“I don’t know. She didn’t know. I asked her. She didn’t know she was there.”
“But surely you could learn something from the others?”
“Yeah,” I said; “what I’ve told you, chiefly from Aaronia Haldorn. She and her husband ran a cult, and he went crazy and began murdering people, and how could she help it? Fink won’t talk. He’s a mechanic, yes; and he put in his trick-machinery for the Haldorns and operated it; but he doesn’t know what happened last night. He heard a lot of noises, but it was none of his business to go poking his nose out to see what it was: the first he knew anything was wrong was when some police came and started giving him hell. Mrs. Fink’s gone. The other employes probably don’t really know anything, though it’s a gut they could make some good guesses. Manuel, the little boy, is too frightened to talk–and will be sure to know nothing when he gets over his fright. What we’re up against is this: if Joseph went crazy and committed some murders on his own hook, the others, even though they unknowingly helped him, are in the clear. The worst any of them can draw is a light sentence for taking part in the cult swindle. But if any of them admits knowing anything, then he lets himself in for trouble as an accomplice in the murder. Nobody’s likely to do that.”
“I see,” Fitzstephan said slowly. “Joseph is dead, so Joseph did everything. How will you get around that?”
“I won’t,” I said; “though the police will at least try to. My end’s done, so Madison Andrews told me a couple of hours ago.”
“But if, as you say, you aren’t satisfied that you’ve learned the whole truth of the affair, I should think you–”
“It’s not me,” I said. “There’s a lot I’d like to do yet, but I was hired, this time, by Andrews, to guard her while she was in the Temple. She isn’t there now, and Andrews doesn’t think there’s anything further to be learned about what happened there. And, as far as guarding her is necessary, her husband ought to be able to do that.”
“Her what?”
“Husband.”
Fitzstephan thumped his stein down on the table so that beer sloshed over the sides.
“Now there you are,” he said accusingly. “You didn’t tell me anything about that. God only knows how much else there is that you’ve not told me.”
“Collinson took advantage of the confusion to carry her off to Reno, where they won’t have to wait the Californian three days for their license. I didn’t know they’d gone till Andrews jumped on my neck three or four hours later. He was kind of unpleasant about it, which is one of the ways we came to stop being client and operative.”
“I didn’t know he was opposed to Collinson as a husband for her.”
“I don’t know that he is, but he didn’t think this the time, nor that the way, for their wedding.”
“I can understand that,” he said as we got up from the table. “Andrews likes to have his way in most things.”
Part Three: Quesada
XIII. The Cliff Road
Eric Collinson wired me from Quesada:
COME IMMEDIATELY STOP NEED YOU STOP TROUBLE DANGER STOP
MEET ME AT SUNSET HOTEL STOP DO NOT COMMUNICATE STOP
GABRIELLE MUST NOT KNOW STOP HURRY
ERIC CARTER
The telegram came to the agency on Friday morning.
I wasn’t in San Francisco that morning. I was up in Martinez dickering with a divorced wife of Phil Leach, alias a lot of names. We wanted him for spreading reams of orphan paper through the Northwest, and we wanted him badly. This ex-wife–a sweet-looking little blonde telephone operator–had a fairly recent photograph of Phil, and was willing to sell it.
“He never thought enough of me to risk passing any bum checks so I could have things,” she complained. “I had to bring in my own share of the nut. So why shouldn’t I make something out of him now, when I guess some tramp’s getting plenty? Now how much will you give for it?”
She had an exaggerated idea of how much the photograph was worth to us, of course, but I finally made the deal with her. But it was after six when I returned to the city, too late for a train that would put me in Quesada that night. I packed a bag, got my car from the garage, and drove down.