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“Can you make a judge believe that?”

“To hell with a judge. What does he have to do with it?”

I smiled at him, a gloating smile of cold triumph. “If you get in Gabby’s way and he can frame you for a murder, he’s going to do it, and let the state take care of you, and you know that as well as I do.”

The guy’s coat retained its tailor-made lines, but the body inside of the coat had shrunk and slumped. The coat looked two sizes too large.

“Now, look,” he said, “you’re working for Gabby Garvanza and—”

“I didn’t tell you for whom I was working,” I interrupted.

I saw his eyes widen. There was an expression of incipient relief.

“But,” I said, “I now have some information Gabby Garvanza is going to want. And I want to know about Bishop. Now start talking.”

That did it. The crack about Gabby framing a murder on him had taken all the starch out of his spine and he was too terror-stricken to think clearly, to even try to figure out my real interest. He had hypnotized himself into static terror.

He said, “All I know about is the bookkeeping. We fixed it so that every bit of income Bishop had came from those mining companies.”

“And the mining companies?” I asked.

“Among their various activities,” he said, “they operated The Green Door. There was nothing in their charters that said they couldn’t. No reason why a company can’t operate anything it wants.

“Now, I can tell you this much. When Gabby Garvanza wanted to move into San Francisco, some of the fellows decided they would make it tough for him, but that wasn’t Bishop’s idea. Bishop and I wanted to play ball with him all along. If he could furnish the protection we were willing to pay for that protection. We didn’t care where the money went to or who got it. All we wanted was the commodity.

We were willing to buy it from the one who could give us the best service.

“Now, that’s the truth, Mr. Lam. I never did buck Gabby and neither did Bishop.”

I said, “How well did you know Maurine?”

“You know how well I knew her — at least Gabby does. I introduced Maurine to him. I knew her well. Bishop knew her damn well.”

“And what about Mrs. Bishop?” I asked.

“Irene keeps out of the business.”

I said, “I want her background.”

“Don’t you know?”

“No.”

He tried to get control of himself and almost made it.

“If you’re in with Gabby Garvanza there’s a lot you don’t know.”

“And a lot I do. I have some
very
interesting information for Gabby. Now tell me about Irene.”

For some reason the guy was scared half to death of Gabby. My walking in and asking him about Maurine had jarred him right down to the shoelaces.

He said, “Irene was in burlesque. She was a striptease artist. Bishop went out on a party with her one night and
they clicked. He fell for her like a ton of bricks and she — Well, she played her cards smart as hell.”

“Was it a legal wedding?”

“Legal? You’re damn right it was legal. Irene saw to that. She had the smartest lawyer in town handle the whole thing. She insisted on a legal marriage. He had to buy his wife out. Irene may look dumb but she’s smart.”

“Who killed Maurine Auburn?”

“I swear that I don’t know, Lam. I tell you honestly I don’t know. I was absolutely, utterly shocked by it. I — I liked her.”

“Who killed Bishop?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. Put yourself in my place. I don’t know where
I
stand. For all I know someone may be trying to put the finger on me. That’s not a nice feeling.

“You can tell Gabby that I want to see him. I’ve been trying to reach him. He can help me.”

I sneered at him.

He mopped his face again.

“What’s going to happen to The Green Door now?”

“There’ll be no opposition as far as I’m concerned to anything Gabby wants to do. Provided, of course, he can fix it up with the others, and — Well, I guess he can.”

“What do you know about John Carver Billings?”

“Billings is all right. He’s the banker. We use him occasionally. He doesn’t ask any questions just so we keep a good balance in his bank.”

“Does he know any questions to ask?”

“I don’t think so. George had a stranglehold on him because of the boy.”

“What’s all this business about wanting him to foreclose on the Skyhook Mining and Development Syndicate?”

“Now, there,” Channing said, “you’ve got me. I told George a hundred times that that was the most foolish thing he could do. It was apt to result in an investigation.
It might even ruin the entire business structure.”

“He didn’t listen to you?”

“No. He wanted that foreclosure filed. He said he didn’t give a damn what happened, he wanted the foreclosure filed. Tell Gabby I’d like to talk with him — any time.”

“How about the widow?”

He laughed. “What does
she
have to do with it?”

“She might have a great deal.”

Channing said, “Make no mistake about this, Mr. Lam. You can tell Gabby Garvanza I am taking over The Green Door.”

“What will Irene get out of it?”

“Irene,” he said, “will share in the estate. She was a damn good burlesque stripper. She had what it takes and she gave what she had, but she’s small potatoes. She got hers and now she’s out of it. As of tonight I’m taking over.”

Some of his assurance began to come back.

“And the corporations?”

“The corporations will be all washed up in a smother of figures.”

I said, “Stay right here until two o’clock in the afternoon.

Don’t go out under any circumstances and don’t give anyone any definite information. If Gabby wants to see you he’ll tell you where you can contact him.”

That frightened him again. The thought of walking into Gabby’s clutches didn’t appeal to him at all.

“Tell him to phone me.”

“I thought you wanted to see him.”

“I do, but I’m going to be terribly busy. Now that it’s established that George is dead, the police will be here, and—”

“I thought you wanted to see Gabby.”

“I do, I do, but I have other things.”

“Shall I tell Gabby you’re too busy to see him?”

“No! No! I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It sounded that way.”

“Just put yourself in my position, Lam.”

“I sure as hell wouldn’t want to do that,” I told him, and got up and walked out while he was mopping his forehead.

The typist was batting the keys at the typewriter. She didn’t even look up.

Mrs. George Tustin Bishop surveyed me wearily.

“You again,” she said.

“That’s right.”

There was a tired half-smile about her lips. “The bad penny.”

I shook my head. “The Boy Scout. I did my good turn yesterday. I’m doing another one today.”

“With me?”

“Yes.”

“Purely disinterested, I suppose?” There was a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

“Wrong again.”

She said, “Look, Mr. Lam, I’ve been up all night. I’ve been interrogated over and over again. I’ve had to view my husband’s — body. My physician wanted to give me a hypodermic and put me out of circulation. I told him I’d tough it through. You can’t tell what they’d do while I was asleep — But I’m tired, terribly, terribly tired.”

I said, “I think I can help you. There’s no harm in trying. Your husband wasn’t a mining man at all.”

“Don’t be silly. He had half a dozen mining corporations, all kinds of claims and locations, and—”

“And,” I said, “he used them as a mask so that he could report his income without telling where the income came from.”

“Where did it come from, then?”

“A place in San Francisco they call The Green Door.”

“What’s that?”

“A gambling place.”

“Sit down,” she invited.

I sat down.

She took a seat opposite me.

I said, “Hartley L. Channing is planning on taking over.”

“He’s always seemed very nice,” she said.

“Look, Irene,” I told her, “you’ve been around. You were a strip-teaser and burlesque queen. You should know what the score is by this time.”

“You’ve been losing a little sleep yourself, I see.”

“I’ve been getting around.”

“Who gave
you
the dirt?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Perhaps I wouldn’t.”

“Anyhow,” I said, “we have other things to talk about. How do you stand financially?”

“My, but you move right in, don’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“And why should I tell you how I’m fixed financially?”

“Because I’m probably the only one who’s going to shoot square with you —
if
I can do myself some good by doing it — but one thing, Irene, I wouldn’t double-cross you.”

“No,” she said musingly, “I don’t think you would.

What’s your first name?”

“Donald.”

“All right, Donald. When you stand up in front of a bunch of morons and take your clothes off four and five times a night, you get awfully damned tired of it. George came along and fell for me like a ton of bricks. At first I didn’t think there was anything to it on a permanent basis,
and then I realized that he really wanted to play for keeps. So I played it that way.

“His wife tried to take him to the cleaners, and I could see that he was terribly afraid of being hooked for alimony. I told him that I wanted to give him some real assurance I wasn’t playing that sort of a game. I suggested a premarital agreement. He liked the idea.”

“Then what?”

“Then he had his attorney draw up an agreement.”

“What was in it?”

“A complete property settlement. He gave me a substantial consideration so that I—”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand dollars as my sole and separate property.”

“And what did you agree in return?”

“That it covered temporary alimony, attorney’s fees, permanent alimony — everything — a complete property settlement.”

“But in the event of his death?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I never looked it over from that viewpoint, but as I remember it he had a right to dispose of his property by will any way that he wanted.”

“Did he leave a will?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where would it be if he left it?”

“In the hands of his attorney.”

“Did he have anyone else to leave his property to?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Did he keep on carrying a torch after it became legal?”

“Yes, I saw to that.”

“You must be clever.”

“Don’t make any mistake about me, Donald, I am. Perhaps not the way you think, but I know my way around.
I can take my clothes off so it brings them right up out of the chairs and packs them in the aisles. And, believe me, there’s an art to it. If you don’t believe it, just watch some green kid stand up and strip and then watch a real, good, artistic stripper do the same thing.”

“Now,” I said, “we’ll get back to the first question. How are you fixed financially?”

She said, “He took out an insurance policy, and I hung on to my ten thousand dollars.”

“How much of it?”

“Pretty nearly all of it.”

“Your clothes and things?”

“George bought them. George encouraged me to save the ten thousand. He wanted me to have it intact as nearly as possible.”

I said, “By the time the smoke clears away you’ll probably find that your husband’s business affairs were all tangled up in a knot, that the only thing he really had was The Green Door, that The Green Door furnished the money to pay for everything. Did you ever hear of a gambling business going through probate?”

“No.”

“You probably never will.”

“So what?”

I said, “Your husband was very careful to arrange things so that his personal connection with The Green Door couldn’t be proven. He had his affairs in the hands of an accountant who thinks in terms of the first person singular.

“Your husband probably had some money salted away in a safety-deposit box. Perhaps Hartley Channing knows where it is. You may find a safety-deposit box full of cash and you may not, but in view of your past a lot of questions are going to be asked — a whole lot of questions — and that insurance is going to be embarrassing.”

“I know,” she said wearily. “That’s why I don’t want to go to sleep for a while. I want to get the answers to some of those questions.”

I said, “You have a hillside lot here.”

She nodded.

“You’ve been filling in a swale over there with crushed rock.”

“Yes. George wanted to make a tennis court there and he wanted to use a lot of crushed rock so we’d have good drainage underneath.”

“Let’s go take a look at your husband’s things in the garage.”

“Why?”

“I think we might find a gold pan there.”

“Oh, sure. George had a couple of sleeping bags and a gold pan or two, and a mortar and pestle that he used for crushing ore, and some kind of a blowtorch for testing, and things of that sort. He kept them in a closet in the garage, a sort of special locker.”

“Let’s go take a look.”

“Why?”

“I’m just curious.”

“I’m not.”

I said, “I’m trying to give you a break, Irene.”

“In return for what?”

“Perhaps nothing.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ve known men for a long time. They all want something. What is it you want?”

“I might be able to cut myself a piece of cake.”

“Where would that leave me?”

“With the rest of the cake.”

She looked me over for a minute, then said, “I suppose there’s as much of an art to being a detective as there is to being a strip-tease artist; and it probably takes a little more
equipment — in different places. Come on, Donald.”

She led the way down the stairs into the garage and opened a door.

There was quite an assortment of junk inside.

I selected a mortar and pestle and a gold pan.

I said, “It’s going to attract attention if I am seen out there with you. Take this bucket and go out to where they’ve been dumping the crushed rock, pick up a few samples of the crushed rock here and there. Just try to get a pretty good cross section of the type of rock that’s been dumped in there. Get all the different colors you can find. If there are any tints in the rock I want to get a sample of each color.”