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wanted me to tell you to make yourselves comfortable. He said not to do any talking.”

We had the coffee and sandwiches. About an hour later Lieutenant Sheldon came in, closed the door, pulled up his chair, and sat clown close to Billings.

“Mr. Billings,” he said, “you’re an important man in San Francisco, and we want you to know that the police recognize your importance. We try to give the important citizens a break whenever we can.”

“Thank you,” Billings said.

“Now, then, Bishop had something on your son. Would you mind telling us what it was?”

“It was over a girl,” Billings said.

Lieutenant Sheldon merely grinned.

“The girl had an operation and died.”

The grin came off Sheldon’s face. He thought that over for some little time.

“All right, Mr. Billings,” he said, “I think we can keep the blackmail angle out of it if you’ll co-operate with us.”

“If you’ll keep that angle out of it,” Billings said, “I’ll — I’ll do anything, anything in the world.”

“All right,” Sheldon said. “There’s only one thing you need to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Protect us in our efforts to protect you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t do any talking. These newspaper men are pretty damned smart. They’ll cross-examine you if you ever give them the ghost of a chance. They’ll question you and then check up on the answers. They’ll get you cornered and—”

“You don’t want me to give them anything, is that it?” Billings interrupted.

“For your own good,” the lieutenant hastened to interpose. “Mind you, we’re trying to give you a break. There’s only one possible way we can keep this blackmail angle out of it.”

“I’ll keep quiet,” Billings said.

“You see,” Sheldon said, beaming, “if you co-operate with the police, they’ll co-operate with you.”

I turned to Sheldon and said, “One thing you could do for me, Lieutenant.”

“Anything, Donald, anything you want. The whole damn city is yours. Just anything you want.”

I said, “In giving the story to the newspapers you could emphasize the fact that George Bishop had struck it rich in that mine.”

He looked at me and grinned. “Bless your soul, Donald,” he said. “The story is in print already. The rich gold mine is a smash hit. It’s dramatic. I’ve talked to so damn many reporters I’m hoarse. Now, Donald, you’ll That’s the way you want it, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

He came over and clapped his hand on my shoulder so that it all but knocked the breath out of me.

“Donald,” he said, “you’re a smart boy. You’re going places. Believe me, you haven’t done yourself a damn bit of harm on this case. Anything you want in San Francisco you can get, and that’s something that not many private agencies can say — particularly if they have headquarters in Los Angeles.”

He laughed at that one.

“How about me?” Billings asked. “And what about my boy? Are we free to—”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Sheldon said. “We’ve been so damned busy. We got your chauffeur up out of bed, Mr. Billings, and your limousine is waiting right out at the front door. Now, tere’ll be a lot of newspaper reporters taking flashlights when you get in the car. They’ll ask you a lot of questions. If you just say, ‘No comment,’ it will help a lot. We don’t want to get at cross-purposes. If you want to keep that blackmail angle out of the papers it would be a lot better to let me do all the talking.”

“There isn’t anything I want to talk about,” Billings said.

“Well, that’s all there is to it,” Sheldon said, and grabbed Billings’s hand in an ecstasy of cordiality.

He escorted Billings to the door, held it open, and then let his thick arm bar my exit.

He said, “You’d better let Mr. Billings go out alone, Donald. His son will join him down there at the car and there’ll be a lot of photographers. It might be better if you didn’t have your picture taken in the group. You know how it is. You fellows can work a lot better if people don’t know anything at all about you.”

“That’s me,” I told him, “a passion for anonymity.”

Sheldon said to Billings, “And you’d better see this fellow gets a damn good fee, Mr. Billings. Believe me, he’s been a lot of help to us in this case and a lot of help to you.”

“Don’t worry,” Billings said. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

The door closed.

“Isn’t there a back way out of here?” I asked Sheldon.

He clapped me on the back so hard that I had a job catching my breath.

“Donald, it’s a pleasure to co-operate with a private detective who really knows his way around. Anything we can do for you at any time we’re only too glad to do, anything at all. Come on out, right this way.”

Daylight was just breaking as he eased me out through the ambulance entrance in the back. A police car took me to my hotel.

Chapter Twenty

I walked into the office.

The receptionist looked up, gave a start as though she’d seen a ghost, and put a finger over her lips, motioning for silence. She jerked her thumb toward Bertha Cool’s office.

I moved over to the desk. “What’s the matter? Bertha on the warpath?”

“Bertha wanted to be notified as soon as you came in.”

“Was that the way she expressed it?”

“Not exactly.”

“How did she express it?”

“Bertha said, ‘If that slimy little worm has nerve enough to stick his nose in the door, you call me and I’ll throw him out myself. The partnership’s dissolved.’z”

“Nice of her,” I said. “Give her a ring. Tell her I just came in, and am in my private office.”

I moved over to my office door.

The gilt letters reading Donald Lam on the frosted glass had been crudely and violently scratched off. I figured Bertha had gone to work with the nearest safetyrazor blade, nicking it in the process.

Elsie Brand looked up at me with wide-eyed incredulity. “Donald,” she said, “don’t, don’t come here! Go see a lawyer and have him — My God, Donald, there’s going to be a scene.”

I took a cashier’s check from my pocket and said, “I wanted to repay the money you sent me, Elsie.”

“That’s all right, Donald, that’s all right. Don’t let Bertha know I sent it. Donald, what’s this? This is for thirteen — thirteen — Donald, this is for thirteen thousand dollars!”

“That’s right.”

“A cashier’s check,” she said.

“That’s right. Billings’s bank.”

“But what — But what—”

“I invested the money you sent in mining stock,” I said. “The Skyhook Mining and Development Syndicate, a nice company. It looked like a good buy, and after we had the stock bought, it went up like a skyrocket. I sold out to a syndicate that’s taking over the whole mine.”

“Donald, you mean my three hundred and fifty — Donald, I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to,” I said, “Just cash the check and—”

It felt as though an earthquake were rocking the office building on its foundations. Somewhere in the outer office a chair tipped over, a desk was shoved to one side and slammed against the partition as though it had been hurled by some giant hand, the door almost ripped off its hinges, and Bertha Cool stood there on the threshold, her