glad to know you, Miss Huston,” he said. “Is there something I can do for you in the detecting lines? This is a detective agency, you know.”
“Of course, that’s why I’m here.” A tiny frown marred the smoothness of her forehead. “It’s… well, I don’t know if this kind of work comes within your field, but…” She exhaled suddenly. “The fact is, a man is bothering me and I want you to stop him.”
“Mmm,” said Peel, “a very interesting case. Can you tell me just how this man is annoying you…? I mean, does he whistle at you?”
“This is no joking matter, Mr. Peel,” the girl said. “The man is married and I don’t want to be named as the corespondent in a divorce case.”