When the bulk of the reports were in, O’Gar and I sneaked away from the others—especially away from the newspaper men, who were all over the place by now—and locked ourselves in the library.
“Night before last, huh? Wednesday night?” O’Gar grunted when we were comfortable in a couple of leather chairs, burning tobacco.
I nodded. The report of the doctor who had examined the bodies, the presence of the two newspapers in the vestibule, and the fact that neither neighbor, grocer nor butcher had seen any of them since Wednesday, combined to make Wednesday night—or early Thursday morning—the correct date.
“I’d say the killer cracked the back door,” O’Gar went on, staring at the ceiling through smoke, “picked up the carving knife in the kitchen, and went upstairs. Maybe he went straight to Mrs. Ashcraft’s room—maybe not. But after a bit he went in there. The torn sleeve and the scratches on her face mean that there was a tussle. The Filipino and the maid heard the noise—heard her scream maybe—and rushed to her room to find out what was the matter. The maid most likely got there just as the killer was coming out—and got hers. I guess the Filipino saw him then and ran. The killer caught him at the head of the back stairs—and finished him. Then he went down to the kitchen, washed his hands, dropped the knife, and blew.”
“So far, so good,” I agreed; “but I notice you skip lightly over the question of who he was and why he killed.”
He pushed his hat back and scratched his bullet head.
“Don’t crowd me,” he rumbled; “I’ll get around to that. There seem to be just three guesses to take your pick from. We know that nobody else lived in the house outside of the three that were killed. So the killer was either a maniac who did the job for the fun of it, a burglar who was discovered and ran wild, or somebody who had a reason for bumping off Mrs. Ashcraft, and then had to kill the two servants when they discovered him.
“Taking the knife from the kitchen would make the burglar guess look like a bum one. And, besides, we’re pretty sure nothing was stolen. A good prowler would bring his own weapon with him if he wanted one. But the hell of it is that there are a lot of bum prowlers in the world—half-wits who would be likely to pick up a knife in the kitchen, go to pieces when the house woke up, slash everybody in sight, and then beat it without turning anything over.
“So it could have been a prowler; but my personal guess is that the job was done by somebody who wanted to wipe out Mrs. Ashcraft.”
“Not so bad,” I applauded. “Now listen to this: Mrs. Ashcraft has a husband in Tijuana, a mild sort of hophead who is mixed up with a bunch of thugs. She was trying to persuade him to come back to her. He has a girl down there who is young, goofy over him, and a bad actor—one tough youngster. He was planning to run out on the girl and come back home.”
“So‑o‑o?” O’Gar said softly.
“But,” I continued, “I was with both him and the girl, in Tijuana, night before last—when this killing was done.”
“So‑o?”
A knock on the door interrupted our talk. It was a policeman to tell me that I was wanted on the phone. I went down to the first floor, and Vance Richmond’s voice came over the wire.
“What is it? Miss Henry delivered your message, but she couldn’t give me any details.”
I told him the whole thing.
“I’ll leave for the city tonight,” he said when I had finished. “You go ahead and do whatever you want. You’re to have a free hand.”
“Right,” I replied. “I’ll probably be out of town when you get back. You can reach me through the agency if you want to get in touch with me. I’m going to wire Ashcraft to come up—in your name.”
After Richmond had hung up, I called the city jail and asked the captain if John Ryan, alias Fred Rooney, alias Jamocha, was still there.
“No. Federal officers left for Leavenworth with him and two other prisoners yesterday morning.”
Up in the library again, I told O’Gar hurriedly:
“I’m catching the evening train south, betting my marbles that the job was made in Tijuana. I’m wiring Ashcraft to come up. I want to get him away from the Mexican town for a day or two, and if he’s up here you can keep an eye on him. I’ll give you a description of him, and you can pick him up at Vance Richmond’s office. He’ll probably connect there first thing.”
Half an hour of the little time I had left I spent writing and sending three telegrams. The first was to Ashcraft.
Edward Bohannon,
Golden Horseshoe Café,
Tijuana, MexicoMrs. Ashcraft is dead. Can you come immediately?
The other two were in code. One went to the Continental Detective Agency’s Kansas City branch, asking that an operative be sent to Leavenworth to question Jamocha. The other requested the Los Angeles branch to have a man meet me in San Diego the next day.
Then I dashed out to my rooms for a bagful of clean clothes, and went to sleep riding south again.
VI
San Diego was gay and packed when I got off the train early the next afternoon—filled with the crowd that the first Saturday of the racing season across the border had drawn. Movie folk from Los Angeles, farmers from the Imperial Valley, sailors from the Pacific Fleet, gamblers, tourists, grifters, and even regular people, from everywhere. I lunched, registered and left my
