mean a thing. I have known pretty janes bump guys off before-an' get clean away with it too.
I have been drivin' back along the road nice an' easy, an' away in front of me in the moonlight I can see the white walls of the Hacienda Altmira. I wonder if Periera has delivered this guy Fernandez back where he lives, an' I wonder how the Maloney bird is feelin'. It looks like this Maloney has fallen for Henrietta. I could tell by the way he was lookin' at her earlier in the evenin'. He's got that sorta nutty look that a guy gets when he starts gettin' excited about a jane, an' I am thinkin' that he'd better watch his step with Henrietta. I reckon that one could play him for a sucker too, if she wanted to. Maybe she's playin' him off against Fernandez - you never know with dames.
I drive past the front of the Hacienda an' turn around an' run pretty slowly past the back. I start gettin' curious. I start wonderin' whether they have took Sagers outa that sack in the ice safe yet an' buried him some place in the desert. I reckon that was done pretty early yesterday mornin'.
An' for some reason that I don't know I think I would like to have a look. I sorta get a hunch about this, an' when I get a hunch I always play it
I stop the car behind some old broken down adobe wall that runs away from the end of the garage, an' I look up at the windows an' case the place. I can't see any lights an' I can't hear anything. I keep in the shadows an' I get around by the wall until I come to the windows on the side of the dance floor an' in about two minutes I am inside.
The place is dark, but there are big patches of moonlight here an' there. I listen but I can't hear anything, an' I ease over to the bar, get over it, an' start workin' on the door of the storeroom behind the bar. I get this open an' go in. Mter I have closed the door I switch on the flash that I have brought outa the car an' go over to the ice safes. I look in 'em both an' I see that Sagers is gone. I thought he would be, because whoever bumped him would get him moved before the club opened again.
Over on a shelf in the corner is some botiles. I go over an' look at 'em, an' I see one is a bottle of tequila that has been opened. I sit down on a box an' take a swig at this bottle, an' although the stuff is durn strong it is better than no drink at all.
I sit there with this bottle in my hand flashin' the torch around an' wonderin' why I had this hunch about comm' back to see if they'd moved Sagers. I mighta known they woulda done this. While I am thinkin' about this the light flashes on a garbage can in the corner. Stickin' out from under the lid is what looks like the corner of a letter. I go over an' take the lid off an' stan lookin' at the rubbish inside. There is all sorts of junk in this can, an' I turn it over With my foot.
All of a sudden I turn over what looks like a photograph that has been torn in two. I take the two pieces out an' put them together. The picture has been cut out of a newspaper an' underneath it I can see the caption that is indistinct because it has been folded over.
I take this picture back to the box an' sit down an' have a look at it under the flash. I get a sorta idea that I have seen this guy in the picture before. Then do I get a start? I am lookin' at a picture of myself cut out of a newspaper. I straighten out the caption an' read it. It says Portrait of a G-man. Exclusive picture of Lemuel H. Caution, the Federal Agent who brought in the Yelltz kidnappers.
Then I remember. This was a picture of me published in the Chicago Times two years ago after the Yelltz case. I remember how burned up I was at havin' my face in a newspaper so's every durn crook would know me on sight.
Round at the side of the picture on the plain edge of the newspaper is some writin'. I look at it close. It says 'This is the guy.'
I get it. Now I am beginnin' to understand a thing or two. It looks like somebody has sent this picture of me along here, an' written on it 'This is the guy' so's somebody would know me when I got here. I reckon that somebody back in New York, who knew I had been put on this case sends this picture along here so that the guys this end will know that something is goin' to happen.
And this is why they killed Sagers! It hits me like a bullet. When I blew into the Hacienda Altmira the first time they knew who I was. They was wise to my act with Sagers. So they guessed he was workin' with me, an' when he told 'em that night that he was scrammin' to Arispe like we arranged, they bumped him. They thought he might know a bit more than he did an' they aren't takin' any chances.
An' if they'll bump Sagers, well, I reckon they will bump me if they get the chance.
I take a spot more tequila an' start doin' a little concentratin'. Who would be the guy who would get this old newspaper an' cut the picture out an' send it out here so's they would be waitin' for me? Wouldn't it be the same guy who went to the trouble of writin' me that anonymous note in New York so as to get me out here after the letters that Henrietta had got? You bet it would.
This guy knows about the letters. He fixes to get me out here after 'em. In doin' this he knows that he must be puttin' the idea in my head that Henrietta bumped Granworth Aymes an' he also takes the trouble to send a picture out to somebody here so's they'll know I'm me.
An' what is the big idea behind all this? Is it to get me out here because it will be easier to rub me out in this place - easier than anywhere else?
I get up off the box. This counterfeit case is beginnin' to look sweet an' interestin' to me. It is gettin' so tied up that in a minute I shall think I done it myself.
But way back in my head is an idea that I'm goin' to work on. The idea that it was this secretary bird Burdell who sent me that anonymous letter so's I should get out here an' get next to Henrietta, an' maybe start something that is goin' to end up with her bein' pinched on a first degree murder charge. An' if I am right about this what is he doin' it for? Is he doin' it because he thinks that he is helpin' justice that way or because he's got some reason for wanting to put Henrietta on the spot?
I take another swig at the tequila an' I put the picture of me back in the garbage can - which is where a whole lot of crooks would like to see me too - an' I scram. I get outside an' get the car goin' an' I slide back in the direction of Palm Springs, because I think that it is time that I got busy on this case. I reckon that if nobody else won't start anything then I had better start something myself.
When I get back to the Miranda House Hotel I find a telegraph waiting for me. It is coded an' is in answer to the one I sent to the 'G' office in New York asking for information about the people in Granworth Aymes' employ at the time of his death. It says:
Aymes employees as follows stop. Langdon Burdell secretary in service seven years now carrying on Ayrnes business under own name New York stop. Enrico Palantza butler at apartment in service four years present location unknown stop. Marie Therese Dubuinet maid to Mrs Henrietta Aymes now in service Mrs John Viaford New York stop. Juan Termiglo chauffeur service three years present location unknown stop. Despatching to you photographs Palantza Dubuinet and Termiglo within two days stop.
This don't tell me very much an' between you an' me I didn't see just then that havin' pictures of these guys was goin' to do me much good neither.
I light a cigarette an' I do some thinkin'. I reckon that just for the moment I ain't goin' to do much good around here. Whether Henrietta decides that she is goin' to hitch up with Maloney or Fernandez ain't goin' to get me no place.
Another thing is that I wanta have a little conversation with this guy Burdell. I reckon he can tell me a coupla things I would like to know, an' if he can then I reckon that I am comm' back here to start something good an' proper.
Back of my head I have gotta big idea that Henrietta is holdin' out on me; that she is twicin' me good an' proper. There is something about that dame's face that is very nice, but that don't prove nothin' at all.
I remember a dame in Nogales on the Arizona-Mexico border. She was a honey. This dame had a face like a saint an' she spoke that way too. She was Mexican an' she figured to get some more culture an' teach herself English by readin' the History of the Civil War to her husband every night. He was a bit older than she was an' of a very doubtin' disposition. While she was readin' the History of the Civil War with one hand she was mixin' in arsenic in his coffee with the other.
One day this guy peters out. He gives a big howl and hands in his dinner pail. Some suspicious dick pinches the dame for murder although she says it musta been the History of the Civil War that gave him the pain in his stomach.
When she goes for trial she gets a hot lawyer who knows all the answers an' he tells her to put a veil all over her face an' cry all the time she is in court. She is lucky. The jury disagree an' another trial is ordered. This time she gets another lawyer. He don't know anything about law, but believe me he knows his onions. He gets her all
