Rhino said: “You know this gentleman, Minnie.”
Minnie said: “Y-yes.”
I said: “You shouldn’t have left the Leggetts’ that way. Nobody thinks you had anything to do with the diamonds. What did Miss Leggett want here?”
“There been no Miss Leggetts here,” she told me. “I don’t know what you talking about.”
“She came out as we were coming in.”
“Oh! Miss Leggett. I thought you said Mrs. Leggett. I beg your pardon. Yes, sir. Miss Gabrielle was sure enough here. She wanted to know if I wouldn’t come back there. She thinks a powerful lot of me, Miss Gabrielle does.”
“That,” I said, “is what you ought to do. It was foolish, leaving like that.”
Rhino took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed the red end at the girl.
“You away from them,” he boomed, “and you stay away from them. You don’t have to take nothing from nobody.” He put a hand in his pants pocket, lugged out a thick bundle of paper money, thumped it down on the table, and rumbled: “What for you have to work for folks?”
He was talking to the girl, but looking at me, grinning, gold teeth shining against purplish mouth. The girl looked at him scornfully, said: “Lead him around, _vino_,” and turned to me again, her brown face tense, anxious to be believed, saying earnestly: “Rhino got that money in a crap game, mister. Hope to die if he didn’t.”
Rhino said: “Ain’t nobody’s business where I got my money. I got it. I got–” He put his cigar on the edge of the table, picked up the money, wet a thumb as big as a heel on a tongue like a bath-mat, and counted his roll bill by bill down on the table. “Twenty–thirty–eighty–hundred–hundred and ten–two hundred and ten–three hundred and ten–three hundred and thirty–three hundred and thirty-five–four hundred and thirty-five–five hundred and thirty-five–five hundred and eighty-five–six hundred and five–six hundred and ten–six hundred and twenty–seven hundred and twenty–seven hundred and seventy–eight hundred and twenty–eight hundred and thirty–eight hundred and forty–nine hundred and forty–nine hundred and sixty–nine hundred and seventy–nine hundred and seventy-five–nine hundred and ninety-five–ten hundred and fifteen–ten hundred and twenty–eleven hundred and twenty–eleven hundred and seventy. Anybody want to know what I got, that’s what I got–eleven hundred and seventy dollars. Anybody want to know where I get it, maybe I tell them, maybe I don’t. Just depend on how I feel about it.”
Minnie said: “He won it in a crap game, mister, up the Happy Day Social Club. Hope to die if he didn’t.”
“Maybe I did,” Rhino said, still grinning widely at me. “But supposing I didn’t?”
“I’m no good at riddles,” I said, and, after again advising Minnie to return to the Leggetts, left the flat. Minnie closed the door behind me. As I went down the hall I could hear her voice scolding and Rhino’s chesty bass laughter.
In a downtown Owl drug-store I turned to the Berkeley section of the telephone directory, found only one Freemander listed, and called the number. Mrs. Begg was there and consented to see me if I came over on the next ferry.
The Freemander house was set off a road that wound uphill towards the University of California.
Mrs. Begg was a scrawny, big-boned woman, with not much gray hair packed close around a bony skull, hard gray eyes, and hard, capable hands. She was sour and severe, but plain-spoken enough to let us talk turkey without a lot of preliminary hemming and hawing.
I told her about the burglary and my belief that the thief had been helped, at least with information, by somebody who knew the Leggett household, winding up: “Mrs. Priestly told me you had been Leggett’s housekeeper, and she thought you could help me.”
Mrs. Begg said she doubted whether she could tell me anything that would pay me for my trip from the city, but she was willing to do what she could, being an honest woman and having nothing to conceal from anybody. Once started, she told me a great deal, damned near talking me earless. Throwing out the stuff that didn’t interest me, I came away with this information: