Kept Women Can’t Quit

“Somebody is opening package of enlarging paper underneath counter,” Kisarazu said. “Very funny. After Mr. Lam leaves store we find enlarging paper on floor — seventeen sheets, double weight, white glossy. Same brand Mr. Lam buying at the time he stand at counter and I go look for cameras.”

Kisarazu bowed several times as though his head had been a cork bobbing on the water.

“Well, I’ll be go-to-hell,” Sellers said.

Kisarazu kept on bowing and smiling.

Sellers reached a sudden decision. “Okay, Bill,” he said to the man with him, “you take this guy to Headquarters and hold him. I’m going to shake this place down. There’s something here... the brainy little bastard.”

The man he had addressed as Bill clamped viselike fingers on my biceps. “Okay, Lam,” he said, “let’s go.”

He lowered his shoulder and started me toward the door.

I went along because there was nothing else to do.

Behind me I could hear Kisarazu’s parting remark, “So sorry, Mr. Lam,” he said, “so sorry.”

Chapter 8

I was kept waiting at Headquarters for more than three quarters of an hour before Frank Sellers came in, and then I was taken into one of those dispiriting rooms so characteristic of police headquarters.

A battered oak table, some brass spittoons on rubber mats, a few plain straight-backed chairs and a calendar on the wall constituted the only furniture. The linoleum on the floor looked as though it was covered with caterpillars, each caterpillar being a burn varying from one to three inches in length, where cigarettes had been flipped casually in the direction of the spittoons and had missed.

The man whom Frank Sellers had addressed as Bill turned out to be Inspector Gadsen Hobart. He didn’t like the name with which he had been christened, everyone knew it and, as a courtesy, called him Bill.

Sellers kicked out one of the straight-backed chairs away from the table and pointed to it. I sat down.

Inspector Hobart sat down.

Frank Sellers stood looking down at me, nodding his head at me slightly as though saying, I always knew you’d turn out to be a crook and by George, I wasn’t disappointed.

“All right, Pint Size,” Sellers said at length, “what have you got to say for yourself?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, you’d damn soon better think of something because right now we’ve got a murder rap pinned on you so tight even you can’t squirm out.”

I didn’t say anything.

“We don’t know how you did it,” Sellers said, “but we know what you did. You switched trunks with Standley Downer. You got his trunk, you found the false bottom in it, you picked up fifty grand, maybe more, but fifty for sure.

“Now then, I don’t pretend to know exactly what happened after that. All I know is that you had fifty grand that was so hot it was like a stove lid. You had to find someplace to conceal it. You were afraid that somebody was going to frisk you before you got out of town, so you went to that camera store. You bought a camera and that gave you an excuse to get some enlarging paper. You opened the box of enlarging paper and spilled some sheets on the floor, then you substituted the fifty grand in place of the photographic paper you’d slipped out and told Kisarazu to ship the whole thing to your office in Los Angeles. You figured no one would ever think of opening a box of enlarging paper.

“Now then, somebody double-crossed you. That was the weak point in your scheme. You didn’t have enough time to cover your tracks, so somebody got onto those tracks and didn’t lose any time once he got started.

“Apparently this person had some dame shadow you into the photographic store and then they managed to open the package long enough to pull out the bills, or it was tampered with before it left the store — and I’m not giving that Jap a clean bill of health — not yet.”

I said, “I take it all of this makes me guilty of murder.”

“It helps.”

“Yesterday,” I said, “you were thinking that was a plant and the business at the camera store was just a decoy. What made you change your mind?”

“I’ll tell you what made me change my mind,” Sellers said. “We covered all the express offices up here and the postal offices to see if any more packages had been sent to you — and what do you think we found?”

“What did you find?”

“We found lots of things,” Sellers said. “We found a package of books and cards that had been sent to you by yourself. And you know what we think? We think those books and cards came out of Downer’s trunk.”

“Any proof?” I asked.

“We’re getting it,” Sellers said. “Don’t rush us. Just give us time. Here’s something else we found out that you don’t know. We found the cabinet maker that Downer hired to put a false bottom in his trunk. That little piece of information jolted you, didn’t it, Pint Size?