facin' me I can see a little light comm' between the window shades.
I go up to the entrance an' it is all fastened up. Then I think of the wire windo~vs around on the left, an' I get around there. They are locked too, but they are pretty easy, an' I have one open pronto.
The moon has come up an' there is a lot of it tricklin' through a high window above the bar.
I shut the window behind me an' start easin' across the floor. I am keepin' quiet an' if you asked me why I couldn't tell you. It just seems sorta strange that this place shoulda closed down so quick-especially when everybody looked like they was having such a swell time.
When I get past the band platform, where the bar starts, I stop and take a look, because from here I can see the bottom of the adobe stairs that lead up the side of the wall. There is a piece of moonlight shinin' on the stairs an' as I look I can see somethin' shinin'. I go over an' pick it up. It is the silver cord that Sagers was wearin' in his silk shirt, an' there is a bit of silk stickin' to it, so it looks like somebody dragged it off him.
I turn off the flash an' stick around. I can't hear nothin'. I lay off the upstairs an' start workin' around the walls, nice an' quiet, feelin' for door knobs. I miss' the entrance walls because I know that the passage leads straight out front.
I get over the bar because I reckon that there will be a door behind, probably leadin' upstairs an' connectin' with the balcony some place. There is a door all right an' I have to spider it open because it is locked. On the other side is a storeroom. I go in an' use my flash. The room is about fifteen feet square an' filled with wine an' whisky cases an' a coupla big ice-boxes. There is empty bottles an' stuff lyin' all over the place.
I ease over an' look in the first icebox. It is filled with sacks. In the second icebox I find Sagers. He is doubled up in a sack an' he has been shot plenty. I reckon he was on the run when they got him because he is shot twice in the legs an' three times through the guts at close range afterwards. I can see the powder burns on his shirt. Somebody has yanked his neck cord off him an' torn his shirt open.
I put him back in the icebox an' close it like it was. Then I get outa the storeroom, lock the door with the spider an' mix myself a hard one in the bar. I get over the bar an' scram out the way I come in.
I go back to the car an' drive towards Palm Springs.
It's a hot night; but it wasn't so hot for Sagers.
CHAPTER 2
Anyhow I have got the letters.
When I am about ten miles from Palm Springs I slow down. I light a cigarette an' I do a little thinkin'. It looks to me as if it is no good makin' any schmozzle about Sagers bein' bumped off, because if I do it is a cinch that I am goin' to spoil the chance of my gettin' next to this counterfeit bezuzus.
I suppose whoever it was ironed Sagers out will take him out some place an' bury him some time before dawn. As a bump off it was a nice piece of work, because if Sagers had told 'em what I said he was to tell 'em, that he was blowin' outa here an' goin' back to Arispe to get the dough that this guy was supposed to have left him, then that is goin' to account for his disappearance, an' who the hell is goin' to worry about one dancin' partner more or less. Anyway it looks like I had better have a few words with the Chief of Police around here an' tell him about the Sagers bump off, an' get him to lay off things while I am flirtin' around with this proposition.
When I get into the main street I pull the car up under a light an' I take the letters outa my pocket an' I read 'em. There are three letters altogether. The handwritin' is good. Nice regular sorta letters with nice even spaces between the words, the sorta handwritin' that is swell to look at.
The first letter is addressed from a hotel in Hartford, Connecticut, and it is dated the 3rd January. It says:
I know that you always have thought that I am a fool, and I haven't minded this particularly, but I do insist that you credit me with a certain amount of intelligence.
Your evasions and excuses during the last two months confirm my suspicions. Why don't you make up your mind about what you are going to do, or are you so selfish that you are prepared to take what advantage you can from the fact that the comrnunity regards you as a happily married man who has no need to sow any further wild oats, whilst at the same time you continue to carry on an affair with this woman.
When you denied this previously I believed you, but having regard to the events of the last day or two, and a letter which I have received from a person who is in a position to know, it is quite obvious that you have been making a fool of me and other people for some time past.
I'm fairly good-tempered, but quite candidly I've had enough of this business. Make up your mind what you're going to do, and be prepared to let me know very shortly. I shall arrange to come back and hear your decision.
The second letter is from the same hotel, five days afterwards, the 8th January, an' it says:
I have received your letter and I don't believe a word of it You're a very bad liar. I am going to have satisfaction one way or the other. Unless I do get satisfaction I am going to be rather unpleasant, so make up your mind.
an' the third is just a few lines dated four days after, on the 12th January. It says at the top New York and goes on:
I shall arrange to see you this evening. So I've GOT to be tough!
I put the letters back in my pocket an' I light another cigarette. It just shows you, don't it, that things are not always what they're cracked up to be. Up to now everybody believed that when Granworth Aymes died, Henrietta Aymes was outa town in Hartford, an' here is a note which definitely shows that she was fixin' to see him on the
