I saw Kleinsmidt’s eyes showing interest.
“Keep right on,” he said.
I said, “I wouldn’t know, but if I wanted to make a bet, it would be that an audit of Whitewell’s books would show the real reason Endicott didn’t want the marriage to go through. That’s why he got Helen Framley to write a letter to Corla Burke that would make her think the marriage couldn’t go through.”
“What was in the letter?” Kleinsmidt asked.
“I wouldn’t know exactly, but it seems that Corla Burke’s father walked out and left the family when she was about fifteen. I wouldn’t want to be quoted, but I think the letter told her that her father had been arrested and was serving time in a penitentiary. Naturally, Corla wouldn’t have gone ahead with the marriage under those circumstances. She wouldn’t have thought it was fair to Philip.”
“It’s your story,” Kleinsmidt said. “So let’s hear the next installment.”
“Corla got to brooding over it. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from overwork, anyway. She started out to investigate. Naturally, it wasn’t anything she could entrust to anyone else, and she had to make a stall so she could get away and postpone the wedding until she could find out.”
“That shouldn’t have taken her long.”
“It wouldn’t have,” I said, “if the shock hadn’t thrown her off her trolley. They found her yesterday wandering around in Reno without the faintest idea of who she was or how she happened to get there.”
Kleinsmidt’s eyes narrowed into slits. He said, “Remember, Lam, I played ball with you once. I got my fingers hurt. Your pitching is full of curves. This time you’ve got to give me something that will stand up with the chief.”
“What do you suppose I’m doing now?” I asked him.
“I’m damned if I know. And I’m a little suspicious.”
I said, “Endicott was fighting for all the delay he could get. Jannix was to back his play. He was to be the witness who’d swear Corla’s father was in the pen. Endicott was going to pay him. You know Jannix. He was hot tempered and a little suspicious anyway. Endicott made the mistake of coming to see him, and caught Jannix in one of his more suspicious moments. When he left, Jannix was dead.”
“Very, very nice,” Kleinsmidt said. “Only it’s full of holes. It’s bum stuff, even for a theory. You wouldn’t, by any chance, have any facts to back up this fairy story, would you?”
“Lots of them.”
Kleinsmidt said, “Well, you might begin by telling me how it happened Endicott could have done this at the exact moment he was sitting in a picture show. The chief would be interested in that. He’s funny that way, the chief is.”
I said, “If a woman had killed Jannix, he was killed between eight-fifty and nine-fifteen. If a man killed him, he might have been killed any time.”
“How interesting!”
“The trouble with you,” I said, “is that you got a theory and then tried to fit the facts to it. Your idea was that because the people who lived in the adjoining apartment hadn’t heard a shot, the shot must have been fired while they were out.”
“Try firing a shot in there without that old dame hearing it,” Kleinsmidt said.
“Sure. She didn’t hear a shot. She was out at the train. Therefore, the murder must have been committed while she was out.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?”
“Suppose she hadn’t gone out?”
“Then she’d have heard the shot.”
“Would she?”
“Of course, she would.”
“But suppose she hadn’t?”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“If she hadn’t,” I said, “you’d have tried to find out why, wouldn’t you?”
“Naturally.”
I said, “The body was found in an apartment. The people in the adjoining apartment had been out from eight-fifty to nine-twenty. This made it very nice for you. You were able to narrow the crime down to a thirty-minute interval and start asking questions, accordingly. Well, if a woman had killed him, that would have been all right.”
“Why does a man make it any different?”
I said, “A big, powerful man could have shot him in the alley or in an automobile or out in an auto camp, loaded the body into a car, parked in the alley, thrown the body over his shoulder, taken it up to Helen Framley’s apartment and dumped it. Then he could have gone to a picture show and started building himself an alibi. Didn’t it ever occur to you as slightly strange that Endicott dashed in to Las Vegas just to see a movie? He must be some little fan.”
Kleinsmidt shook his head. “It’s lousy,” he said. “It stinks.”
“All right, you wanted me to give you something you could take to the chief. Don’t say I didn’t do it.”
“It’s your story,” Kleinsmidt said. “Even the way you tell it, it’s full of holes. If I tried to put it across, it would rise up and hit me on the chin.”
“Okay, it’s your funeral.”
“It may be my funeral,” he said, “but you’re going to be the chief mourner. Come on.”
I said to Bertha, “You can address my mail care of Lieutenant Kleinsmidt.”
“Like hell I will,” Bertha said, getting to her feet. “Who the devil do you think you are?” she demanded, glaring at Kleinsmidt. “You aren’t going to get away with this. I guess they’ve got lawyers in this town.”
Kleinsmidt said, “Sure they have. You go right ahead and get ’em. Mr. Lam is coming with me.”
Kleinsmidt took my arm. “Let’s go quietly,” he said.
We went quietly. Bertha Cool was standing in the doorway, saying uncomplimentary things to Kleinsmidt. He didn’t pay any attention to her.
As we walked through the lobby, Kleinsmidt said, “I’m sorry, Lam. I hate to do this, but that story just doesn’t hold water. Why don’t you think up a good one?”
“Okay by me. Don’t overlook Bertha, though. She won’t take this lying down. Later on, when you have a chance to think things over, Lieutenant, this is going to be your embarrassing moment. You can write a prize-winning letter on it.”
“I know,” he said, “you’re a plausible cuss, but if you talked me out of this, I’d never hear the last of it.”
He took me down to headquarters. He didn’t put me in a cell, but left me in an office with an officer standing guard. Around noon, Chief Laster came in.
The chief said, “Bill Kleinsmidt has been talking with me.”
“That’s good.”
“And Mrs. Cool is waiting in the other room with a lawyer and a writ of habeas corpus.”
“Bertha’s a two-fisted individual. She makes her compromise with a club.”
He said, “That theory of yours doesn’t sound as crazy to me as it did to Bill Kleinsmidt.”
“It’s just a theory,” I told him.
“You evidently had some evidence on which to base it.”
“Nothing I’d care to discuss.”
“But you had some?”
“No. It was just an idea.”
He said, “I’d like to know just what gave it to you.”
“Oh, just an idea.”
He shook his head. “You had something more to tie to than just an idea. Did the girl tell you something?”
I raised my eyebrows, said with exaggerated surprise, “Why? Does she know anything?”
“That’s not answering my question. Did she tell you something?”
“I’m certain I couldn’t remember. We talked about a lot of things. You know how it is, Chief, when you’re with a girl for several days.”