Nipped in the Bud

by Stuart Palmer

  “No,” said Miss Withers firmly. “A thing is either true or it isn’t. You sound very bitter, Mr. Guzman.”

  “Who would not be?” The lawyer-detective waved his hand at the Avenida before them. “Thousands of your countrymen pour across the border every day. They laugh at our quaint customs, our funny accents. They pay too much for our poorest liquor and our cheapest curios, and too little for our unfortunate girls. The great city of San Diego, of which we are a suburb, a convenient outhouse, boasts with literal truth that it has no slums, no gambling hells, no red-light district. We here in Tijuana fill that place….” He caught himself. “But you must excuse the sermon. I sincerely hope, señorita, that you locate your missing nieces and take them back with you where they belong before they get into trouble down here.”

  “Perhaps,” admitted Miss Withers, “it is already a little late for that. I may eventually have to avail myself of your professional services. You will be in your office tomorrow?” Stopping at his direction outside a garishly illuminated little office building just off the avenue, she accepted dry, waspish thanks and watched him disappear inside.

  “Dear me!” murmured the schoolteacher. Thoughtfully she wound the little rented car through the still-rushing traffic. The flood of American cars had turned, and soon Miss Withers found herself caught in a sort of riptide, almost fender to fender and bumper to bumper with three lanes of homeward-bound autos, whose drivers seemed weary and nervous and apt to lean on their horns. She inched slowly across the bridge and eventually up to the wide gates. Ahead of her the customs and immigration officials were stopping each car. One in every five or six had to open its luggage compartment for cursory inspection. About every tenth car was thoroughly, meticulously searched. Glad that she had no contraband aboard, she moved up when her turn finally came. A patient man in the uniform of the immigration service wanted to know where she was born.

  “Dubuque, Iowa—I have my passport right here, though of course the picture was taken some years ago and never was what one would call flattering—”

  “Drive on, lady,” he said hastily. But it was Miss Withers’ turn to ask a question. The man admitted that he had been on duty here since six this evening, that he had not seen a blue Cadillac with two pretty girls in it; if he had seen anything like that he would remember it; although he was past being interested in pretty girls he still had a soft spot in his heart for Cadillacs.

  Relieved but hardly surprised, Miss Withers drove on for a dozen feet or so, still in the no man’s land between the two sister republics, and then was halted again. This time it was by a big, burly man, a lobster-visaged character in a uniform that fitted a bit too soon everywhere. “And what did you buy in Mexico?” he demanded.

  “Nothing, officer, absolutely nothing.”

  “So?” he peered with casual disinterest into the little car and then stiffened as he saw Talleyrand, who was now curled up asleep on the back seat. “What’s that?”

  “A standard French poodle.”

  “It is, eh? Well, lady, you can’t bring it into the United States, whatever you claim it is. No animals without a veterinary’s certificate.”

  “Officer, don’t be silly!” Miss Withers was suddenly, incredibly weary. Thoughts of that comfortable bed awaiting her in the room up at the Grant Hotel made her a bit less politic than she might have been. “After all, if you have eyes in your head, you must see that he’s not a Mexican dog. I didn’t buy him down there, I’ve owned him for nearly two years. If you don’t believe me try him on some Spanish—Talley doesn’t speak a word of it.”

  “Now, lady—”

  “I mean, he doesn’t understand a word. And he hasn’t been out of the car, not to speak of, all the time we’ve been in Tijuana.”

  Lobster-face stiffened a little. “Well, lady, if you have eyes to see, you can read that sign on the other side, just where you approached the Mexican entry gate, warning people going across not to take their pets. I didn’t make the rules.”

  “But this is perfectly ridiculous! He has a license tag on his collar—a New York tag. That is still, I believe, part of the U.S.A. Officer, I insist—”

  Insisting is the wrong way to handle officers, of whatever stripe. This one was obviously at the end of his patience. “You can go through, lady. But we hold the dog. After all, there’s a lot of hoof-and-mouth disease down in Mexico, and rabies, too.” He jerked his thumb. “If you don’t want to leave the dog, I suggest you just turn around and go back to Tijuana and hunt up a vet. There’s one on the corner of 7th and Bravo, and he’ll only charge you two bucks.”

  There was nothing else for it. Miss Withers turned around and drove disconsolately back into Tijuana again, finding the town much quieter now because most of the remaining tourists were safely settled down inside the honky-tonks. The veterinary’s office at 7th and Bravo was closed and padlocked, with a card on the door saying that in emergencies Dr. Doxa could be reached at such and such a number. She finally found a pay phone, but after fifteen minutes of wrestling with the Teléfono Municipal the harried schoolteacher gave it up as a bad job and drove wearily back along the Avenida to the Primero Hotel.

  “Having thought it all over,” she told the heavy-lidded young man at the desk, “I have decided to take that suite after all. May I register, please?”

  “Madre!” he whispered fervently. “At this hour.”

  Quickly she explained that clean linens could wait until the morrow and cashed a traveler’s check for enough to cover advance payment in lieu of having baggage. Eventually she received a receipt and a key and at last led the weary poodle up the stairs and into the little hotel suite she had thought never to see again.

  After the plane trip across country and the evening’s misadventures, the schoolteacher was wearier than she had ever been in her life. She thought only of bed—and then discovered that under one of the pillows was the little pistol to fit the cartridge, and that under the other had been neatly folded a clean nightgown—a fantastic, black-lace nightgown right out of a Petty drawing. “I would sooner be found dead than wear a thing like that,” said Miss Withers to herself. “Or would I?” It must of course have been Dallas Trempleau’s, forgotten in the mad exodus. She held it up to the light, admiring the handiwork. There was a Paris label.

  Five minutes later the schoolteacher was asleep in one of the twin beds, with Talley curled up on the other. Both were hors de combat, dead to the world. It was not surprising that when an hour or so later a key turned in the lock of the hall door, neither of them heard it or even stirred.

  11

  “Each chasing each through all the weary hours,

  And meeting strangely at one sudden goal.”

  —SIR EDWIN ARNOLD

  THE SUDDEN BLAZE OF the bedroom light was the signal for pandemonium. Talley, startled out of doggish dreams, burst into a frenzy of excited barking. Miss Withers popped up in bed, took stock of the situation, and grabbed the dog’s collar. “Stay where you are!” she advised the intruder. “He’s a killer, and if you move so much as a finger—”

  Standing in the doorway was a tallish girl in tailored flannel slacks, a mannish but well-filled white shirt, and a beaver cape. Brown hair cut in a conservative short bob, pale handsome features; a head for a helmet. In a voice that carried polite overtones of Vassar or perhaps Sarah Lawrence she said quietly, “And just what are you doing here?” Obviously this young woman felt able to deal with anything, even a plain middle-aged spinster and a noisy poodle. Yet there was the scent of fear about her, an old fear that she had learned to ignore as one does a limp.

  “I’m looking for you.” Miss Withers could deal too, sometimes from the bottom of the deck. “And don’t deny your identity, Dallas Trempleau, because I trailed you here from New York. Never mind how, either; even we amateur detectives have our professional secrets.” She introduced herself, with flattering results.

  “You’re that Miss Withers, the murder lady? But, why—why in the world are you lo
oking for me?”

  “I imagine you know why, or can guess.” The schoolteacher let go her hold on Talleyrand, who had ceased to make even token threats and was now wagging his tail and yawning. “Sit down, my dear, while we have a heart-to-heart talk,” Miss Withers commanded. Being commanding (dressed as she was and with her hair in braids) wasn’t easy, but she did her best. “Not that you have much choice. The party, Dallas, is over. It’s time to go home.”

  The girl hesitated. “That’s a threat, isn’t it?”

  “If you like. But you must admit that it was a mad idea from the first, this trying to hide an important witness for the prosecution in order to save your fiancé. Do you actually want to marry a man with the mark of Cain on his brow?”

  “Really!” said Dallas, looking both exasperated and amused.

  “Don’t you know that murderers who get away with it once usually repeat?”

  The girl sighed. “Nothing is ever that simple. You don’t really know much about this case, do you? Tony Fagan was a prize stinker. Only Winston didn’t kill him, I know it!”

  “You dare say that in the face of his confession, and the lie-detector tests?”

  “Yes! Winston may have beaten Fagan up, but somebody else killed him!”

  “Fiddlesticks! But if you honestly believe that, why are you going to such fantastic lengths to tamper with a witness? Why not just let the defense attorney try to sell the idea to a jury?”

  Dallas Trempleau tensed, and for a moment Miss Withers thought that she was about to turn and stride out of the door. But obviously the girl was all pent-up inside, and dying to talk to somebody, to justify herself. “You’ve met Bordin?”

  “Yes. A very capable attorney, I gather.”

  “So they say. But—” She bit it off. “I don’t altogether trust him,” Dallas said. “I’m afraid he’s defended so many guilty men that he doesn’t know innocence when he sees it.”

  “So he thinks Junior Gault is guilty? It’s a rather widely held opinion. The police, the district attorney’s office—even I, after an interview with the accused, was reluctantly forced to chime in, for once, with the majority.”

  Dallas made a rite out of setting fire to a cigarette, and then said, as if it didn’t matter in the least, “Oh, you saw him? How’s he doing?”

  “Not too well,” said the schoolteacher. “He struck me as sulky, uncooperative, and guilty as—as anything.”

  “Some people,” Dallas Trempleau admitted, “make a bad impression. Winston may be a little bitter. But he has his points.”

  “I didn’t notice any.”

  “He made me break the engagement. And he wouldn’t even let me come and see him in that place.”

  “So you took other measures?” The girl said nothing, and Miss Withers pressed, “Did Sam Bordin put you up to the idea of digging up the key witness for the prosecution and spiriting her away?”

  “I dig her up?”

  “Don’t fence with me, child. You or Bordin, it makes no difference. Do you happen to know the legal penalty for tampering with witnesses?”

  “Something unpleasant, no doubt. But what has that to do with me? If I want to spend some time traveling in Mexico—”

  “That’s enough of that. I know something about the country, having lived for a time in Mexico City, a very lovely and civilized metropolis. People who travel for pleasure in the Republica don’t pass through Tijuana, because it’s purely and simply a dead end. It has few charms and less advantages, except to hide out a witness—”

  “Who’s a witness?” Dallas cried. “She was never subpoenaed or anything!”

  “At last we are getting around to talking about Ina Kell,” said Miss Withers. “Your point is legal sophistry, and I think I recognize the source. You’re in trouble, my dear. And don’t depend upon Sam Bordin to get you out, because unless I miss my guess he’s going to get himself disbarred for this little caper.”

  “I could hardly be less interested,” admitted Miss Trempleau. “Though as far as I know, Mr. Bordin knows nothing whatever about it.”

  “About what? Never mind. That’s your story and you’ll stick to it. Where, by the way, is Ina now?” Dallas shrugged, and Miss Withers unlimbered some of her guns. “I know it isn’t supposed to be any of my business, but I’ve made it my business. You’re in trouble enough as it is, but I think that if necessary I can make you some more. Where’s Ina?”

  “I—I don’t really know.”

  “Why did you come back here, after once checking out of the hotel?”

  “Why not? The rent was paid in advance, and I didn’t think they’d rent the suite. I still had a spare key, and I wanted to see if we’d forgotten anything—”

  “Such as a little .28 pistol under that other pillow? And this nightgown?” Miss Withers flushed, and hastily began to explain how her own luggage had been stranded over in San Diego, and about how on finding the nightie here she just couldn’t resist seeing what it would be like, for once in her life, to wear such a dashing garment….

  If the confession had been calculated to disarm the girl it failed. “Oh, keep it by all means,” she said. “Ina won’t mind; she has lots more.”

  “Then at least you admit that Ina Kell is here in town with you! Where is she now? I don’t suppose that, by any chance, she’s right next door at the moment, in Mr. Braggioli’s rooms?”

  “No,” said Dallas calmly. “Nikki is out on the town. It was only because I ran into him up the street just now, and learned that you’d been snooping here and gone, that I ventured to come back at all. The coast was supposed to be clear.”

  “But Ina shouldn’t be alone—suppose something should happen to her?”

  “Suppose?” Dallas Trempleau whispered. Suddenly the girl’s face lighted with triumph. “Then you are on my side, after all! Because if Ina were in any danger, then that would mean that the real murderer is still at large, so it couldn’t be Winston—”

  “Not necessarily,” cut in Miss Withers quickly, a little flustered. She hadn’t meant that at all. “There could be two murderers. And if anything happened to that girl, it would seemingly prove Junior Gault’s innocence. Without the possibility of her ever testifying, the case against him would certainly have to be dropped, you know that as well as I do. And there might be somebody who would go to those lengths to save him.”

  “Uh-uh,” said Dallas. “I love the guy, but even I wouldn’t.”

  “Or, with the Gault bankroll in the picture, some third party could easily be hired—”

  The girl shook her head. “Not since Repeal. Besides, nobody knows we’re here.”

  “I found you, so it’s not impossible that someone else could.”

  Dallas leaned closer. “But not many people are as infernally clever as you are, Miss Withers. Listen to me, please. I’ve heard all about you. When Winston was first arrested, some friends of mine suggested that I ought to try to get you interested in the case, only I found you were out of town. But they said that you are a person who likes to interfere when you think there’s some injustice done. I wish—I wish with all my heart that you’d start all over, and try to find out who really murdered Tony Fagan. He was a man who must have made many enemies, people who’d realize that anything that happened to him after that awful broadcast would automatically be blamed on poor Winston. It was a perfect setup, can’t you see? If I could only convince you—”

  “No use buttering me, child,” said the schoolteacher firmly. “Sometimes I can believe as many as five impossible things before breakfast, but not now. This time I’m afraid I must string along with the police, who aren’t always wrong except in old Hollywood B-pictures. There may have been others besides Junior Gault who had a motive to kill Fagan—”

  “Of course there were! Even me, for instance!”

  “You?”

  “Certainly. Didn’t Tony Fagan, on that final broadcast, say some nasty things about me and my voice?”

  “He did, at that,” admitted the schooltea
cher cautiously.

  “But did the police ever look into it, did they ever really suspect anybody but Winston? No—they had a ready-made suspect! Of course, I was home and in bed when the murder took place—”

  “Of course,” said Miss Withers. “And no doubt surrounded by old family retainers who’ve been devoted to you since your pigtail days, and who would gladly swear to anything you asked them?”

  Dallas smiled. “It’s obvious that you haven’t had much experience with the usual run of servants lately. If it matters, I was at home—though I don’t know if the couple who run the place heard me come in or not. What does matter is that the police hardly bothered to ask any questions, they were so sure of Winston. It could have been me—”

  “Yes,” said the schoolteacher. “That might explain why you’re going to such lengths to see that Junior Gault gets off scot-free. And why you insist that you know he is innocent; a fact that could only be known to himself and to the real murderer. But I get your point, and I think we understand each other. Where’s Ina, and what is to be done?”

  “Must anything?”

  “Certainly. You must face the music. Don’t you see how much worse it will look for Junior if the news gets out that his fiancée is hiding the chief witness against him?”

  “Does it have to get out?”

  Miss Withers nodded. “I told you the party was over.”

  An odd look came into the girl’s eyes. “But you have no proof,” she said. “You’ve only guessed—” And then suddenly the starch went out of her. “Yes!” she admitted. “I brought Ina down here—”

  Then there was the sound of a door being opened, and a clear young voice in the other room crying, “Hey, Dallas! What in the world is keeping you. It’s cold out in the car!”

  “In here,” said Miss Withers dryly, “It’s getting just a bit warmer. Hello, Ina Kell. Won’t you come in, and join the party?”

  The new arrival, poking her bright head uncertainly through the doorway, was very slight, very young, and very pretty in a nebulous, unformed sort of way. She wore a scanty white playsuit underneath a northern mink jacket, a multicolored bandanna around her sunset-shaded hair, and a pair of cork wedgies. Long-legged, dreamy-eyed, and scared—perhaps also just a bit thrilled with it all. There were brief introductions, marred somewhat by Talley’s waking up, since the dog immediately tried to shake hands with the newcomer and lick her face at the same time.