Complete works of peter.., p.73
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 73
Once he gets this idea then Rocca has got him where he wants him. An' you gotta remember that Lee Sam has got plenty dough an' would pay plenty so's to keep anybody from sayin' too much about his daughter.
An' there is another angle. The guy who comes along to the Lee Sam house to plant this letter is takin' a chance, ain't he? Supposin' somebody sees him monkeyin' about the garage. This guy musta known plenty about the Lee Sam house to take a chance like that.
But supposin' he didn't haveta take a chance? Supposin' that letter had been planted by some guy who was in the Lee Sam house. Why then the whole set-up would sound less like a lotta hooey.
You remember the time when I was givin' the once over to Berenice's room, an' when I come out the three gun boys' in the car tried to bump me. Didn't I have the idea that they, got a tip off from somebody who was in the house? Well who was it knew that I was in the house? Who was it saw me readin' that letter? Wasn't it Berenice's Chinese maid?
O.K. Well supposin' we let our minds wander a bit more an' allow that it was her; that she was the one who telephoned through to somebody an' got 'em to send them thugs up to iron me out. Maybe the one she would telephone through to would be Toots, Joe Mitzler's blonde baby, who was in the car, an' that means that there is a connection between Toots an' Berenice's Chinese maid.
So now you know the reason why I have told Brendy to lay off pinchin' Toots. I wanta see if that baby is still kickin' around an' if so whether she is goin' to make another contact with the maid. See?
But the big thing right now is whether that letter is a fake or a real one. If it was a real one then we gotta consider this thing from a new set-up. We gotta consider this thing from the angle that Berenice was playin' along with Thorensen an' that she would be the guy who wanted Marella outa the way more than anybody.
An' so far as I am concerned if I find that Marella did write that letter then I reckon that we ain't got to look any further an' that even if Berenice can kiss like a passionate angel she is still the killer.
I light a cigarette an' finish off the coffee. For some reason that I cannot put my finger on I am thinkin' about that Sea Island ink. I reckon that I will take a look around at the Villa Rosalito an' see what ink is used around that dump.
This gets me on to somethin' else. I wonder whether Marella wrote the original letter in this business the one she sent to the Director In her own handwritin' or whether she typed it.
You gotta realise that I ain't seen this letter, I only got a typed duplicate in the folder that the Director's office issued out to me when I took the case over.
I get action. I grab off the telephone an' put a priority call through to Washington. I get it in ten minutes an' get right through to the Records Office at the Bureau. I tell 'em that I am doin' very well thank you an' that I want 'em to send me the original letter from Marella Thorensen so that we can do a little bit of checkin' up here, an' the Records guy says O.K. he will send it pronto by air mail an' that I ought to get it to-morrow.
I smoke another cigarette an' order up some more coffee. It looks to me like this goddam case is goin' to be one of the brightest bits of work that has ever come my way, because there don't seem to be any beginnin' or endin' to it an' all I have succeeded in doin' up to the moment is to nearly get myself shot up by three guys who I don't know an' get myself into a swell hot session with Berenice that may have a coupla unforeseen repercussions before I am through.
Dames are funny things. You're tellin' me! There is Berenice who is a swell baby an' who has certainly got something. This dame is as deep as hell. She is the sorta dame who would stick at nothin' to get what she wanted.
I'remember her from the night before. So what! Women have necked me before sometimes because they have felt that way an' sometimes because they thought they was goin' to do themselves some good in the process. Well, that's as may be but kissin' is just kissin' an' it really don't affect the situation where I am concerned well not a lot.
I remember a dame up in Yellow Springs. I went up to pinch this dame for bein' accessory to kidnappin' an' murder an' carryin' over a state line. This dame is a peach to look at. She looks so demure that you woulda thought that her ma hadn't ever told her anything at all about anything that really mattered.
This dame makes a big play for me whilst I am stallin' her around before makin' a pinch so's the Federal boys who are workin' with me can pick up her boy friend who has just gone out to fill the hooch bottle at the local drug store.
After we pinch these two this dame makes a big howl about the fact that when the boys eventually arrived she was in my arms tight an' I was kissin' her, an' eventually I get a letter from the Director askin' me what the hell. To which I replied that I would like to know just what he woulda done under the circumstances because I knew that if I hadda let go of that dame an' let her get at the razor she had got parked inside her shirt front she woulda probably cut me off in the prime of life, an' I reckoned that as I was holdin' her so tight I might as well pass the time away by seein' whether she was wearin' kiss-proof lipstick or the sort that makes suspicious wives go through their husbands' used handkerchiefs with a magnifyin' glass.
These ruminations bring me to all the dames in this case. I sorta wish that I knew a bit more about this Berenice but she is one of these dames that nobody ever gets to know. That's the big attraction about her. She's got mystery.
Then there is Marella.
Well, I don't know much about her either, except that she is nice an' dead. I reckon that she didn't have much of a time with Aylmar Thorensen, because that guy is a bum if ever there was one. He is a fat, frightened guy an' he would get behind a woman or anybody else any time he got windy.
But I reckon that Marella thought she was a deep one. I reckon she thought that she was bein' durn clever when she wrote that letter to the Director, but she wasn't bein' as clever as she thought. If Brendy is right this dame thought she was goin' to be tops of the situation instead of which all she gets is a bullet just to show her where she got off.
I get to thinkin' about Nellie the cook. Maybe Nellie knows somethin'. Anyhow I reckon that I am goin' to have a little talk with that dame. Maybe she knows somethin' about Berenice an' anyhow she will know plenty about Marella an' Thorensen. Right in the middle of these sweet thoughts Brendy comes through.
"Hey, Lemmy," he says. "I got some hot news for you. That letter was written by Marella all right. I got at Thorensen's head clerk. He knows Marella's writin' as well as he knows his own. He says there ain't any shadow of doubt that she wrote that letter. He says he ain't known her to use that ink before, but then she was a dame who used any ink that was around. She was one of them babies who never carried a fountain pen.
"So it looks like little Berenice is the one, hey?"
"An' here's somethin' else. I just been talkin' to the medical examiner down in the D.A.'s Office. This guy is a nosey sorta guy an' he's been givin' himself a treat by doin' a hot post-mortem on what was left of Marella, an' what do you think?
"He's got the bullet. It wasn't in Marella's head at all. That bullet was fired at close range an' hit against a bone an' went right down inta the neck. He's got it all right, an' it's a .22 calibre, an' what do you know about that? A .22 is a woman's gun, ain't it, Lemmy?"
"That's the way it looks, Brendy," I tell him, "but take it easy an' stick around. I want to play things my way for a bit."
"O.K.," he says, "I'll be seein' you, an' I have told O'Halloran to lay off pinchin' Mitzler or Toots if he finds 'em. I told him to put a tail on 'em an' leave it at that."
I hang up. Here's sweet news. So they found the bullet. They musta been cuttin' Marella about plenty. An' it was a .22 bullet, an' the gun I found in Berenice's handbag was a .22 gun.
An' the letter wasn't a phoney. It was the real works. Marella wrote it an' meant it.
It don't look so good for my little playmate Berenice, does it?
VIII. NELLIE
BY the time I have dropped inta the Hall of Justice an' looked up Rocca an' Spigla in the Records Office, got the address of the cottage in Burlingame where Nellie is livin' an' run out there it is six o'clock, an' I am hopin' that maybe to-night I will be able to get myself some sleep instead of rushin' around this piece of America at all hours, gettin' no place at all, an' gettin' more sleepy all the time.
You will have realised that this business of bein' a Federal detective has got its drawbacks. First of all any sorta dick has a lousy time. Detectives ain't so lucky except in books where they always find clues an' things lyin' about the place so's they know just who the guy is that they gotta pull in.
Well, I have never had a case like that yet. It looks to me like every case you have is sorta changin' the whole time, an' directly you come to one conclusion you find you are all wrong an' you can start again from where it all began from.
Anyhow Ma Caution usta say that the greatest thing a guy can have is patience although it is not so hot when I know durn well that the District Attorney is screamin' for me to pinch somebody he don't mind very much who probably because he has got the next election in mind an' he wants to keep the news-sheets quiet.
I would not mind pinchin' anybody either an' my selection would be Berenice only I have got the idea at the back of my head that pinchin' this dame right now is not goin' to tell me whatever it was that Marella wanted to tell the Federal government about, which is the business that concerns me right now.
Another thing is this: You guys will agree with me that it looks like Berenice has been drawin' some sweet red herrin's all over the place an' that business sorta interests me. If you think the same way as I do it will look to you that it looks like this dame is tryin' hard to prove herself guilty of this Marella killin', an' havin' regard to the fact that this baby is plenty cute I am not goin' to fall for any play like that.
It is an old racket for somebody to do a murder an' then plant a lotta bad clues which, strung together, make lousy evidence that the killer's lawyer can play holy hell with in court, when all the while the real stuff, the real evidence that would get the chair for the murder guy is never produced because the prosecution have missed it through bein' too quick with the case an' choosin' to make a quick pinch on the phoney stuff that was all laid out for 'em to see.
I remember some clever cuss who killed an old range minder in Arizona just so's he could pinch a saddle off him. Well this guy did the old boy in by hittin' him over the dome with a hammer. He then carefully leaves his old hat lyin' in a corner of the shack an' when the Sheriff gets along there an' takes a look round an' sees that hat, he naturally thinks he has got a swell piece of evidence.
So he walked along an' pinches the owner thereof pronto. In the meantime they find some more swell evidence in the corner of the lean-to of the guy they have pinched. Hidden under a lotta stuff they found a hammer with a lotta grey hairs an' some blood on it. So they don't waste any more time, they just send this guy up for trial. They know they have got the murderer.
When the case comes up this guy's lawyer proves that the hat they found, although it belonged to the defendant originally, was one that he had said he was goin' to give to the old boy a week before the killin'. This lawyer also proves that the hairs they found on the hammer was goat's hairs an' the blood was goat's blood. So what?
So the guy gets himself acquitted. But if these fellers had not been in such a helluva hurry an' looked around to get some more evidence they would have found the real hammer he done it with all cleaned up an' buried under the floor, an' he was usin' this hammer, although everybody knows it was the old man's, six months' later. But because they'd tried this guy once an' acquitted him they couldn't try him again, could they?
So it just shows you what a lotta inconvenience can be caused to all an' sundry by law officers tryin' to make a pinch too quick, because in this case for instance a pal of the old range minder's has to go out an' gun for this killer, which took him two weeks an' meant the wastin' of three good shells an' the helluva lotta sweat over somethin that oughta been done by the State.
Nellie is a sweetheart. She is as black as dark brown velvet an' so big that even an Oxford chair is too small for her. She has got a smile like a big slice in a pumpkin an' teeth that shine like the inside of oyster shells.
Sittin' opposite her over a swell little fire an' with a glass of good bootleg liquor in my hand, I open my ears wide an' pray that Nellie is goin' to give me somethin' good.
She has already told me what the copper who came to see her 'phoned through to O'Halloran, that is, that any note that was left for her about Marella not bein' back until after nine o'clock was a lotta hooey because Marella fired her that mornin'.
It looks like Marella had told her that with Thorensen bein' over in Los Angeles there wouldn't even be much weekend cookin' an' that she reckoned she could get through with a daily hired girl that she was goin' to get in.
"I suppose that Mr. an' Mrs. Thorensen got on pretty well together, Nellie?" I ask her.
She grins an' takes a swig of bootleg.
"Nosah," she says. "Them two was rowin' an' quarrellin' fit to bust like a cat an' dog the whole time, yessah. I never done hear her the like o' the way them twoall usta go on at each other. But you gotta understand that it was all that Aylmar Thorensen. Yessah. A'm tellin' you that dis man was one big bad man an' de way he usta treat dat poor Marella was beyond tellin'."
"You don't say, Nellie," I tell her, "so he was a bad guy, heh? What did he use to do to her? He used to knock her about, hey?"
"Nosah," says Nellie. "I never saw that Mis' Thorensen produce any physical force so to speak, but he wasn' no sorta husban'. Nosah, dat guy only usta come round de Villa at de weekends an' mos' time he wouldn' even talk to poor Mis' Marella at all. He just usta treat her like she was a piece of dirt all de time. He usta sit up in his room writin' an' workin' an' ef he wasn' doin' dat he was drinkin' de whole time like you never saw anybody drink, although Ah never i saw dat man drunk. Nosah, Ah never saw Mis' Thorensen drunk. . . ."
"O.K., Nellie," I tell her. "Now you tell me somethin'. Did you usta see Mrs. Thorensen writin' her letters. Did she usta write letters sorta regular. Did she usta write 'em all in the same place at a desk or somethin', or did she just write 'em around the place any old how?"
"Nosah," says Nellie. "Ah'm tellin' you dat Marella, poor lamb, was jus' about the mos' tidy an' orderly pusson you never saw. Ef she was writin' letters she was writin' em at her desk in de mo'nin'. All de letters she wrote was writ in de mo'nin', an' dat poor lamb would stamp 'em an' seal 'em an' put on de stamp, an' walk along to the post an' post 'em herself. She was de mos' tidy an' orderly pusson. Why ef anythin' was even outa place she would be seein' it befo' you could blink yo' eye."
I grin. "So she was a pretty quick one, hey Nellie?" I say. "I bet she was pretty good at checkin' the grocery list over"
She grins back at me. "Mis' Caution, she sure was," she says. "Ah tell you dat one two times Ah tried to pinch jus' one two little things fo' myself an' Mis' Marella was on it like a bird. Ah reckon you couldn't get away with pinchin' anythin' in dat house. Why ef a pencil was outa place on a writin' table dat lady would be right on to it, an' would wanta know where it was, an' she would raise one big shout till dat pencil was found even ef she had to turn de whole house inside out."
"Swell, Nellie," I tell her. "I reckon it's a treat when you get somebody with a sorta sense of tidiness, ain't it? So she usta write all her letters in the mornin' an' usta post 'em herself. Say listen, Nellie, when you said she usta seal her letters, just what didya mean by that?"
"She usta have a seal," says Nellie. "You know one o' dem things you slap on de back of de envelope. She usta get de wax an' heat de wax an' den she would get out dis seal an' slap it on. Dis seal was on a ring an' it was like two crossed keys an' she usta slap dat on all her letters, yessah, until it done went."
"An' when did it done went?" I ask her.
"'Bout two months ago," she says. "Dat poor Marella lamb usta keep it in de little drawer on de top right hand side of de desk. It was allus dere. One day when I was cleanin' around I notice dat dis seal was gone, an' I tell her, but she don't say nothin'. She jus' says she reckons she mus'a mislaid it, although I never knew Mis' Thorensen lose nothin' befo'."
"Maybe somebody grabbed it off, Nellie?" I tell her.
"Dat's what I say, Mis' Caution, Sah, dat's what I say. I tol' her Mis' Thorensen I sayd youall better be careful I told her. Dere's people hangin' around here all de time. I seen 'em, an' dey'll grab off anything they can get their han's on, I tell her. I tell her that she sh' be careful leavin' anything around an' leavin' the doors open like she does becase this is a lonely sorta place an' dere's plenty people hangin' around for no good. I seen 'em with my own eyes, yessah."
I open my ears.
"Tell me about these people who was hangin' around, Nellie. When didya see 'em?"
She leans forward an' starts wavin' her glass at me.
"I seen 'em plenty, Sah," she says. "Mis' Caution, I seen guys two three times hangin' aroun'. Sometimes in de afternoon when I was all set to finish Mis' Thorensen she says you go take a walk befo' you start to cook dinnah she says. You need a walk she says. I usta go off an' sometimes I usta come down here to de cottage for an hour an' sometimes I usta hang around for a walk becase the doctor says I oughta walk.
"Two three times I am up on de road behind de house an' I can see around de place an' I see a car hangin' around on de back road behind de house. One time I see some city guy walkin' across de field an' I says to myself I says dat guy can't be up to no good becase dat field leads on to de back of de Villa lawn an' dere is Mis' Thorensen with all de doors an' windows off de latch like she usta have 'em in de afternoon. Two three times more I see dis guy hangin' around. Once I seen him down on de road below de Villa an' once I see him right outside. Yessah he wuz right outside de Villa an' lookin' in. I says that I reckon dat dis guy is jus' waitin' for a chance to bust in an' get at de silver. Nex' day Ah says to Mis' Thorensen Ah says Honey what fo' you have de latches off de doors an' de windows like you do? One dese days one of dese no-goods from de city is comin' bustin' around after de silver an' dere'll be plenty trouble. Well dere was plenty trouble fo' dat poor lamb."
