Top of the Heap

I moved over to the bookcase, picked out a Who’s Who and started running through the B’s.

Bertha narrowed blazing eyes at me for a moment, then moved to look over my shoulder. I could feel her hot, angry breath on my neck.

There was no John Carver Billings.

I reached for Who’s Who in California. Bertha beat me to it, jerked the book out of the bookcase, and said, “Suppose I do the brain work for a while and you get out and case that motor court?”

“Okay,” I told her, starting for the door, “only don’t strain the equipment to a point of irreparable damage.”

I thought for a moment she was going to throw the book.

She didn’t.

Chapter Two

Elsie Brand, my secretary, looked up from her typing.

“A new case?”

I nodded.

“How’s Bertha?”

“Her same old irascible, greedy, profane self. How would you like to act the part of a falling woman?”

“A fallen woman?”

“I said a falling woman.”

“Oh, I see. Present participle. What do I do?”

I said, “You come with me while I register us in a motor court as husband and wife.”

“And then what?” she asked cautiously.

“Then,” I said, “we do detective work.”

“Will I need any baggage?”

“I’ll stop by my apartment and pick up a suitcase. That should be all we need.”

Elsie walked over to the coat closet, got her hat, and pulled the cover down on her typewriter.

As we left the office I said, “You might be looking this over,” and handed her the description of the two women which Bertha Cool had scrawled on the paper in her heavy-fisted writing.

Elsie studied the slip of paper on the way down in the elevator and said, “Evidently the man fell for Sylvia and hated Millie.”

“How did you know?”

“Good Lord, listen,” she said. “z’Sylvia, attractive brunette with dark, lustrous eyes; sympathetic, intelligent, beautiful, five feet two, weight a hundred and twelve, swell figure, around twenty-three or twenty-four, fine dancer. Millie, redheaded, blue-eyed, snippy, smart, may be twenty-five or twenty-six, average height, fair figure.’z”

I grinned. “Well, we’ll now try to find out how much information those women left behind in a motor court that’s been occupied three times since they were there.”

“Suppose the people who run it can tell us anything?”

“That’s why I want you along,” I said. “I want to find out whether it’s a careful motor court or whether it isn’t.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“Don’t mention it,” I told her.

I picked up the agency heap at the parking lot. We stopped at my apartment. Elsie sat in the car while I went up and threw a few things into a suitcase. As an afterthought I brought an overcoat along. There was a leather bag for cameras that could have been used by a woman, and I stuck that under my arm.

Elsie looked the collection over curiously. “Evidently,” she said, “we’re traveling light.”

I nodded.

We went out Sepulveda and I drove along slowly, studying the motor courts. At this hour they all had signs in front announcing vacancies.

“That’s the one we want,” I said to Elsie. “The one over there on the right.”

We turned in.

The doors were wide open on most of the units. A Negro maid was hauling out linen. A rather attractive girl wearing a cap and apron was also working around the place. It took five minutes to locate the manager.

She was a big woman about Bertha’s build, except that where Bertha was as hard as a roll of barbed wire, this woman was soft, all except her eyes. They were Bertha’s eyes.

“How about accommodations?” I asked.

She looked past me to where Elsie was sitting in the car trying to look virtuous.

“For how long?”

“All day and all night.”

She showed surprise.

“My wife and I,” I explained, “have been driving all night. We want a rest and then we want to look around the city and pull out early tomorrow morning.”

“I have a nice single at five dollars.”

“How about Cabin Number Five over there in the corner?”

“That’s a double. You wouldn’t want that.”

“How much is it?”

“Eleven dollars.”

“I’ll take it.”

“No, you won’t.”

I raised my eyebrows.

She said, “I don’t think you’ll take anything.”

“Why not?”

She said, “Listen, I’m running a high-class place. If you know this girl well enough to go into a single cabin as man and wife and you have the money to pay for it, that’s okay by me. If you’re selling her on the idea that you’re getting a double cabin I know what that means.”

I said, “There won’t be any noise, there won’t be any rough stuff. You can have twenty bucks for Number Five. Is it a deal?”

She looked Elsie over. “Who is she?” she asked.

I said, “She’s my secretary. I’m not going to make any passes. If I did, I wouldn’t get rough. We’re traveling on a business trip and—”

“Okay,” she said. “Twenty bucks.”

I handed her the twenty, got the key to the cabin, and drove the car into the garage.

We unlocked the door and walked in. It was a goodlooking double cabin, with a little sitting-room and two bedrooms, each with a shower and toilet.

“You going to get any information out of her?” Elsie asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “If she knew anything she wouldn’t tell. She isn’t the type that gabs, and she doesn’t want to have attention focused on the motor court.”

“It’s a nice place,” Elsie said, walking around and looking it over. “Clean as a pin and the furniture’s nice.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Now let’s get busy and try and find something that will give us an idea as to the identity of two women who had this cabin three nights ago.”

“Did I hear you say twenty dollars?” she asked.

“That’s right. She didn’t want to rent it at the regular price.”

“Bertha will certainly scream over that when she sees it on the expense account.”

I nodded, looking around the place.

“Isn’t this something of a wild-goose chase?” she asked.

“It’s all a wild-goose chase,” I told her. “Let’s start looking. We might even find the golden egg.”