«And he has a lousy temper,» Mrs. Prendergast said.
I put some more rye under her hand. Carol Pride watched me do it and almost snarled at me: «But on the night of the holdup she made a mistake and was wearing the real one.»
I leered at her.
«I know what you’re thinking,» she snapped. «Who knew she had made that mistake? It happened that Mr. Paul knew it, soon after they left the house. He was her escort.»
«He — er — touched the necklace a little,» Mrs. Prendergast sighed. «He could tell real jade by the feel of it. I’ve heard some people can. He knew a lot about jewels.»
I leaned back again in my squeaky chair, «Hell,» I said disgustedly, «I ought to have suspected that guy long ago. The gang had to have a society finger. How else could they tell when the good things were out of the icebox? He must have pulled a cross on them and they used this chance to put him away.»
«Rather wasteful of such a talent, don’t you think?» Carol Pride said sweetly. She pushed her little glass along the desk top with one finger. «I don’t really care for this, Mrs. Prendergast — if you’d like another —»
«Moths in your ermine,» Mrs. Prendergast said, and threw it down the hatch.
«Where and how was the stick-up?» I rapped.
«Well, that seems a little funny too,» Carol Pride said, beating Mrs. Prendergast by half a word. «After the party, which was in Brentwood Heights, Mr. Paul wanted to drop in at the Trocadero. They were in his car. At that time they were widening Sunset Boulevard all through the County Strip, if you remember. After they had killed a little time at the Troc —»
«And a few snifters,» Mrs. Prendergast giggled, reaching for the bottle. She refilled one of her glasses. That is, some of the whisky went into the glass.
« — Mr. Paul drove her home by way of Santa Monica Boulevard.»
«That was the natural way to go,» I said. «Almost the only way to go unless you wanted a lot of dust.»
«Yes, but it also took them past a certain down-at-the-heels hotel called the Tremaine and a beer parlor across the street from it. Mrs. Prendergast noticed a car pull away from in front of the beer parlor and follow them. She’s pretty sure it was that same car that crowded them to the curb a little later — and the holdup men knew just what they wanted. Mrs. Prendergast remembers all this very well.»
«Well, naturally,» Mrs. Prendergast said. «You don’t mean I was drunk, I hope. This baby carries her hooch. You don’t lose a string of beads like that every night.»
She put her fifth drink down her throat.
«I wouldn’t know a darn thing about wha — what those men looked like,» she told me a little thickly. «Lin — tha’s Mr. Paul — I called him Lin, y’know, felt kinda bad about it. That’s why he stuck his neck out.»
«It was your money — the ten thousand for the pay-off?» I asked her.
«It wasn’t the butler’s, honey. And I want those beads back before Court gets wise. How about lookin’ over that beer parlor?»
She grabbled around in her black and white bag and pushed some bills across the desk in a lump. I straightened them out and counted them. They added to four hundred and sixty-seven dollars. Nice money. I let them lie.
«Mr. Prendergast,» Carol Pride ploughed on sweetly, «whom Mrs. Prendergast calls ’Court,’ thinks the imitation necklace was taken. He can’t tell one from the other, it seems. He doesn’t know anything about last night except that Lindley Paul was killed by some bandits.»
«The hell he doesn’t.» I said it out loud this time, and sourly. I pushed the money back across the desk. «I believe you think you’re being blackmailed, Mrs. Prendergast. You’re wrong. I think the reason this story hasn’t broken in the press the way it happened is because pressure has been brought on the police. They’d be willing anyhow, because what they want is the jewel gang. The punks that killed Paul are dead already.»
Mrs. Prendergast stared at me with a hard, bright, alcoholic stare. «I hadn’t the slightest idea of bein’ blackmailed,» she said. She was having trouble with her s’s now. «I want my beads and I want them quick. It’s not a question of money. Not ’tall. Gimme a drink.»
«It’s in front of you,» I said. She could drink herself under the desk for all I cared.
Carol Pride said: «Don’t you think you ought to go out to that beer parlor and see what you can pick up?»
«A piece of chewed pretzel,» I said. «Nuts to that idea.»
The blonde was waving the bottle over her two glasses. She got herself a drink poured finally, drank it, and pushed the handful of currency around on the desk with a free and easy gesture, like a kid playing with sand.
I took it away from her, put it together again and went around the desk to put it back into her bag.
«If I do anything, I’ll let you know,» I told her. «I don’t need a retainer from you, Mrs. Prendergast.»
She liked that. She almost took another drink, thought better of it with what she still had to think with, got to her feet and started for the door.
I got to her in time to keep her from opening it with her nose. I held her arm and opened the door for her and there was a uniformed chauffeur leaning against the wall outside.
«Oke,» he said listlessly, snapped a cigarette into the distance and took hold of her. «Let’s go, baby. I ought to paddle your behind. Damned if I oughtn’t.»
She giggled and held on to him and they went down the corridor and turned a corner out of sight. I went back into the office and sat down behind my desk and looked at Carol Pride. She was mopping the desk with a dustcloth she had found somewhere.
«You and your office bottle,» she said bitterly. Her eyes hated me.
«To hell with her,» I said angrily. «I wouldn’t trust her with my old socks. I hope she gets raped on the way home. To hell with her beer-parlor angle too.»
«Her morals are neither here nor there, Mr. John Dalmas. She has pots of money and she’s not tight with it. I’ve seen her husband and he’s nothing but a beanstalk with a checkbook that never runs dry. If any fixing has been done, she has done it herself. She told me she’s suspected for some time that Paul was a Raffles. She didn’t care as long as he let her alone.»
«This Prendergast is a prune, huh? He would be, of course.»
«Tall, thin, yellow. Looks as if his first drink of milk soured on his stomach and he could still taste it.»
«Paul didn’t steal her necklace.»
«No?»
«No. And she didn’t have any duplicate of it.»
Her eyes got narrower and darker. «I suppose Soukesian the Psychic told you all this.»
«Who’s he?»
She leaned forward a moment and then leaned back and pulled her bag tight against her side.
«I see,» she said slowly. «You don’t like my work. Excuse me for butting in. I thought I was helping you a little.»
«I told you it was none of my business. Go on home and write yourself a feature article. I don’t need any help.»
«I thought we were friends,» she said. «I thought you liked me.» She stared at me for a minute with bleak, tired eyes.
«I’ve got a living to make. I don’t make it bucking the police department.»
She stood up and looked at me a moment longer without speaking. Then she went to the door and went out. I heard her steps die along the mosaic floor of the corridor.
I sat there for ten or fifteen minutes almost without moving. I tried to guess why Soukesian hadn’t killed me. None of it made any sense. I went down to the parking lot and got into my car.
SEVEN
I CROSS THE BAR
The Hotel Tremaine was far out of Santa Monica, near the junk yards. An interurban right-of-way split the street in half, and just as I got to the block that would have the number I had looked up, a two-car train came racketing by at forty-five miles an hour, making almost as much noise as a transport plane taking off. I speeded up beside it and passed the block, pulled into the cement space in front of a market that had gone out of business. I got out and looked back from the corner of the wall.