What he did ask her, after she had sipped daintily at her highball, was, “Millie, I came all the way from Washington because of that note you wrote. You must have been a good pal to Harve Yault.”
She surveyed Shirley with skepticism. “What if I was?”
“He left you some money, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t have much to leave, the poor guy. Miners never have much to leave anybody.”
Shirley said, “You’re right there, Millie.” The cashier relaxed a little.
Garret worked on his steak. “You think Harve was murdered?”
“I ain’t saying what I think.” Millie Hippo drained her glass, started to get up from the table. “Not until I know who I’m talking to.”
Garret took out the Sphinx badge again. “I’m a government investigator, Millie. This lady is working with me to see that Yault’s murderer is punished — if he was murdered. You told the hospital authorities he was murdered, at the time, didn’t you?”
The big woman examined the badge respectfully, but she was still cautious. “Maybe I thought that then. Ain’t saying I think the same way now.”
“We’re not trying to take the pension money away from you.” Shirley attempted to soothe her suspicions. “It’s just that Mr. Garret thinks maybe we can help square accounts with — whoever was responsible for Harve Yault’s death.”
The cashier’s cupid-bow lips quivered; her eyes filmed with moisture. “If you really mean that — if you honestly mean it — why, I’ll go right down the line for you. Harve — well, he was about the only guy in my whole life who ever actually kept his word with me. I’d cut off my right hand if it would help get the people who murdered him.” She gulped at the liquor.
Garret signaled for a refill of her glass. “What makes you so sure he was murdered?”
“He told me so.”
Shirley exclaimed, “How could he tell you, when you didn’t go to the hospital to see him?”
Tears began to roll down Millie’s plump cheeks. “He told me it was going to happen, three or four days before the cave-in. ‘Millie,’ he says to me, ‘Millie, if you hear of me getting stove up or knocked off in an accident, you’ll know it wasn’t no accident. If they get me, it’ll be plain murder!’”
“Who was Yault afraid of?”
“Somebody in the mine. He didn’t know for sure who it was.”
“At Ajax?” Shirley tried to keep the worry out of her voice.
Millie rattled the ice cubes in her glass. “That was where Harve worked. He wouldn’t know about any other mine. He found out something about copper being stolen out of Ajax. A hell,” — she coughed, daintily — “a whole lot of copper. Enough, Harve said, to make maybe a million cartridges a week.”
“Did he say how it was being stolen?” Garret was patient.
“No, he didn’t. I don’t even know if he knew. He kept mentioning something about swapping iron for copper, but I couldn’t tell if the swapping had anything to do with the stealing.”
That matter of iron again! If I only knew what the rusty iron had to do with it! Garret fumed inwardly.
“Now, listen. If Yault didn’t know who was stealing the copper or how it was being taken, what did he know that made somebody bump him off in that fake accident?”
She stirred her drink with her little finger. “Harve knew where it was being taken from. That’s what they were afraid of, I guess. The where of it.”
“That might be enough.” Garret watched Shirley ball her napkin up into a knot. “Where was it?”
Millie put a ladylike palm in front of her mouth, hiccoughed gently. “Fear Street,” she said. “That’s what he said. Fear Street.”
Shirley looked blank. “I never heard of it, Millie. Where’s that?”
Millie Hippo shrugged her enormous shoulders. “I don’t get around town very much on my job. I guess Harve thought I knew where it was, or he’d have told me.”
Garret gritted his teeth. “Do you think he told anyone else?”
“I don’t know, mister. I couldn’t say about that.” She dabbed at her lips with a bit of musk-scented cambric. “But there was another fella who’d know. He was with Harve just before the cave-in that night.”
“Who is this other man? Where is he?” Shirley cried apprehensively.
The big woman set her glass down sharply. “I can’t tell you who he is, not unless he says it’s okay. But I can take you to him.”
“Now?” Garret asked.
Millie nodded. “I guess now’s as good a time as any.” She stood up. They did the same. “If you’ll kindly follow me.” She started across the end of the dance floor toward the stairs.
Garret caught Shirley’s arm. “Maybe it would be better if you stayed down here.”
“No. I’d rather go with you.”
“Well — a place like this—”
She smiled. “You forget I’ve lived in Stope City all my life. I’ve never been in a place like this before, but it doesn’t matter.”
Nevertheless, Garret felt as if every eye in the crowd were watching them as they filed upstairs in the wake of Millie’s skirts. Somebody at the bar began to chant raucously:
Shirley laughed softly. Garret chalked up another credit to her score.
At the top of the stairs, Millie Hippo turned toward the front of the building, and led them down a dark and odorous corridor with closed doors on either side. The doors were facetiously lettered Wyandotte, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red.
At the door marked Leghorn, Millie knocked. There was no answer. Her lips close to the jamb, she said, “It’s Millie.”
Still no answer.
“Open the door! Friends of mine want to talk to you — about Harve.”
Instantly the door swung open six inches or so. The room was dark and the illumination from the fly-specked bulb in the hall was dim, so Garret couldn’t see the occupant.
But he could inspect them, without being seen. There was a whispered exchange between the man inside and Millie. Then the door swung wide.
“Go on in, folks. It’s okay. I can’t stick around, but I’ll see you when you come down.” Millie pushed Shirley into the dark room. Garret stepped quickly in after her. The door closed gently.
“Got to be careful,” the man said, his voice oddly familiar to Garret, “about anybody in the hall getting a peek at me.” The light went on.
“Scat!” Garret said in surprise.
The ex-con chortled. “Now you know what it feels like to be in the lineup yourself, where somebody can give you the eye and you can’t see him.”
“Shirley, this is Scat — I mean Sam Proctor. He works for your brother. Sam, Miss Brann.”
They shook hands quite formally. He waved toward one of the chairs at the battered table, but she preferred to stand. There wasn’t anything in the room to look at except a spring-saggy sofa with pink-and-purple cushions. On the table a cracked water pitcher stood alongside a half-empty pint bottle and a dirty tumbler. Shirley smiled uncertainly at Sam. He grinned toothlessly.
“I been holing up here ever since that dimwit Narriver sent out an alarm for me. I did Millie and Harve a few favors now and again, and she don’t forget a friend.” He indicated the whiskey.
“No great need of worrying. The captain hasn’t anything on you,” Garret said.
“No.” The bankrobber leered slyly. “But a couple of D.A.’s back east have. Old indictments, before I... uh... reformed, you might say. So I don’t like the idea of being fingerprinted.”