“On what?”
I said, “Unless I miss my guess, you’re either FBI or Military Intelligence. You’re working for the Government. I’m Ed Jenkins, The Phantom Crook. Perhaps I have some patriotism, too.” I watched him.
His eyes showed interest now.
I said, “The poison that was given Betty Crofath was something that had been worked out by the Crescent City Chemical Manufacturing and Supply Company. It was something relatively new. Someone had been trying to kill her. They couldn’t make connections. Finally the trick was done rather neatly. The person took the same train out of New Orleans with Betty Crofath — not in the same car, but on the same train — managed to sit next to her for a few minutes, open her purse, substitute poison in place of the sleeping tablets she was known to use, and move on.
“For a while, I thought it might have been Daphne Strate. Then I began having some other ideas.”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Under the name of Sabin, I went back to New Orleans, got in touch with the head of the chemical company there. Holaberry was the only one who knew I was in New Orleans.”
His eyes twinkled. “Not the only one, Jenkins.”
“The only one,” I said, “who knew that I was supposed to be in the market for large quantities of commercial chemicals.
“I talked with Holaberry. A few hours later, Ramon Vasquo Gomez came to my hotel and tried to sell me chemicals to be furnished by the Jap-controlled Bak Shui Wong Chemical Company of Shanghai.”
“Very interesting,” Rendon said. “Very, very interesting.”
“At the time, I made the mistake of jumping at the obvious conclusion.”
“That is nearly always a mistake.”
I nodded, “I’m afraid I did Holaberry an injustice.”
“Then how did Gomez get the tip-off?” he asked.
I said, “Holaberry must have telephoned Benjamin Colter Ruttling that night and told him I was there. Then, tonight, Ramon came to the apartment of Genevieve Hotling. He said he had followed Daphne there. That was a lie. Daphne was not followed — but Daphne had left her address with Ruttling.”
“Then you mean Ruttling called back Gomez and told him to try and sell you on a competitive line of merchandise put out by a Japanese-controlled company?” Rendon said. “Why, the thing is incredible. The president of the company could hardly be cutting his own throat!”
“No,” I said, “but the secretary who was double-crossing him could have been listening in — chap by the name of Whitney.”
Rendon’s eyes narrowed.
“I thought about the president at first,” I said, “but he couldn’t have been on the train because Daphne Strate knew him. She’d have seen and recognized him. But she didn’t know Whitney. The car porter probably saw Whitney fumbling around in Betty Crofath’s purse. That was just too bad for the porter. The reason I got a berth out of Tucson was that some passenger got off at Tucson. It would be very interesting to find out if that passenger might not have been a tall, slender chap with a horse face and pale blue eyes.”
“Whitney’s description?”
I nodded.
Rendon said, “Apparently there were some things in Miss Crofath’s trunk which had considerable significance.”
I said, “That, of course, is a little out of my line. But if Whitney or his accomplice, Ramon Gomez, murdered the Pullman porter in the room which had been reserved by Betty Crofath in the Pelton Hotel, it is reasonable to suppose that — well, draw your own conclusions.”
Rendon said thoughtfully, “A tall, slender man with a horse face. Yes, I noticed him in the Pelton Hotel.”
“You might be able to find that he was registered there. Rather a ticklish position, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said. “But as a crook of some experience, it wasn’t a position I would care to have been in.”
“Why not?”
I said, “The Japanese are not a particularly tolerant race.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Only if I, as Whitney, had taken a contract to search Betty Crofath’s trunk and find certain documents which were, in turn, to be delivered to my accomplice Gomez, who represented the Bak Shui Wong Chemical Company of Shanghai... Well — just suppose, Rendon, that after I had made my search, I hadn’t been able to find those documents. Would Gomez believe me? Would the Japanese believe me? Wouldn’t it be rather reasonable to expect that the representatives of the Bak Shui Wong Chemical Company would take steps to see that, just in case I had made a double-cross, the enemies of Japan didn’t profit by it?”
Rendon’s eyes showed glittering interest. He gave a low whistle.
I got up and started for the door.
“Wait a minute,” Rendon said. “You haven’t told me just what your connection is in this.”
I bowed and smiled. “My interest has nothing to do with Betty Crofath. To tell you the truth, I was making a play for Daphne Strate.”
“Why?”
I said, “I wanted the diary she had. I wanted to sell it to Ruttling. And I almost put it across. If the little tart hadn’t double-crossed me, I would have. I’m telling you this frankly, because you’ll find out when you talk with Ruttling that I tried to peddle the diary to him. It was one of the few failures I have made in such matters.”
And I bowed myself out.
That was once when it was much to my advantage to have a reputation for being a crook. He believed me.
I’d cut his telephone line. It would take him a few minutes to get in touch with the night clerk. He’d have to rouse some sleeper to get a telephone, and I was taking the only elevator down.
At that, Rendon was a fast worker.
The night clerk was just answering the telephone as I went out the door.
Ngat T’oy looked up at me with anxious eyes.
I avoided her eyes. My right hand pushed a tack into the tire.
“Nothing, Ed?”
I shook my head. “I can’t get a line on a thing. Look here, Ngat T’oy, don’t you think it was a simple case of suggestion? You know how it is. There are certain drugs which more or less destroy the volition, make one susceptible to hypnosis. While you were drugged, someone could have repeatedly told you certain things you were to dream...”
“But they might just as well have told me certain things I was to have done,” Ngat T’oy said. “And then — and then — oh, Ed, I’m afraid I would have done them. It was the most awful feeling.”
I drove the car away. “I’m afraid,” I said, “I’m at the end of my string.”
Ngat T’oy’s face was hard with fatigue, worry and inner conflict. The growing daylight was not so kind to it.
I had felt lucky to have thought of the long upholsterer’s tack I had picked up at home and stuck in my pocket, but now I was in a dither of annoyance for a moment, wondering if the dam thing had dropped out of the tire. Suddenly however, I heard the sound of the rim striking an obstruction, and a moment after that, the peculiar thump... thump... thump of a flat tire.
I pulled in to the curb and stopped. “Got a spare?” I asked her.
“Why, yes, in the back.”
I said, “It’s too early to find any place open where we can change the tire. I’ll have to do it myself.”
I took my coat off, folded it neatly, laid it over the seat back.
Ngat T’oy got out and walked around to the back part of the car.
I raised the turtleback, groped around and found the jack and a canvas roll containing tools. I jacked the front wheel up and came back to get the spare.