Sellers said wearily, “I get so damn tired of listening to your theories that don’t have anything to back them up.”
I said. “This isn’t a theory. This is what happened. I’m telling you because it’s an interview I’m going to give to the press.”
“Give it and be damned.”
I said, “It means that you’ve got off on the wrong foot. Instead of actually solving the murder of Lucille Hollister, you’ve got the thing all balled up and have let a woman shoot you in the hand and steal your car. That’s certainly going to put you in the position of being the prize boob. When you pose for the flashlight pictures of the newspaper photographers you can just see the headlines: WOMAN SUSPECT SHOOTS OFFICER, STEALS CAR, ESCAPES!”
Frank Sellers thought that over. He conjured up a picture of how that was going to look in print and didn’t like the picture.
I said, “You’re in this thing now to a point where you’ve got to straighten it out. Take half an hour with me and…”
“All right,” he said wearily, “let’s have it. You’ve got some wild-eyed plan in view. Let’s hear what it is. At any rate, I’ll listen.”
I said, “Take these handcuffs off and…”
“Not by a damn sight!”
I said, “Let’s use our heads. This man, Tom Durham, was mixed up in it. We know that because Minerva Carlton wanted to find out about him. He was the contact man. He must have been. Now then, Amelia Jasper and her maid, Susie, are mixed up in blackmail, and by this time, murder. They may make a run for it, but before they do, they’re going to pick up Tom Durham, who is also on the lam. And, unless I miss my guess, they’re going to give Durham a story to tell. And after Durham has told that story, then the two women will switch their own stories, stand together on it, appeal to the chivalry of an American jury, and convict Durham of first-degree murder.”
“You talk and talk and talk,” Sellers said. “Where the hell’s that taxicab?”
Almost as though the cab had been waiting for the words, we heard the sound of a horn out front.
Sellers lumbered to his feet, said, “Okay, everybody, let’s go.”
Sellers hooked the fingers of his left hand around my arm, said, “On your way, Smart Guy.”
I held back long enough to say, “It’s all right with me if that’s the way you want to play it, but if you play it smart you can come back to Headquarters driving your own police car, with the Lucille Hollister murder solved and the killing in the KOZY DELL SLUMBER COURT all cleaned up.”
I thought I felt some of the tension go out of his fingers.
I said, “What the hell. You’ve got your gun. You can hold it in your left hand. If I try to get away, you can drill me. Take those handcuffs off and I’ll take you to Tom Durham.”
The taxicab honked his horn again.
“And to where your police car has been parked,” I added.
He said, “Look, if you know so much, you’re going to begin by taking me to where the police car is. The bracelets look good on you. Try to hold out on me and you’ll swallow your teeth! One of you janes go tell that taxi driver to quit blowing that horn.”
Claire Bushnell ran out to the taxicab.
I said to Sellers, “Tom Durham checked out of Westchester Arms about eleven o’clock, just about the time he could have got back from the expedition to the KOZY DELL SLUMBER COURT. That’s a peculiar hour to check out. The good trains have all pulled out by that time. The night planes are beginning to take off; but Durham didn’t go in one of the limousines that runs to the airport. He didn’t take a taxi. The door man’s certain about that. He didn’t remember Durham, but he remembered Durham’s suitcase, a massive affair with two hasps and two padlocks.”
“The bell-boy says Durham paid his bill at the cashier’s desk and then the boy took the suitcase out to the front door. The doorman remembers seeing the boy put the suitcase down. He had a glimpse of Durham, then he helped some people into a taxicab, and when he turned around, Durham was gone.”
“Walked around to another entrance and got a cab,” Sellers said.
“I don’t think he did.”
“Where do you think he went?”
I said, “Let’s make a bargain. If your car is parked around the Westchester Arms Hotel, will you take the handcuffs off and give me a break?”
Sellers hesitated. I could see the thought of losing that car really bothered him.
I said, “Remember, I’ll take you right to where your car is parked and…”
“You get busy and dig up my car,” he said. “When you’ve found that car for me, you can do more talking. I hate to go in and report that car stolen.”
I said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
We marched out to the waiting taxi.
“Westchester Arms Hotel,” I said, “and when you get there, cruise slowly around a two-block square until I tell you to stop.”
Sixteen
Two blocks from the Westchester Arms, we found Frank Seller’s police car parked by a fire hydrant.
Sellers’ exclamation of satisfaction was ample indication of the load that had been lifted from his mind.
“Stop right here,” he told the cab driver.
The cab driver lurched the car to a stop.
Sellers opened the door with his good hand, walked over to the police car, saw that the keys were in it, locked the ignition switch, pulled the keys out, put them in his pocket, grinned and walked back to the cab.
“Bertha,” Sellers said, holding his injured right hand so that there was little possibility of bumping it against the car door, “the keys to those handcuffs are in my right-hand vest pocket.”
Bertha pulled his coat back, fumbled for the keys. Sellers winced as the pressure of the coat caused motion in his right hand.
Bertha fitted the keys to the handcuffs on my wrists and took them off.
Sellers said, “Understand, Lam, you’re still under arrest. I’m just giving you a break.”
The cab driver said, “Who’s going to pay me?”
“They are,” Sellers said.
It spoke volumes for the condition of Bertha’s mind that she opened her purse, took out the sixty cents that was due to the cab driver and added fifteen cents with it.
“Now what?” Sellers asked. “Do we wait for them to come back?”
“They aren’t coming back,” I told him. “They’re smart enough to know that the quickest way they can get picked up is to be driving a stolen police car.”
“All right. What next?” Sellers demanded impatiently.
I said, “You come along with me.”
Sellers frowned, hesitated, all but refused point-blank, then fell into step at my side.
“No funny stuff,” he warned.
We walked in silence to the Westchester Arms Hotel.
“You certainly don’t think they’re staying here?” Sellers asked.
I said, “They’re hunted, they’re desperate, they’re trying to make a getaway. When Tom Durham checked out of that hotel he was in a hurry and he was trying to make a getaway. He and his suitcase disappeared. They might as well have been swallowed into thin air. We’re dealing with a regularly established blackmail ring. It isn’t a casual act of isolated blackmail. It’s part of a pattern.”
“All right, get to the point,” Sellers said.
I said, “Come on. This way.”
I opened the door of the cocktail lounge.
The manager was standing near the centre of the room where he could see both the door into the hotel lobby and the street door.