“Of course I’m kidding you,” he told her.
“I don’t think you’re a crook,” she said. “Tell me, if I can show you how to get that necklace will you make a division of the reward?”
“What sort of a division?” he asked.
“Give me two thousand dollars if you get the reward.”
Crowder gravely extended a hand.
“Shake, pard,” he told her.
She slipped her hand into his, suddenly laughed into his face with a display of pearly teeth.
“You’re no crook,” she said. “Wait until I get some clothes on.”
“Never mind the compliments,” he told her, “but tell me what you know.”
She pulled her hand from his.
“I’ll talk to you,” she said, “while I’m dressing.”
Chapter II
Pardners in Crime
She ran into a closet. A moment later the silk pajamas were flung out in a flurry of fluttering silk. There followed a barrage of jerky conversation, interrupted from time to time by the sound of snapping elastic or little quick intakes of breath as she struggled into garments.
“He’s got a girl,” she said... “I didn’t know anything about her... she certainly is one tough baby. She pulled a gun on me... I didn’t know anything at all about her, but one night when I was getting out of the barber shop where I work there was a coupe at the curb...”
“Yes, yes, go on,” said Crowder. “I’m interested.”
“Wait until I get my stockings straight,” she said. “Well, this coupe pulled up along the curb, and the door opened. A well-dressed brunette asked me if I wouldn’t ride with her. I didn’t know her from Eve — she looked like a good scout, and I didn’t want to seem to high-hat her. I got in and asked her what she wanted.
“She said she was just driving for recreation and fresh air; that she saw me come out of the barber shop and that I looked tired. She asked me a few questions about myself and said she was going to drive me to my apartment.”
“Did she?” asked Crowder.
“Like fun she did,” the girl told him. “She drove me down an alley and suddenly stuck a gun in my ribs and told me if I didn’t quit playing around her man, she was going to let a load of lead into my guts. She talked something frightful.”
“Coarse or threatening?” asked Crowder.
“Both,” she said.
“All right; then what?” asked Crowder.
“Then she put me out.”
The closet door opened and the girl came out, twisting the belt of her skirt, to get it straight.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Wait a minute,” Crowder told her. “Let’s get the rest of the sketch before we go anywhere.”
“Well,” she said, “she put me out and made me walk out of the alley. But while I’d been sitting in the car I got a look at the registration certificate in the front of the car? I’d done that as soon as she picked me up, just in case anything went wrong. Her name was Ethel Peters, and the address was 9204 Western.”
“Maybe the registration was a frame,” said Crowder.
“No, I looked her up. That is, I made it a point to go to that address. There’s an apartment house there, and her name is on the mail box.”
“I see,” said Crowder, interested. “And you think she was a pal of Gentleman Jim, is that right?”
“She most certainly didn’t stick a gun in my ribs just because she didn’t like my blonde hair,” the girl told him.
“And she talked like a moll?”
There was a flare of expression in the young woman’s eyes.
“She talked like a — Gee!” she said, “I’d better watch myself or I’ll be talking that way too, but you know what I mean.”
Crowder grinned.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The pair stood in front of the apartment house out on Western, and stared at the mail box.
“She won’t let us in at this hour,” said Trixie Monette.
“I’m not so certain,” Crowder told her. “Remember that this girl doesn’t live the kind of a life that you do. She’s probably accustomed to all sorts and conditions of callers, at all sorts of hours.”
He pressed his finger on the button opposite the card which bore the name Ethel Peters, Apartment 48B. Almost immediately the buzzer worked the electric release on the outer door of the apartment.
Bob Crowder grinned and pushed his way into the hallway.
“Look here,” he said, “we’d better get a definite plan of campaign.”
“If she’s got the necklace we can make her give it up,” said Trixie Monette determinedly.
“It may not be so easy,” Crowder told her. “And, by the way, you don’t mind if I call you Trixie, do you, providing you call me Bob?”
“No, Bob,” she said.
“All right,” he said. “Now we’re going up there, and we’ve got to work out some plan of campaign — before we get there or afterwards.”
“I’m game for anything,” she told him.
He stared at her steadily.
“Just what would you do for two thousand dollars?” he asked.
“Try me,” she said.
His eyes suddenly lost their glint of mocking humor and his face became hard as stone.
“Look here,” he said, “it happens that I want that necklace. I’d hate to tell you what I’d do in order to get it. Now, the question is, are you game to back my play?”
She shrugged her shoulders and started for the stairs with a free, swinging stride.
“If you knew the way I felt toward that woman,” she said, “you wouldn’t waste so damn much time asking questions.”
Crowder grinned and followed her up the stairs.
A door on the second floor opened a crack. A young woman with jet-black hair, smoky black eyes, her figure daringly and carelessly displayed beneath a pink negligee, stood in the doorway watching the pair come down the corridor.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Message from Jim,” said Crowder in a low tone of voice, keeping his head slightly forward so that the brim of his hat shaded his face.
Ethel Peters hesitated a moment, then stood slightly to one side.
“Come on in,” she said.
Crowder stood to one side and pushed Trixie Monette into the room, entered himself. The brunette closed the door of the apartment behind her, snapped a bolt into position.
“Well,” she said, “spill it.”
“Gentleman Jim got picked up on that Belman job,’ said Crowder, and is...”
He was interrupted by a hissing gasp from Ethel Peters.
“What are you doing here?” she blazed.
She pushed her way past Crowder, and walked toward Trixie Monette, her eyes flashing black lightning.
“Now wait a minute,” said Crowder. “Keep your shirt on, and...”
She sprang forward like some tigress and Crowder’s arm, dropping down around her chin, caught her by the neck and pulled her back.
“Not so fast, sister,” he said.
“Let me at her!” screamed Ethel Peters — “I know who she is; she’s the baby-faced little...”
There followed a string of invectives, words of the gutter which slipped easily and volubly from the red lips of the brunette. Crowder clapped a palm over the lips.
“Hush,” he said, “or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap and water.”
She whirled on him, biting at his hand, thrashing and kicking.
He caught her wrists, held them with one hand, and caught her by the throat with the other.
“Now shut up,” he said, “or I’ll throttle you.”
She lapsed into sullen silence.
“All right,” Crowder told her. “We’re not mincing words, since you’re not. We want that Belman necklace, and we want it quick.”