Loot for the Unlucky Lady

“Come on in.” The door slammed shut. Steve hurried down to the lobby. Five minutes later the kid came whistling out of the elevator, an envelope in his hand. Steve tailed him to the office of the Daytona Times.

Fifteen minutes after the kid had emerged from the office, Steve went in and smiled at the very pretty girl behind the desk.

“Say, I’m Mr. Webster. I sent an ad over here a while ago and I think I made a mistake on it. Mind if I check your copy?”

She smiled nicely. “Not at all, Mr. Webster.” She took the pink duplicate out of a wooden tray and handed it to him. Help Wanted. Competent file clerk. Knowledge Spanish and Portugese. Write Box 81.

He thought fast. It would appear in the evening paper. Gloria would write at once and mail it the same evening. It would be delivered in the morning to the newspaper. It was worth a gamble.

“Good!” he said. “Guess I didn’t make a mistake after all. I’ll be in tomorrow to pick up the answers, if any. What time will they be ready?”

“Didn’t that messenger boy tell you? Quarter after nine.”

“That’s right. I forgot.”

The next morning the girl handed him four letters. He took them over to a table in the corner of the room, trying to guess which one was from Gloria Gerald. The handwriting on all the envelopes was feminine. He held them up to the light. One seemed lighter than the others, and there seemed to be hardly any of the dark blur showing through to indicate a lengthy letter. He took out his pocket knife and, using the dull edge of the blade, ran it under the gummed flap.

The folded slip of paper inside said, Phone 3831.

Quickly he resealed the envelope, walked to the street door. He had five minutes to wait before the messenger came walking toward the building.

He stood in the doorway, gave the boy an official looking smile and said, “I guess you want the Box 81 replies?”

“That’s right.” The boy took the letters without suspicion, turned and headed back toward the hotel...

The girl at the telephone company said doubtfully, “Now if you had the name, or the street address, we could give out the number, but the rules say that...”

“Ever see one of these before?” Steve asked. He showed her his license.

Her eyes widened. “Gosh, are you a private eye?”

He grinned. “Lady, I know who you’ve been reading. The only slang term I’ve ever heard is op, and I haven’t heard that often. I could call on the local cops for help, but it would take too long. This is rush business. How would you like a twenty-dollar hat? Just a present from me to you.”

She came back in five minutes, a conspiratorial whisper in her voice. “Two ten, Beechbreeze Road. About two miles from here. A Mrs. Charles Quarles is using the phone temporarily. It’s actually listed in the name of a Mr. Baker Henrich.”

“I’m lousy at picking out hats. Here. You buy one.”

“Oh, I couldn’t!”

He turned away, left the bill on the desk. When he looked back from the doorway the bill had disappeared and she was smiling after him.

Chapter Four Gal With a Gun

Beachbreeze ran parallel to the beach. The taxi took him by the cottage and he paid the driver off a block away. It was a little after ten. He went through a vacant lot down to the beach itself and located the cottage again. A wooden windbreak cut diagonally out from one corner of it. He suddenly realized that if he could get on the far side of that high windbreak, he couldn’t be seen from the cottage. That meant risking a walk down the beach, passing in the sun’s glare a mere hundred feet from the windows.

It seemed worth the risk, as it was probably that Barnard had already phoned her, and even if she saw him and recognized him, she could do nothing to prevent Barnard’s arrival.

The cottages were a good hundred yards apart. He kept his face turned toward the sea as he walked by. When he estimated that he was far enough, he looked back and saw that the windbreak masked all of the beach-side windows.

He walked back up across the beach, keeping the windbreak between him and the windows. Once up to it, he sat on the sand and leaned his back against it. From that vantage point, he could see enough of the road itself to determine when Barnard arrived, or when Gloria left.

With his right hand he loosened the flat .32 automatic in his shoulder holster. It was a trim gun, Belgian manufacture, Browning patent, and though it packed nowhere near the wallop of the Positive, the lesser bulk he felt compensated for that shortcoming.

A steel spring inside the leather clasped the gun firmly, held it with the grip in handy position. He never carried it unloaded.

He tightened as he heard a movement on the other side of the windbreak. Had she seen him? He rolled up onto one knee, waiting.