Kept Women Can’t Quit

Sellers turned to her. “Well, now,” he said, “that’s a nice performance. You pulled just the right timing on that, just the right delay to think what to do, just the right timing to save Donald here from having to answer questions and giving him a minute to think.

“Now then, sister, I’ve got news for you! You were in San Francisco last night, too. You were calling on a babe named Evelyn Ellis at this same Caltonia Hotel. This gal was registered in the Caltonia under the name of Beverly Kettle. She was in Room 751. You told her you didn’t give a damn about Standley Downer that she could have him for keeps, but that you wanted what he’d taken from you and if you didn’t get it there’d be lots of trouble.

“You called her several naughty words and she—”

Hazel started to interrupt him to say something.

“Shut up,” Madison Ashby snapped at her.

Sellers turned to look at him with sober eyes. “I could kick you the hell out of here,” he said.

“You could,” Ashby said, “and just on the chance that you might want to do it, I’m going to advise my client what to do. Say nothing, Hazel. Absolutely nothing. Don’t even give him the time of day. Don’t admit anything, don’t deny anything, just say nothing except that you won’t talk until you have had a chance to confer with your lawyer in private.

“And now,” he said, turning to Frank Sellers with a little bow, “since you seem to be concerned about my being here, I’ll be on my way.”

“The hell you will,” Sellers said. “You’re just a little too eager, my lad. You’re anxious to get out and get on the telephone and tip somebody off to something. You’re going to stay right here.”

“Got a warrant?” Ashby asked.

Sellers backed up, pushed him to one side, walked over to the door, turned the bolt. “I’ve got something that beats that,” he said.

“This is violating my legal rights,” Ashby said.

“I’ll let you go after a while,” Sellers said. “Right now I’m holding you as a material witness.”

“A material witness to what?”

“To the fact that Hazel here screamed when I was trying to get an answer out of Donald Lam.”

“That wasn’t why she screamed,” Ashby said. “For your information, Standley Downer is her husband. A woman has a right to scream when she’s just learned that her husband has met a violent death and she is left a widow.”

Sellers said, “Husband, my eye! For your information, this babe is Hazel Clune. She’s been going by the name of Downer since she and Standley Downer teamed up.

“For your further information, this Hazel Clune, or Hazel Downer, as she’s calling herself, is mixed up to her eyebrows in the robbery of an armored truck. She’s been playing around with a crook named Herbert Baxley. She’s sore because Standley skipped out with fifty grand from the armored truck job. I guess that she regarded it as community property.”

Hazel took a quick breath, again started to say something.

“Shut up,” Madison Ashby said. “You say a word to anyone before I’ve talked with you and I won’t touch your case with a ten-foot pole.”

Sellers grinned. “Which case?” he asked.

“A case against you for locking her in a room, for falsely accusing her of crime, for defamation of character and slander, so far. I don’t know what will come up later on.”

Sellers looked at him moodily and said, “You know, I could develop quite a dislike for you.”

“Dislike me all you want to,” Ashby said. “I’m protecting my client.”

Sellers swung back to me. “How the hell did Standley Downer get hold of your trunk?”

Ashby caught my eye, shook his head.

“How would I know?” I asked.

Sellers worried his cigar for a minute, then holstered his gun, walked over to the telephone, dialed a number and said, “Let me talk with Bertha Cool.”

He held on to the phone for a moment, then said, “Hello, Bertha. Frank Sellers... Your partner double-crossed you and double-crossed me.”

I could hear Bertha’s voice making raucous sounds on the telephone.

“You’d better get over here,” Sellers said. “I want to talk with you.”

Bertha’s voice was a scream which poured sound out of the telephone and made her words audible all over the room. “Where’s here?”

Sellers gave her the address. “Now, look,” he said, “your boy, Donald, has been cutting corners. I don’t know how much damage he’s done. He’s been to San Francisco. I don’t think he killed a guy up there, but the San Francisco police think he did. What’s more, he picked up some loot. On that I’ll ride along with anybody. You’d better get over here.”

Sellers hung up the phone, sat down and watched me speculatively as though trying to read my mind.

I looked at him with a poker face.

“Wouldn’t it be funny,” Sellers said, “if this guy Standley Downer had the fifty grand from that armored car job with him? Wouldn’t it be just too funny for words if he’d put it in a trunk someplace, left his ladylove here flat on her beautiful fanny and took off for San Francisco?”

There was silence in the room.