I was shivering with the cold and a nervous chill. My hand was shaking so I could hardly hold the letter. I turned on the hot water in the shower. When it was good and hot, I got out of my clothes and stood under the stream, letting the water run as hot as I could stand it. When I got out, I felt a little better. I rubbed myself with a towel, went out into the kitchen, and looked in the wood stove. Leave it to Louie to think of little things like that. He’d laid the fire with kindling and dry wood, so all I had to do was touch a match to it.
When the fire was roaring into flame, I lifted the cover from the stove and dropped in Helen’s letter. I put on some coffee, and looked through the cupboard to see if, by any chance, there was any whisky. I couldn’t find any. The warmth of the hot shower left me, and I was standing over the stove once more, shivering.
The east was splashed with vivid crimson, then the sun came up. The wood stove did its stuff, and my bones began to thaw out. The coffee started bubbling, and I had two big cups. By that time, I realized I was hungry. I broke some eggs into a frying-pan, scrambled them, made some toast in the oven, and had another cup of coffee with the eggs and toast. The kitchen was good and warm by that time.
I tried to smoke a cigarette, but the room gave me the jitters. Every article in it reminded me of her. The whole place was vibrant with memories — and desolate as a tomb.
I packed my bag and went out to stand in the sunlight. I couldn’t wait in the house any more.
The man who owned the gas station came out, and unlocked his pumps, rubbing his eyes sleepily. I walked over to him and said, “I’ve got to leave by plane. The others have taken the car and gone on. There are some provisions in the house you can have if you want.”
He thanked me, looked at me curiously, and said, “I thought I heard your wife and the other man drive away last night.”
I started for the highway. I’d been walking about three minutes when a car coming out from Reno swerved and slid to a stop. I looked up, my heart pounding in my throat.
Some woman was rolling down a window. Her arm concealed her face. I started toward the car, running across the pavement.
The window rolled down. The woman’s arm came away so I could see her face. It was Bertha.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Getting things straightened out here.”
“No one showed up, did they?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think they would. It sounded goofy to me. Well, come on. We’ve got work to do.”
“What and where?”
“First we get back to Las Vegas. This man Kleinsmidt on the police force is raising merry hell, and you’re the only one who can do anything with him.”
“What happened with Philip and the girl?”
She snorted and said, “Loss of memory! Well, it’s all right if he falls for it.”
“They’ve made up?” I asked.
“Made up! You should have seen them.”
“Where are they now?”
“Took a plane for Los Angeles. We’ve got to go back and square things with Kleinsmidt. Come on, hop in.”
I climbed in the car with her, and she said to the driver, “All right, now we’ll go to the airport.”
A plane was waiting. We climbed aboard. I wouldn’t talk. Bertha quit trying to pump me after a while. Then gradually the nerve tension left me. I dropped into a sound sleep.
A car met us at Las Vegas. “Sal Sagev Hotel,” Bertha said, and to me, “You look ‘pretty bad. Get a bath, shave, and then come to my room. We’ll get Kleinsmidt up.”
“What’s eating him?” I asked.
“He thinks you spirited a witness away, and he doesn’t like the way everybody pulled out of town last night without saying anything to him. He also thinks he should have questioned Corla Burke. He thinks the murder gave you some kind of a lead on her. You’ve got to square the whole thing. It’ll take a good story.”
“I know it will,” I said.
We went to the hotel. I told Bertha a button was loose on my shirt, and asked her for a needle and thread. She became unexpectedly maternal, and offered to sew it on for me, but I stalled her along.
As soon as her door closed, I beat it for the elevator. It wasn’t much of a walk around to the place where Helen Framley had lived. I stood at the foot of the stairs long enough to make sure no one was around, jabbed the needle into my thumb and squeezed out blood. I tiptoed up the stairs — and tiptoed down.
Bertha Cool was talking on the telephone as I came in. I heard her say, “You’re certain of that?… Well, pickle me for a herring… You’ve investigated at the airport?… That’s right. We’ll leave here on the afternoon plane. I’ll see you in Los Angeles this evening… That’s fine. Give them my congratulations. Good-by.”
She hung up and said, “That’s funny.”
“You mean that Endicott didn’t show up?” I asked.
Her little eyes glittered hard at me. “Donald, you do say the damnedest things.”
“Why?”
“How did you know he didn’t show up?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something you said over the telephone.”
“Nuts. You knew he wasn’t going to show up. Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t take that San Francisco plane out of Reno. He just disappeared into thin air.”
I stretched, yawned, and said, “When do we entertain Lieutenant Kleinsmidt?”
“He’s on his way up now.”
Knuckles pounded on the door. I opened it, and Kleinsmidt walked in.
“You,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Quite a heel you turned out to be.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Taking a powder and putting me in Dutch, after the breaks I tried to give you.”
I said, “I was out working for you.”
“Thanks!” His voice was sarcastic.
“As I see it,” I said, “all that interests you is the murder of Jannix.”
“That’s all, just a little minor matter like that, but the chief gets funny complexes. He’s sort of riding me about it, and there’s been a little criticism here and there, a few suggestions that your departure was rather abrupt, that I might have safeguarded the interests of the taxpayers a little better by seeing that you were provided with room and board. Where’s that Framley woman?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“You went away with her.”
“Uh huh.”
“Where’d you leave her?”
“In Reno.”
“Then what?”
I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Let’s not talk about it. Another guy beat my time.”
I felt Bertha Cool’s eyes staring at me. Kleinsmidt said, “Who’s the guy this time?”
“Man by the name of Hazen.”
“The one who identified the stiff?”
“That’s him.”
“He didn’t look like such a lady’s man to me.”
I said, “I made the same mistake, Lieutenant.”
He said, “I think I’ll do a little checking on that, Lam.”
“Go ahead,” I told him. “I can give you the name of the man who runs the gasoline station where we rented a cabin.”
“What does he know about it?”
“He told me this morning that he heard my wife and the other man drive away in the night.”
Kleinsmidt said, “Too bad. I don’t think you’re looking well. You need a good rest. We have the best climate in the west right here in Las Vegas. We’d hate to have you leave us again unexpectedly. I’m going to make arrangements to see that you don’t.”
I said, “Well, don’t be in a hurry about it. Here’s something for you to run down first.”
“What?”
“Remember Paul Endicott, Whitewell’s right-hand man?”
“Naturally.”
“I don’t know whether you heard Whitewell say so, but was going to give his son a partnership interest when he got married. You know, the income-tax people get funny ideas about those things. When the new partnership was organized, they’d want an audit of the books, even if Whitewell didn’t.”