Double or Quits

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  Bertha Cool said, “Well, pickle me for a peach!” I heard Lisman laugh. “Rather a job trailing you here, Mrs. Cool, but we knew you were going to see Donald Lam. Where is he?”

  “How the hell should I know?“Lisman’s laugh was impolite and sceptical.

  Elsie Brand said, “Mrs. Cool came to ask me if I knew where he was.”

  “And stay to dinner,” Lisman said.

  “Yes, I invited her.”

  “How often has Mrs. Cool been to your apartment in the last two years?” Lisman asked.

  “Well, I don’t know as I could say ”

  “Has she ever been here before?”

  “Why—er–”

  “Can you ever remember any time when she’s been here before? Don’t. lie now.” Bertha Cool said, “What’s that got to do with it? I’m here now.”

  “Exactly,” Lisman said. “You’re here now. Where did Donald Lam hide when he heard my knock at the door?” Bertha laughed, and said, “What a great big gorilla you are. Just a dumb ape. You think he heard your knock on the door and ran to hide. Phooey! You reason like a Keystone Comedy Cop.” Lisman said affably, “Well, don’t let me interrupt, girls. I haven’t had dinner myself. Suppose we just declare a truce until we finish.”

  “What do you mean, truce?” Elsie Brand asked.

  “A complete truce,” he said, “until we’ve finished with the dessert. There is dessert, isn’t there, beautiful?”

  “Chocolate pie,” Elsie Brand said, “You’ve got your nerve!” Lieutenant Lisman said, “You certainly can cook steak. That’s about the nicest-looking steak I’ve seen in a month of Sundays. Cut me a piece right in there next to the bone if you will. Go right ahead, Mrs. Cool. Don’t mind me.” I heard the scrape of the carving knife on the plate.

  I opened the closet door and said, “Don’t give that flatfoot all that meat. After all. I’m in on this party.”

  Chapter XVI

  LIEUTENANT LISMAN pushed back his plate, looked at it wistfully for a moment, then with his fork mashed together the last few flakes of pie crust and conveyed the fork to his mouth.

  “The truce is now over,” he announced.

  Bertha Cool lit a cigarette, looked at him steadily, and said, “I don’t give a damn what you do with Donald, but remember one thing, I didn’t know he was here.” Lisman laughed. “It’s a marvellous line,” he said, “but you can’t do anything with it. I talked with Captain Garver, told him I thought I could find Lam by shadowing you. I shadowed you. I found Lam. It worked out just as I said. Now I suppose you want me to go to the captain and tell him that it was just a coincidence that I just happened to stumble on the man I wanted.” Bertha Cool said with feeling, “Damn!” Elsie Brand said, “She really didn’t know he was here, Lieutenant. Honest.” Lisman fixed her with moody, morose eyes in which there was, nevertheless, an indication that he had future plans for Elsie some time when he had the, time, and was trying to remind himself not to forget it.

  She saw that look and averted her own eyes.

  “As far as you’re concerned, you’d better sit back in a corner and keep your mouth shut. You’re in a spot.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “You knew he was here.” She didn’t say anything.

  “And that he was a fugitive from justice.”

  “How was I to know he was a fugitive from justice? He told me he’d parked the agency car in front of a fire plug. Is it a crime to cook dinner for a man who’s parked a car in front of a fire plug?”

  “What was he doing here?” She hesitated.

  Bertha smacked her palm down on the table and said, “I know what he was doing here.”

  “Yes?” Lisman asked.

  “He’s fallen for her,” Bertha sniffed. “Usually it’s the other way around. They fall for him. This time, he went overboard. I make him a partner in the business, and the first thing he does is to raise her salary.”

  “How nice!” Lisman said.

  “Isn’t it?” Bertha Cool agreed sarcastically.

  Elsie Brand got up from the table and said, “Now listen, you folks have barged in and eaten my dinner. I don’t mind cooking, but I hate doing dishes. You’re not going to walk out and leave me holding the dish-cloth. Mrs. Cool, you’ve got to help me wipe dishes. Lieutenant, you can sit and smoke. Donald, you can help clean off the table.” Bertha Cool said indignantly, “Well, I like that! You’re working for me, young woman—or has that fact escaped you since you’ve surreptitiously been entertaining my partner?” Elsie Brand said doggedly, “I’m working for you. That fact hasn’t escaped me. You barged in for dinner. You’re going to help with the dishes. Donald, pick up that platter and bring it along.” Elsie scooped up half a dozen dishes, scraped and stacked them. Her eyelids fluttered in an all but imperceptible signal.

  I took the platter and carried it out to the kitchen.

  Lieutenant Lisman came to stand in the door, looking the situation over. He said, “Got a key to that back door, sister?”

  “Yes,” Elsie Brand snapped. “You might even see it in the lock if you looked hard.” Lisman walked over, locked the back door, extracted the key, and put it in his pocket.

  “I’ve got some food that’s got to go out in the cooler on the back porch,” Elsie protested.

  “Well, get it all together,” he said with a grin, “then I’ll open the door and you can put it out. But we wouldn’t want Donald to get restless feet, would we?” He walked back to the other room.

  Elsie Brand said in a low voice, “The dumb-waiter over there behind the tub. I think you can make it if you take out that middle shelf. Do it when I’m in the other room.” She bustled back into the other room. I heard her scraping dishes once more.

  I crawled in the dumb-waiter. It was an awkward position, but I went down, feeling that my toes and knees were about to be sliced off at any time, waiting for the roar that would mark Lieutenant Lisman’s discovery that he’d been outsmarted.

  I seemed to take an interminable time getting down to the bottom of the chute. I pressed against the door. A spring catch held it so it wouldn’t open. I got my shoulder against it, and forced the spring catch back.

  A door from a basement opened into an are away with iron stairs ascending to the street level. I walked up these stairs casually, fighting back a desire to run. Lisman would be hot on the scent any minute now.

  Bertha Cool had parked the agency car in front of the apartment house. The car was locked, but I had a key which fitted both the ignition and the lock on the trunk. It wasn’t the best place on earth, but I didn’t have time to pick and choose.

  I unlocked the trunk, raised the lid, and got inside. I had to double up, with my knees touching my chin, my head pushed down between my shoulders. I released the metal catches which held the trunk open. The lid fell down with a reassuring thud, and I was enclosed in stuffy darkness. The catch had snapped, and I was locked in.

  I settled down to wait. A piece of metal was digging into my ankle, and one of the sliding arms which had held the trunk upright was pressing against my shoulder. It seemed that I was there five minutes before anything happened. During that time I wondered what would happen if Lisman took Bertha to headquarters and left the car there. I felt it wouldn’t take more than an hour of that cramped confinement to kill me.

  Then I heard voices. The man’s voice was angry and threatening.

  I heard Bertha Cool say sharply, “No such thing.” They were coming closer. They paused on the sidewalk almost even with the trunk. I could hear every word of the conversation.

  Lieutenant Lisman said, “I tell you he was under arrest. You’re going to find out that it’s a serious thing to escape when you’re under arrest. You’re also going to find out it’s damned serious to aid and abet anyone in escaping.”

  “Bosh,” Bertha said.

  “You helped him escape.”

  “You’re making a lot of noise with your mouth,” Bertha said. “I was sitting there in the room with you all the t
ime.” He thought that over. “I might have some difficulty convincing a jury that you helped him escape, but I know you did it.” Bertha Cool said, “Listen, sweetheart, I don’t give a damn what you think. The only thing that concerns me is what twelve men in a jury box will think.”

  “Well, I can get that secretary of yours. I have her lashed to the mast. She helped him escape. That makes her an accessory.”

  “Escape from what?” Bertha asked.

  “From me.”

  “And who the hell are you?”

  “I happen to be the law.”

  “You didn’t say so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t put him under arrest.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bertha Cool said, “I’m talking about what happened. You came in there all filled with pride in your superb intelligence. You were oozing with triumph. You announced that you were going to stay for dinner, and there’d be a truce while we were eating. Donald came out of the closet. There was a truce on while you were eating. You never told him he was under arrest.”

  “He knew what I meant,” Lisman said, his voice suddenly robbed of all its assurance.

  “Bosh!” Bertha told him. “I never studied law, but Donald Lam did. There are certain things you have to do to place a man under arrest. You have to take him into custody, either figuratively or literally. You have to let him know that you’re representing the law and that he’s under arrest, charged with a certain crime.”

  “Well, I made a substantial compliance with all the requirements.” Bertha laughed and said, “You’re a sucker!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Making the case turn on that point. That means a couple of smart criminal lawyers will start taking you to pieces in front of a jury, commenting on the slipshod manner in which you discharge your official duties. The newspapers will pick it up. `The officer who’s so damn hungry he can’t resist barging in on a dinner, declaring a truce until it’s over, and then having his man skip out while he’s sitting back from the table, rubbing his stomach and picking his teeth!’ ” Lisman didn’t say anything. When ‘Bertha spoke again I could tell from the triumphant barb in her voice that Lisman had given enough evidence of his consternation so she felt 1 she could press home her advantage. “What’s more, it looks like hell. The spectacle of a big officer like you mooching a dinner from a hard-working stenographer, then trying to arrest a pint-sized kid, and having the kid give him the slip. You going to charge me with being an accessory, and aiding and abetting a prisoner to escape? Nuts! You’re going to keep your mouth shut about the whole business. And if I hear so much as a peep out of you, I’m damned if I don’t tell the whole business to the newspapers. Now you think that over for a while.” I felt the springs of the car sway as Bertha jerked the door open and heaved herself indignantly in behind the wheel, sitting down hard on the cushions.

  Lisman didn’t say anything while she was inserting the key in the ignition lock and starting the engine.

  Bertha had a habit of clashing gears when she started a car. Heaven knows how she did it. I’d deliberately tried chattering the gears in the agency car a dozen times, and had never been able to do it. No matter how I worked my clutch pedal and gear shift, the car would slip into low or second with perfect silence. But Bertha had some peculiar technique which made them clash almost every time.

  Lieutenant Lisman was starting to say something just as the gears ground, then snapped home. The sudden lurch almost threw me against the trunk; then Bertha Cool was out in traffic, driving with that peculiar series of jerks which indicated she was alternating her foot between the brake pedal and the foot throttle.

  I waited until her driving indicated she was getting away from the congested district with its succession of traffic signals, and then moved my hands around on the floor of the trunk until I found a jack handle. I picked it up and started a rhythmic series of thumps against the body of the car.

  I felt the machine swerve as Bertha swung into the kerb and slowed. I kept up the steady insistent pounding at the same regular intervals. The car stopped. I laid off.

  I waited until Bertha was at the back of the car. I heard her say in an undertone, “Fry me for an oyster! I’d have sworn that was a flat tyre!”

  “It is,” I said.

  Bertha snapped back at me automatically without stopping to think, “You’re a liar!” Then I heard her give a surprised gasp, and say, “Where the hell are you?” I didn’t say anything on the off chance some pedestrian might be passing, but left it to Bertha Cool to figure it out. It took her a matter of seconds; then she went back to climb in the car once more and start driving. This time she turned, apparently off the main highway, and finally, after two more turns, brought the car to a stop. She got out, came back, and opened the trunk.

  “The nerve of you, you little rat,” she said.

  I eased myself out of my cramped position, slid to the kerb, found that Bertha had turned down a dark side street. A block and a half away the traffic was streaming briskly along the boulevard. Here, there were a few cars parked in front of residences and small apartments, but virtually no traffic.

  Bertha said, “They’re going to put you in a nice little room with bars all up and down the front of it, and you’ll have a chance to slow down. Ever since you hit this agency you’ve been skirting the edges of state prison and dragging me after you. The pace keeps getting faster and faster until I feel like —like a fly on the edge of a phonograph record.” When she saw I was grinning she got madder than ever. I said, “You’re in too far now to back out. Get in the car and let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Corbin Harmley’s apartment. If we get a lucky break, we’ll find him at home. If we don’t, we’ve got to use some pretext to get him there.” Bertha said, “You’re too hot to be around. You’re a legal leper. I don’t want any part of you, Donald.”

  “It isn’t what you want that counts. It’s what you get.”

  “Well, I don’t intend to get any part of you.” I said, “His address is the Albatross Apartments.”

  “I don’t give a damn if it’s the White House.”

  “We haven’t got any time to lose.”

  “All right, then, you take the car and go ahead. I’ll get a taxi. I have an appointment with a fish tomorrow morning, and I don’t like the inside of jails.” I said, “If I see him alone, it’s his word against mine as to what was said. If you’re there, it’s two against one. You’re in so deep now, packing up won’t get you out.” Her eyes glittered. “You’re always dragging me, into it, aren’t you?”

  “After all, you have a half interest in the agency.” I walked around and got in behind the steering wheel. “Get in,” I told her.

  Bertha slid in beside me, breathing heavily, like a person who’s been climbing a flight of stairs. She didn’t say anything all the way to the Albatross Apartments.

  Chapter XVII

  THE Albatross was a swanky place with a doorman who looked like a field-marshal, smart bellboys with the name “Albatross” embroidered on the collars of their uniforms, and a miniature albatross in white sewn on the left breast of their jackets. A haughty, supercilious clerk indicated plainly visitors were expected to announce themselves.

  “Is Mr. Harmley in?”

  “I’ll see. What was the name?”

  “Mrs. Cool and Donald Lam.” The clerk turned toward the switchboard. I kept my fingers crossed hard. Harmley was in. I heard the clerk say, “Good-evening, Mr. Harmley. Mrs. Cool and a Donald Lam are waiting in the lobby.” I thought from the expression on the clerk’s face Harmley was hesitating, then the clerk said, “Very well, Mr. Harmley.” He hung up the telephone. “You are to go up. It’s apartment six-twenty-one. Mr. Harmley said he was just leaving to keep an appointment, but he’ll be able to give you a few minutes.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  We walked over to the elevators. There were two. I said to Bertha, “Take
this elevator to the sixth floor. I’ll come up in the other.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Never mind, hustle aboard.” Bertha gave me a glowering look and got aboard the elevator. The coloured elevator boy looked at me curiously, then shot the cage up. The other elevator was on its road down. I watched the indicator, saw it pause briefly at the sixth floor, then the needle swung down to the fourth, stopped, went to the second, stopped, and came down to the lobby. Corbin Harmley pushed his way out of the elevator and started walking rapidly toward the door. He had his hat on and an overcoat over his arm.

  “Harmley.” He whirled at the sound of my voice. “Oh, yes, there you are. Wasn’t there someone with you?”

  “Mrs. Cool.”

  “Oh, yes.” I said, “She went up to the sixth floor. I waited down here —so, in case you’d misunderstood the clerk, we wouldn’t miss you.” He said quickly, “Why, I understood the clerk to say you’d be waiting here in the lobby. I have a very important appointment. I can only give you just a second or two. I ” He broke off and looked at his watch significantly.

  I said, “We’ll go back up to the sixth floor. Bertha’s waiting up there.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t time.”

  “It might be better for us to talk up there than down here.” He glanced toward the clerk’s desk and said, “Oh, well, I’ll take a chance on being a minute or two late. Come on.” We rode back up in the elevator. Bertha, standing indignantly waiting, sized up the situation as I got out with Harmley. Some of the anger left her eyes.

  “We talk in your apartment or here?” I asked.

  His hesitation was hardly perceptible. “Why, in my apartment, of course. I only have a few minutes, however. Perhaps later on I can give you more detailed information ”

  “Come on,” I interrupted. “It won’t take long.” He led the way down to his apartment, unlocked the door, and stood aside for Bertha to enter. She walked in. He waited for me to follow, but I used a gentle pressure on his arm to get him in next. I brought up the rear.

  “Well?” he asked, standing there looking from one to the other, and not asking us to sit down.