tough.
“She’s booked up for three weeks,” I said. “I couldn’t wait that long.”
“Just watch your step, Marlowe. Lay off. She’s private property. She wouldn’t give you the time of day. Besides being a lovely piece of female humanity, she’s as smart as a whip.”
“You mean she can type and take dictation as well?”
“As well as what?” He reddened suddenly. “I’ve taken enough lip from you. Just watch your step. Very carefully. I have enough influence around this town to hang a red light on you. Now let me have your report and make it short and to the point.”
“You talk to Washington yet?”
“Never mind what I did or didn’t do. I want your report as of right now. The rest is my business. What’s the present location of the King girl?” He reached for a nice sharp pencil and a nice clean pad. Then he dropped the pencil and poured himself a glass of water from a black and silver thermos jug.
“Let’s trade,” I said. “You tell me why you want her found and I’ll tell you where she is.”
“You’re my employee,” he snapped. “I don’t have to give you any information whatsoever.” He was still tough but beginning to shred a little around the edge.
“I’m your employee if I want to be, Mr. Umney. No check has been cashed, no agreement has been made.”
“You accepted the assignment. You took an advance.”
“Miss Vermilyea gave me a check for two hundred and fifty as an advance, and another check for two hundred for expenses. But I didn’t bank them. Here they are.” I took the two checks out of my pocketbook and laid them on the desk in front of him. “Better keep them until you make up your mind whether you want an investigator or a yes man, and until I make up my mind whether I was offered a job or was being suckered into a situation I knew nothing about.”
He looked down at the checks. He wasn’t happy. “You’ve already had expenses,” he said slowly.
“That’s all right, Mr. Umney. I had a few dollars saved up—and the expenses are deductible. Also I’ve had fun.”
“You’re pretty stubborn, Marlowe.”
“I guess, but I have to be in my business. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in business. I told you the girl was being blackmailed. Your Washington friends must know why. If she’s a crook, fine. But I have to get told. And I have an offer you can’t match.”
“For more money you are willing to switch sides?” he asked angrily. “That would be unethical.”
I laughed. “So I’ve got ethics now. Maybe we’re getting somewhere.”
He took a cigarette out of a box and lit it with a potbellied lighter that matched the thermos and the pen set.
“I still don’t like your attitude,” he growled. “Yesterday I didn’t know any more than you did. I took it for granted that a reputable Washington law firm would not ask me to do anything against legal ethics. Since the girl could have been arrested without difficulty, I assumed it was some sort of domestic mix-up, a runaway wife or daughter, or an important but reluctant witness who was already outside the jurisdiction where she could be subpoenaed. That was just guessing. This morning things are a little different.”
He got up and walked to the big window and turned the slats of the blinds enough to keep the sun off his desk. He stood there smoking, looking out, then came back to the desk and sat down again.
“This morning,” he went on slowly and with a judicious-frown, “I talked to my Washington associates and I am informed that the girl was confidential secretary to a rich and important man—I’m not told his name—and that she absconded with certain important and dangerous papers from his private files. Papers that might be damaging to him if made public. I’m not told in what way. Perhaps he has been fudging his tax returns. You never know these days.”
“She took this stuff to blackmail him?”
Umney nodded. “That is the natural assumption. They had no value to her otherwise. The client, Mr. A we will call him, didn’t realize that the girl had left until she was already in another state. He then checked his files and found that some of his material was gone. He was reluctant to go to the police. He expects the girl to go far enough away to feel safe and from that point to start negotiations with him for the return of the material at a heavy price. He wants to peg her down somewhere without her knowing it, walk in and catch her off balance and especially before she contacts some sharp lawyer, of whom I regret to say there are far too many, and with the sharp lawyer works out a scheme that would make her safe from prosecution. Now you tell me someone is blackmailing her. On what grounds?”
“If your story stood up, it could be because he is in a position to spoil her play,” I said. “Maybe he knows something that could hang a pinch on her without opening up the other box of candy.”
“You say if the story stood up,” he snapped. “What do you mean by that?”
“It’s as full of holes as a sink strainer. You’re being fed a line, Mr. Umney. Where would a man keep material like the important papers you mention—if he had to keep them at all? Certainly not where a secretary could get them. And unless he missed the stuff before she left, how did he get her followed to the train? Next, although she took a ticket to California, she could have got off anywhere. Therefore she would have to be watched on the train, and if that was done, why did someone need me to pick her up here? Next, this, as you tell it, would be a job for a large agency with nation-wide connections. It would be idiotic to take a chance on one man. I lost her yesterday. I could lose her again. It takes a bare minimum of six operatives to do a standard tail job in any sizable place, and that’s just what I mean—a bare minimum. In a really big city you’d need a dozen. An operative has to eat and sleep and change his shirt. If he’s tailing by car he has to be able to drop a man while he finds a place to park. Department stores and hotels may have half a dozen entrances. But all this girl does is hang around Union Station here for three hours in full view of everybody. And all your friends in Washington do is mail you a picture, call you on the phone, and then go back to watching television.”
“Very clear,” he said. “Anything else?” His face was deadpan now.
