«You are getting your verb tenses a little mixed,» I said, «but the general idea is clear. Go on.»
«Well, Walter,» Ellen said, with what some people call an arch look, «the pearls have been stolen. Yes, I know that is the third time I told you that, but there’s a strange mystery about it. They were kept in a leather case in an old safe which was open half the time and which I should judge a strong man could open with his fingers even when it was locked. I had to go there for a paper this morning and I looked in at the pearls just to say hello —»
«I hope your idea in hanging on to Mrs. Penruddock has not been that she might leave you that necklace,» I said stiffly. «Pearls are all very well for old people and fat blondes, but for tall willowy —»
«Oh shut up, darling,» Ellen broke in. «I should certainly not have been waiting for these pearls — because they were false.»
I swallowed hard and stared at her. «Well,» I said, with a leer, «I have heard that old Penruddock pulled some cross-eyed rabbits out of the hat occasionally, but giving his own wife a string of phony pearls on her golden wedding gets my money.»
«Oh, don’t be such a fool, Walter! They were real enough then. The fact is Mrs. Penruddock sold them and had imitations made. One of her old friends, Mr. Lansing Gallemore of the Gallemore Jewelry Company, handled it all for her very quietly, because of course she didn’t want anyone to know. And that is why the police have not been called in. You will find them for her, won’t you, Walter?»
«How? And what did she sell them for?»
«Because Mr. Penruddock died suddenly without making any provision for all these people he had been supporting. Then the depression came, and there was hardly any money at all. Only just enough to carry on the household and pay the servants, all of whom have been with Mrs. Penruddock so long that she would rather starve than let any of them go.»
«That’s different,» I said. «I take my hat off to her. But how the dickens am I going to find them, and what does it matter anyway — if they were false?»
«Well, the pearls — imitations, I mean — cost two hundred dollars and were specially made in Bohemia and it took several months and the way things are over there now she might never be able to get another set of really good imitations. And she is terrified somebody will find out they were false, or that the thief will blackmail her, when he finds out they were false. You see, darling, I know who stole them.»
I said, «Huh?» a word I very seldom use as I do not think it part of the vocabulary of a gentleman.
«The chauffeur we had here a few months, Walter — a horrid big brute named Henry Eichelberger. He left suddenly the day before yesterday, for no reason at all. Nobody ever leaves Mrs. Penruddock. Her last chauffeur was a very old man and he died. But Henry Eichelberger left without a word and I’m sure he had stolen the pearls. He tried to kiss me once, Walter.»
«Oh, he did,» I said in a different voice. «Tried to kiss you, eh? Where is this big slab of meat, darling? Have you any idea at all? It seems hardly likely he would be hanging around on the street corner for me to punch his nose for him.»
Ellen lowered her long silky eyelashes at me — and when she does that I go limp as a scrubwoman’s back hair.
«He didn’t run away. He must have known the pearls were false and that he was safe enough to blackmail Mrs. Penruddock. I called up the agency he came from and he has been back there and registered again for employment. But they said it was against their rules to give his address.»
«Why couldn’t somebody else have taken the pearls? A burglar, for instance?»
«There is no one else. The servants are beyond suspicion and the house is locked up as tight as an icebox every night and there were no signs of anybody having broken in. Besides Henry Eichelberger knew where the pearls were kept, because he saw me putting them away after the last time she wore them — which was when she had two very dear friends in to dinner on the occasion of the anniversary of Mr. Penruddock’s death.»
«That must have been a pretty wild party,» I said. «All right, I’ll go down to the agency and make them give me his address. Where is it?»
«It is called the Ada Twomey Domestic Employment Agency, and it is in the two-hundred block on East Second, a very unpleasant neighborhood.»
«Not half as unpleasant as my neighborhood will be to Henry Eichelberger,» I said. «So he tried to kiss you, eh?»
«The pearls, Walter,» Ellen said gently, «are the important thing. I do hope he hasn’t already found out they are false and thrown them in the ocean.»
«If he has, I’ll make him dive for them.»
«He is six feet three and very big and strong, Walter,» Ellen said coyly. «But not handsome like you, of course.»
«Just my size,» I said. «It will be a pleasure. Good-bye, darling.»
She took hold of my sleeve. «There is just one thing, Walter. I don’t mind a little fighting because it is manly. But you mustn’t cause a disturbance that would bring the police in, you know. And although you are very big and strong and played right tackle at college, you are a little weak about one thing. Will you promise me not to drink any whiskey?»
«This Eichelberger,» I said, «is all the drink I want.»
TWO
The Ada Twomey Domestic Employment Agency on East Second Street proved to be all that the name and location implied. The odor of the anteroom, in which I was compelled to wait for a short time, was not at all pleasant. The agency was presided over by a hard-faced middle-aged woman who said that Henry Eichelberger was registered with them for employment as a chauffeur, and that she could arrange to have him call upon me, or could bring him there to the office for an interview. But when I placed a ten-dollar bill on her desk and indicated that it was merely an earnest of good faith, without prejudice to any commission which might become due to her agency, she relented and gave me his address, which was out west on Santa Monica Boulevard, near the part of the city which used to be called Sherman.
I drove out there without delay, for fear that Henry Eichelberger might telephone in and be informed that I was coming. The address proved to be a seedy hotel, conveniently close to the interurban car tracks and having its entrance adjoining a Chinese laundry. The hotel was upstairs, the steps being covered — in places — with strips of decayed rubber matting to which were screwed irregular fragments of unpolished brass. The smell of the Chinese laundry ceased about halfway up the stairs and was replaced by a smell of kerosene, cigar butts, slept-in air and greasy paper bags. There was a register at the head of the stairs on a wooden shelf. The last entry was in pencil, three weeks previous as to date, and had been written by someone with a very unsteady hand. I deduced from this that the management was not over-particular.
There was a bell beside the book and a sign reading: MANAGER. I rang the bell and waited. Presently a door opened down the hall and feet shuffled towards me without haste. A man appeared wearing frayed leather slippers and trousers of a nameless color, which had the two top buttons unlatched to permit more freedom to the suburbs of his extensive stomach. He also wore red suspenders, his shirt was darkened under the arms, and elsewhere, and his face badly needed a thorough laundering and trimming.
He said, «Full-up, bud,» and sneered.
I said: «I am not looking for a room. I am looking for one Eichelberger, who, I am informed lives here, but who, I observe, has not registered in your book. And this, as of course you know, is contrary to the law.»
«A wise guy,» the fat man sneered again. «Down the hall, bud. Two-eighteen.» He waved a thumb the color and almost the size of a burnt baked potato.