Читать книгу Dames Don't Care - Peter Cheyney - Страница 6

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Anyhow I have got the letters.

When I am about ten miles from Palm Springs I slow down. I light a cigarette an’ I do a little thinkin’. It looks to me as if it is no good makin’ any schmozzle about Sagers bein’ bumped off, because if I do it is a cinch that I am goin’ to spoil the chance of my gettin’ next to this counterfeit business.

I suppose whoever it was ironed Sagers out will take him out some place an’ bury him some time before dawn. As a bump off it was a nice piece of work, because if Sagers had told ’em what I said he was to tell ’em, that he was blowin’ outa here an’ goin’ back to Arispe to get the dough that this guy was supposed to have left him, then that is goin’ to account for his disappearance, an’ who the hell is goin’ to worry about one dancin’ partner more or less. Anyway it looks like I had better have a few words with the Chief of Police around here an’ tell him about the Sagers bump off, an’ get him to lay off things while I am flirtin’ around with this proposition.

When I get into the main street I pull the car up under a light an’ I take the letters outa my pocket an’ I read ’em. There are three letters altogether. The handwritin’ is good. Nice regular sorta letters with nice even spaces between the words, the sorta handwritin’ that is swell to look at.

The first letter is addressed from a hotel in Hartford, Connecticut, and it is dated the 3rd January. It says:

Dear Granworth,

I know that you always have thought that I am a fool, and I haven’t minded this particularly, but I do insist that you credit me with a certain amount of intelligence.

Your evasions and excuses during the last two months confirm my suspicions. Why don’t you make up your mind about what you are going to do, or are you so selfish that you are prepared to take what advantage you can from the fact that the community regards you as a happily married man who has no need to sow any further wild oats, while at the same time you continue to carry on an affair with this woman.

When you denied this previously I believed you, but having regard to the events of the last day or two, and a letter which I have received from a person who is in a position to know, it is quite obvious that you have been making a fool of me and other people for some time past.

I’m fairly good-tempered, but quite candidly I’ve had enough of this business. Make up your mind what you’re going to do, and be prepared to let me know very shortly. I shall arrange to come back and hear your decision.

Henrietta.

The second letter is from the same hotel, five days afterwards, the 8th January, an’ it says:

Granworth,

I have received your letter and I don’t believe a word of it. You’re a very bad liar. I am going to have satisfaction one way or the other. Unless I do get satisfaction I am going to be rather unpleasant, so make up your mind.

Henrietta.

an’ the third is just a few lines dated four days after, on the 12th January. It says at the top “New York” and goes on:

Granworth,

I shall arrange to see you this evening. So I’ve got to be tough!

Henrietta.

I put the letters back in my pocket an’ I light another cigarette. It just shows you, don’t it, that things are not always what they’re cracked up to be. Up to now everybody believed that when Granworth Aymes died Henrietta Aymes was outa town in Hartford, an’ here is a note which definitely shows that she was fixin’ to see him on the day he died, an’ that she was feelin’ tough.

It’s pretty easy to see why Henrietta was so keen on gettin’ those letters back, but what a mug she was to keep ’em. Why didn’t she burn ’em? Anyhow it looks to me that if I have any trouble with her, maybe I can use these letters as a means of makin’ her talk, because I am beginning to think that this Henrietta is not such a nice dame as she tries to make out. In fact I am beginnin’ to develop a whole lot of ideas about her.

I get out my notebook an’ I look up the address of the Chief of Police here. He is a guy named Metts, an’ he has got a house just off the street I am parked in. I guess he is not goin’ to be so pleased about being dug up at this time of the night, but then I have always discovered that policemen ain’t pleased with anythin’ at any time.

I drive round an’ park the car on the opposite side of the street. Then I go over an’ ring a night bell that I find. About five minutes later he opens the door himself.

“Are you Metts?” I ask him.

He says yes an’ what do I want. I show him my badge.

“My name’s Caution,” I say.

He grins.

“Come in,” he says. “I heard about you. I had a line through the Governor’s Office that probably you’d be handlin’ this thing. I suppose you’re down here about that phoney registered Federal bond business.”

“You said it,” I tell him.

I go in after this guy an’ we go to a nice room on the ground floor where he gives me a big chair an’ a shot of very good bourbon. Then he sits down an’ waits. He is an intelligent lookin’ cuss, with a long thin face an’ a big nose. I guess I ain’t goin’ to have any trouble with him.

“Well, Chief,” I tell him. “I don’t want to be a nuisance to you around here. I just want to get this job I’m doin’ finished as soon as I can an’ scram out of it. The co-operation I want from you ain’t much. It is just this. When this counterfeit Federal bond business broke an’ I was elected to handle it, I got through an’ got a guy in the ‘G’ Office at Los Angeles put over here workin’ under cover, name of Sagers. He’s been working out at the Hacienda Altmira as a dancin’ partner.

“I blew in tonight with a phoney tale about his comin’ into some money so as to relieve him, but somebody got wise to the job. When I went back to this dump later I found his body in a sack in the ice safe. Some guy had given him the heat in five places. He’s still there. I’m reportin’ that to you officially because a murder around here is your job; but I don’t want you to do anythin’ about it yet. I’ll advise Washington that Sagers is due to have his name put on the memorial tablet at headquarters, an’ we’ll just leave it like that for the time being, because if you start gumshoein’ around tryin’ to find out who bumped him off we’re just goin’ to get nowhere. O.K.?”

He nods his head.

“That looks like sense to me,” he says. “That’s O.K. by me. I’ll get out an official report as from you on Sagers’ death, an’ we’ll file it and sit on it till you say go.”

“Swell, Chief,” I tell him. “Now the other thing is this. Who was the guy who sent the information through to Washington about that Federal bond bein’ phoney? Was it you? If it was where did you get your information from? Was it the bank manager? How did it happen?”

He pours himself out a drink.

“I’ll tell you,” he says. “I got it from the bank manager. When this Aymes woman came out here, she opens a checking account at the bank. The bank manager, who is an old friend of mine, told me she opened this account with $2,000. She draws on this checking account until there is only ten dollars in it, and then one day she blows down to the bank an’ sticks a five thousand U. S. registered Federal bond over the counter to the receivin’ teller an’ asks him to pay it into her account.

“Well, that bond is a nice piece of printin’. He looks at it an’ it looks good to him, and it is only an hour afterwards when the manager is havin’ a look at it that he gets hep that it is counterfeit.

“He rings up Mrs. Aymes an’ tells her that the bond is as phoney as hell. She just seems a little bit surprised, that’s all, an’ accordin’ to him she didn’t seem to take very much interest. She says O.K. an’ she hangs up. Next day he writes her a line an’ says he’ll be glad if she’ll look in at the bank.

“She blows in. Then he tells her that this business is a little bit more serious than she might think. He tells her that he has got to report that a counterfeit bond has been paid into his bank, an’ that the best thing that she can do will be to tell him just where she got the bond from an’ all about it. She says O.K. she got the bond from her husband an’ she got it with a packet of $200,000’s worth of U. S. registered Federal bonds that he bought in New York for good money an’ gave to her.

“When the manager asks where he bought ’em, she says he bought ’em from the bank, an’ when the manager says that it’s not easy to believe that because banks don’t sell counterfeit bonds, she says that’s as may be but that’s all she knows. With that she gets up and is just about to go out when he asks her where her husband is as he reckons that somebody will be wantin’ to ask him some questions.

“She turns round an’ she smiles a little bit, an’ she says she’s afraid it will be damn difficult to ask her husband questions because he committed suicide in New York on the 12th January this year. Naturally this staggers the manager for a bit, but he says to her that she ought to be good an’ careful because it is a federal offense to change bonds that are screwy, an’ that he guesses she had better bring the rest down to see what they look like.

“So she drives off an’ she comes back with the rest of this stuff—$195,000’s worth of registered Federal bonds in denominations of fifty thousand, twenty thousand, ten thousand, five thousand an’ one thousand dollars, with the usual interest bearing coupons that go with them.

“In the meantime Krat, the manager, has been on to me about this an’ after she has left the stuff at the bank, I go over an’ look at it. The whole damn lot is counterfeit, but the job has been done so well that you have to have one helluva look before you see it.

“Well, there is the story. The same day I put the report through to the State. I suppose they pass it on to Washington an’ you get the job. What are you goin’ to do? Do you think she was in on this game? Do you think that she an’ this husband of hers got this stuff made before he killed himself?”

“I wouldn’t know, Chief,” I say. “Nothing matches up in this deal. I’ve handled some screwy jobs in my time, but I don’t think I’ve ever got one quite like this, an’ maybe it won’t be so hot for her before I am through with it.”

“One of them interestin’ things, huh?” he says.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “An’ how! It’s one of them funny ones—you know, nothin’ matches up, but as a case it’s damned interestin’. Here’s how it goes:—

“This guy Granworth Aymes an’ the dame Henrietta Aymes have been married about six years. He is a gambler. He plays the market an’ sometimes he makes plenty dough an’ sometimes he’s scrabbin’ around for the rent. They do themselves pretty well though; they live in the Claribel Apartments, New York, an’ they are heavy spenders an’ put up a good front. They are supposed to be plenty happy too, in fact this Claribel Apartments dump is just another little love nest, an’ you know how they usually end up?

“O.K. Well, at the end of last year this Granworth Aymes gets a hot tip. He plays it up well an’ believe it or not the deal comes off. He muscles in on a big stock-pushin’ racket an’ he walks out of it with a quarter of a million dollars profit. The boy is now in the money.

“Well, it looks like he has a meeting with himself an’ he comes to the conclusion that he’s had enough of bein’ up an’ down on the market an’ for once he is goin’ to be a sensible guy an’ salt down some of the profits. So he pays fifty thousand dollars into his checkin’ account at the bank and with the other two hundred thousand bucks he buys himself that much worth of U. S. registered Federal bonds. He brings ’em along to his down town office an’ he makes ’em up into a parcel an’ seals it up an’ he calls his lawyer on the telephone an’ tells him to legally transfer the Federal bonds to his wife Henrietta Aymes. He says that if it’s her money then they’ll be all right in the future because she is a careful dame, an’ will stick to the dough an’ not let him go jazzin’ it around.

“The lawyer guy gets a bit of a shock at hearin’ Granworth talk like this, but he is pleased that he is gettin’ some sense, an’ he draws up a deed of gift to Henrietta Aymes an’ the deed is registered an’ the lawyer then hands the bonds over to Henrietta, an’ the bonds he handed over was O.K., they wasn’t phoney, they was the real stuff.

“All right. Well, Granworth is on top of the world, ain’t he? He’s got a swell wife—because they tell me that this Henrietta is one swell baby—he’s got fifty thousand dollars in his checkin’ account. He don’t owe no money an’ everything is hunky dory.

“An’ it looks like Granworth is learnin’ some sense. He plans to buy some more insurance. He is insured on an annuity policy at this time with the Second National Corporation an’ he waltzes along an’ he says he wants to take out additional insurance. He wants to pay a down premium of thirty thousand dollars. They examine him for health an’ they find him O.K. They give him the new policy, but there is just one little snag.

“Two years before this guy Granworth Aymes has tried to bump himself off. He tries to commit suicide by jumpin’ in the East River. He’d been havin’ a bad time an’ was broke an’ didn’t like it. He was fished out by a patrolman.

“Havin’ regard to this little thing the Insurance Corporation make a proviso in his policy. The proviso says that, havin’ regard to the fact that he has tried to commit suicide on a previous occasion, in the event of future suicide on his part the policy is nullified. They will pay on anything else but not suicide.

“Got that? Well, everything goes along O.K. an’ he makes a bit more dough on the market, an’ on the 12th January this year he does another little deal that nets him twelve thousand. He has got forty thousand dollars in his checkin’ account at the bank, no debts, a wife with two hundred thousand Federal bonds an’ is in the best of health accordin’ to the Insurance examination of a few months before. So what? So just this. He goes an’ commits suicide. Can you beat that?

“On the evenin’ of January 12th he is workin’ late at his office with his secretary, a guy named Burdell. His wife is stayin’ in Hartford, Connecticut; he has fixed to go out to a party with some guys he knows, an’ this Burdell guy says he was plenty excited about something.

“He packs up at about eight o’clock an’ rings the garage for his car. He helps himself to a big drink, says good night to the Burdell bird an’ scrams. Burdell says he was lookin’ a bit strange when he went outa the office.

“He used to drive a big gray-blue Cadillac—a car you couldn’t forget. At ten minutes past nine he is seen by a wharf watchman drivin’ the car down to Cotton’s Wharf which is around there, an’ while this guy is watchin’ him Granworth drives the car into a wooden pile, bounces off an’ goes over the edge into the East River.

“Next mornin’ they yank the car out. Granworth is smashed up pretty good. They get him along to the morgue an’ Burdell is telephoned for an’ comes along an’ identifies him. In his pocket, inside his wallet is a note sayin’ that he is feelin’ funny in the head an’ that he reckons he had better take this way out an’ to give his love to his wife an’ say he is sorry for what he is doin’.

“All this stuff comes out at the inquest, an’ his wife is brought back an’ is knocked out by the news, an’ they bury this guy an’ that is that.

“All right. They clear up his business affairs, an’ after everything is fixed up Henrietta decides that she will come out here an’ give herself a holiday at the Hacienda Altmira which was a property Granworth had bought when he was out here two years before an’ leased to this guy Periera who calls himself the manager out there. She goes off, an’ she hands over Granworth’s office business to the secretary Burdell, because Granworth had said one time that he would like him to have it.

“All right. Well the Aymes dame comes out here, an’ she brings with her about five thousand dollars that was what she got after probate was fixed out of Granworth’s checkin’ account, an’ I suppose she brings out the two hundred thousand bucks in Federal bonds. The next thing is that Washington is advised by the State here that a phoney bond has been slipped over by her an’ that she has got another $195,000’s worth of phoney Federal bonds, an’ they put me on the job.

“I do a little bit of delvin’ around an’ I get the shorthand notes of the inquest an’ get the dope that I have just told you. I check up with this Burdell guy, an’ he confirms everything, includin’ the fact that this Henrietta was a damn good wife an’ a swell dame to get along with; that she was too swell for a piker like Granworth.

“Meantime, I reckon that it will be a good thing if somebody keeps an eye on this dame out here. So I get Sagers put on the job. He gets orders to get along here an’ fix himself a job out at the Altmira somehow an’ just case out the situation out there. He told me all he knew tonight an’ it wasn’t much. So there we go, an’ what do you know about that?”

Metts scratches his head.

“I reckon that’s damn funny,” he says. “It looks as if somebody had got the original real bonds off her an’ slipped her the phoney stuff in their place.”

“Maybe,” I tell him, “an’ maybe not. Listen Chief,” I go on, “you tell me something. When this bank manager Krat found out that the first bond she tried to slip over was phoney, who did he tell besides you?”

“Nobody,” he says. “He told me that he hadn’t said a word. He was the guy who found out that the bond was screwy an’ he told the boys in the bank to keep their traps shut an’ say nothin’ to anybody. He said that it would be a Federal job an’ the least said the better. Naturally, I ain’t told a soul. I reckoned a federal agent would be along here pretty quick an’ I never talk.”

He looks at me old-fashioned.

“Say,” he says with a sorta snarl, “you don’t think ...”

“I don’t think nothin’,” I tell him, “but I’m just askin’ you to get a load of this. I got my instructions to handle this job ten days ago. I was in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I ease right along to New York, an’ park myself at a hotel dump I use on East 30th Street. The second day I was there somebody sent me a note with no signature on it. This note said that I would probably do a damn sight better for myself if I was to get out to Palm Springs an’ take a look around the dump where Mrs. Aymes was stayin’, that I might find some interestin’ letters there.

“Well, I was lucky. Sagers tipped me off about this place tonight, an’ I went over there. There wasn’t anybody around an’ I had a look around an’ I found the letters. They was hidden in a book with the inside cut out—you know, Chief, the old stuff—an’ these letters show that things wasn’t so good between Henrietta an’ Granworth as the world believed. More than that they show that she wasn’t in Connecticut the night he bumped himself off. She was in New York, an’ she’d gone there to have a show-down with him. An’ how do you like that?”

He whistles.

“That’s a hot one,” he says, pourin’ me out some more bourbon. “Maybe there was something screwy about that suicide of his. Maybe she bumped him off somehow. Women can get like that sometimes.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” I say, “an’ what does she bump him off for? Does she bump him off because she’s found that the two hundred grand in Federal bonds is phoney, huh? Does she find that out an’ get annoyed with him? That would be a motive all right, but I reckon that if she knew the bonds was fake she wouldn’t have been such a mug as to try an’ cash one in on a bank. She’d have tried a fast one on somebody who wasn’t so wise as a bank guy.”

I shake my head.

“I can’t get it,” I say. “It’s not so hot.”

He grins.

“Dames is funny things,” he says. “They do all sorts of screwy things—even the best of ’em.”

I sink the bourbon.

“You’re tellin’ me,” I say. “I know ’em. Dames don’t care. Once they get an idea they just do something tough.”

“Yeah,” he says. “So what are you goin’ to do?”

I grin.

“Well, Chief,” I tell him, “I’ll tell you what I ain’t goin’ to do. I ain’t goin’ to run around here flashin’ a tin badge an’ shoutin’ out loud that I am a Federal Agent. I am goin’ to check in at the Miranda House an’ I’m goin’ to keep up the front that I am from Magdalena, Mexico, that I come here to tip Sagers off about comin’ into the money, an’ that I am goin’ to stick around here for a bit an’ take a little vacation.

“Tomorrow night I am going out to this Hacienda Altmira. I am goin’ to get next to these guys. If they want to play faro, then I’m playin’. I’m goin’ to get next to this Henrietta dame an’ stick around until I find out what the hell this dame is playin’ at an’ whether she is on the up an’ up or is just another female chiseller who has tried to pull a fast one.

“I gotta find out who bumped off Sagers an’ why. I gotta try an’ get next to somethin’ solid about these phoney bonds, because, right now, it looks as if nothin’ makes sense.”

“O.K. by me,” he says. “An’ I reckon you don’t want me or the boys interferin’ around at the Hacienda?”

“You’re dead right,” I say. “Say, is this place as lousy as they say?”

He shrugs.

“It’s just one of them places,” he says. “We’ve had plenty complaints from guys who’ve lost their dough there. Gamblin’s illegal an’ we put up a raid now an’ then just to amuse the children, but what’s the use of tryin’ to stop people playin’ faro or shootin’ crap for big dough if they’re built that way? Ten months ago some guy is found out on the desert away back of the Hacienda. He’d been clubbed till he looked like a map of Europe an’ he was good an’ dead. Plenty people said he’d been done at the Hacienda after they took him for his dough, an’ I tried all I knew to get a case goin’ but I couldn’t make it. I couldn’t prove a thing.”

“O.K. Chief,” I say an’ I shake hands. “Now I guess I ain’t comin’ to see you any more. It’s no good you an’ me being seen around together. But if I want to contact you I’ll call you. If you want me I’m at the Miranda House an’ I’ll be using the name of Frayme—Selby T. Frayme of Magdalena, Mexico.”

I scram. I get the car an’ drive over to the Miranda House an’ check in. Then I go up to my room an’ drink some coffee an’ read the three letters again. But I still can’t make any sense outa this thing.

One little thing is sorta stickin’ around in my mind an’ that is this. I would very much like to know who the guy was who sent me that anonymous letter sayin’ I should find these three letters out here at Henrietta’s dump. I wanta know who this guy was, an’ I am goin’ to guess once an’ take a shade of odds that I am right. The only guy mixed up in this business who mighta known that I was stayin’ on East 30th Street would be Langdon Burdell, Granworth Aymes’ secretary, an’ maybe I am goin’ to talk cold turkey to this guy pretty soon.

But even if it was him, how did he know that the letters would be out here at the rancho? An’ how did he know that Henrietta had taken ’em?

Another thing is that I have always found this ferretin’ out business comes hard. Nothin’ in this “G” game is easy. An’ I found them letters too damn easy. Maybe I was meant to find ’em.

I go to bed because, as I have told you before, I am a great believer in sleep. If the tough guys an’ dames was to stay in bed more instead of rootin’ around raisin’ hell generally, “G” men could take time out for eatin’ cream puffs.

I am wonderin’ what this dame Henrietta is like. They say she is one swell baby. Well, I hope they are right, because if I have gotta pinch a dame I would as soon pinch one who is easy to look at.

You’re tellin’ me!