Dames Don’t Care (10 page)

"Since I have been to New York I have found out a lotta things that make it look pretty bad for Henrietta. Maybe they're right an' maybe they ain't, but it's a cinch that she's gotta watch her step-or else...

"Now murder ain't a nice charge. Maybe it's my duty to advise New York about this suggestion that Henrietta bumped Granworth, but I ain't goin' to do that. I ain't goin' to do it just for one reason an' that is it won't help me any in the counterfeitin' business, an' that is the thing that I wanta clean up right now. If Henrietta did bump Granworth then she'll fry for it some time, but maybe she didn't an' if she didn't then I'm goin' to advise her to talk plenty an' quick, otherwise she may find herself elected for the hot squat an' they tell me that dames fry just as quick an' sweet as hombres.

"OK. Well here's the first thing I'm askin' you to do. You get back to the Hacienda an' you have a talk with Henrietta, an' you tell her that I'm comin' out there tonight around midnight an' that I want a statement from her an' that she'd better make it the truth. If I think she's tryin' to pull anything on me or hidin' anything then tell you I'm goin' to hold her right away as a material witness in this counterfeitin' business, hand her over to Metts, the Chief of Police here, an' produce what I know about her bein' tied up with Granworth's death. An' if I do that there's goin' to be plenty trouble for Henrietta. Got that?"

He nods. He is lookin' durn serious.

"I got it, Caution," he says, "an' I'm certainly goin' to advise her to come clean to you. It's the only thing she can do. But," he goes on, "I tell you she didn't murder Aymes. She couldn't do a thing like that. Why...

"Can it, Maloney," I bust in. "You don't know a thing. Just because you are stuck on the jane you think she couldn't kill somebody. I have known dames who usta go to church twice Sundays who have killed guys so I don't wanta hear you tellin' me why Henrietta couldn'ta done it. She can do that for herself."

He shrugs his shoulders and lights himself a cigarette.

"All right," I go on. "Now here's something else you can do. Before I went to New York I had a talk with her, an' she said that she might have to marry Fernandez. Now I reckon that was a funny thing for her to say, because I have got the impression that she is stuck on you. Maybe you got some idea about that, huh?"

He shrugs his shoulders again.

"I can't get it," he says. "All I know is that Fernandez and Periera are the big guys around the Hacienda, that they are sorta partners, an' it might be that Henrietta feels she would be better off if she married Fernandez. It was only when I saw that Fernandez was ridin' her an' givin' her a tough time that I sorta chipped in. I was kinda sorry for her an' I think she is a swell femme."

He sits quiet for a minute sorta thinkin' to himself. After a bit he goes on.

"Now you come to mention it," he says, "it certainly looks as if Fernandez has gotta nerve to think that Henrietta would fall for a punk like him. He speaks good English but he's a lousy breed. His mother was a dago and his father was something else that smelt funny."

"That's all the more reason why she shouldn't even listen to a guy like that," I say. "Tell me something, Maloney, have you asked this dame to marry you?"

"Sure I have," he says with a grin, "an' she said she'd think it over. I reckon I ain't ever been so sorry for any dame as I am for Henrietta, an' the more so because she's a swell kid an' she don't go grievin' all the time when she's in a jam like dames usually do."

"OK, Maloney," I say. "Well, be on your way an' don't forget to tell her that I'm comm' out at twelve an' that I wanta hear some sense outa her."

He says all right an' he scrams.

I stick around until twelve o'clock an' then I get the car an' drive out to the Hacienda. There ain't many people there, because you gotta realise that at this time of the year there ain't a lotta people makin' holiday around this part of the world, an' I am wonderin' why Periera don't shut this place up for the bad season an' scram off somewhere else like most of the other guys around here do.

The band is playin' a hot number an' there are one or two couples pushin' each other around the dance floor an' some city guys from Los Angeles makin' hey-hey. I walk straight across an' up the stairs an' into the room at the top where the card playin' goes on.

There ain't anybody there except a waiter guy who is puttin' the place straight an' I ask him where Periera's office is. He shows me one of the rooms away along the balcony on the other side, over the entrance door to the main floor, an' I go along there. I open the door an' I go in.

Inside there is Periera sittin' behind a desk drinkin' a glass of whisky an' Fernandez is sittin' in the corner smokin'. They both give me a cold once-over as I go in.

"Well, bozos," I say, "here I am again, an' how's tricks?"

Periera looks up with a nasty sorta grin.

"Everytheeng is ver' good, Mr Frayme," he says with a sorta sneer.

"Cut that out, Periera," I say. "You know durn well that my name ain't Frayme. My name's Caution, an' I gotta little badge in my pocket if you'd like to see it.

Fernandez cuts in.

"What the hell do we care about your badge," he says. "I reckon that we ain't got any call to be gettin' excited about Federal badges. You ain't got anything on us, an' we don't like dicks anyhow."

"You don't say," I tell him. "I bet you don't like dicks, an' I bet you certainly don't like one who gave you a bust in the kisser like I did last time I saw you. However," I tell him, lightin' myself a cigarette, "my advice to you is to keep nice an' civil otherwise I'm probably goin' to smack you down some more. Where's Henrietta?"

He grins.

"She's just stickin' around," he says. "She's outside on the side porch with Maloney, an' the sooner you get done the better I'm goin' to like it because you make me feel sick."

"Just fancy that," I say. "Well while you're waitin' for me to come back I'll tell you something that'll help you pass the time away, Fernandez. Just you get yourself a good story about what you're doin' out here callin' yourself Fernandez an' puttin' on a big act when your name is Juan Termiglo an' you used to be chauffeur in New York to Granworth Aymes, an' see that it is a good one, otherwise I might get a bit rough with you about some phoney evidence you gave at the coroner's inquest"

"You got me wrong, copper," he says. "I never give any evidence at the coroner's inquest because I never knew anything about anybody bein' anywhere. I was at home that night an' I never saw a thing of Henrietta or anybody else, an' how do you like that?"

"OK sour puss," I say, "but I wouldn't be above framin' you for something or other, Fernandez, so watch your step otherwise you'll feel sick some more."

He grins an' lights himself a cigarette. He has got his nerve all right.

I go down the stairs an' across the floor an' out on to the side porch. Henrietta is sittin' there talkin' to Maloney. She is wearin a blue frock made of some flimsy stuff an' she looks a peach. Maloney says so long an' scrams out of it.

I pull up a chair an' sit down.

"Well, Henrietta," I say, "I reckon that Maloney has told you about it, an' what are you goin' to do?"

She looks at me an' in the moonlight I can see that her eyes are sorta smilin', as if she was amused at something.

"All right, Mr Caution," she says. "I'm going to tell you anything that you want to know. Jim Maloney says that if I tell the truth everything will be all right, an' that if I don't it may go hard with me. Shall I begin?"

"Justa minute, honey," I tell her, "an' you listen to me before we get down to cases. I don't know what's been goin' on around here but I guess it's something screwy an' I don't like it, an' I'm goin' to get to the bottom of it. Me - I like workin' along with people nice an' quiet an' no threats an' no nonsens - that is if they come clean. If they don't, well it's their own business if they get in a jam. Now I'm tellin' you this, Henrietta. You're a swell piece an' I'm for you. I think you got what it takes an' maybe you know it, but you're in a jam over this business of that phoney bond as well as the other stuff, an' the thing for you to do is to spill the works an' not forget anyhing. All right, now you tell me what happened the night you went to New York an' saw Granworth - the night he died."

"That's easy, Mr Caution," she says. "It's all quite simple, only I'm afraid that I couldn't very well prove it. I wrote some letters to Granworth telling him I wanted to see him. I'd heard that he was making a fool of himself over a woman and although I'd believed for some time that he was unfaithful I'd never had any actual proof. I was never very happy with Granworth. He drank; he was excitable and often silly, but when he made this money and said that he was going to turn over two hundred thousand dollars' worth of bonds to me I thought that maybe he'd turned over a new leaf. He talked about starting a new life together. He even went so far as to buy some more insurance - an annuity policy payable in ten years' time or at his death - so that, as he said, we should be able to face the future without worry. I remember him joking about the fact that the Insurance Company insisted on having a clause in the policy under which they would not pay if he committed suicide, because, as you may know, he tried to kill himself after a drinking bout two years ago.

"I was actually beginning to feel that maybe he meant what he said for once. I was in Hartford, Connecticut, staying with friends, when I received a letter. It was unsigned and it said that I would be well advised to keep an eye on Granworth who was making a fool of himself with a woman whose husband was beginning to get nasty about things.

"I don't take notice of anonymous letters usually, but I telephoned through to Granworth and told him about this one. He did not even trouble to deny the fact. He was merely rude about it. Then I realised that the letter was true and I wrote him two other letters, asking him what he was going to do about it, and eventually telling him that I proposed to come and see him, and to get tough with him."

"Justa minute, Henrietta," I bust in. "What happened to those letters. What did Granworth do with them?"

"I don't know," she says. "After his death, when Burdell telephoned me an' I went to New York, I saw them lying around on his desk with a lot of other papers. I meant to pick them up and destroy them, but I was worried and unhappy at the time and I forgot."

"OK," I say. "Go right ahead."

"I went to New York," she went on, "and arrived early in the evening of the 12th January. I did not go home to the apartment. I telephoned the butler and asked where my husband was. He said that he was in his office. I then called Granworth at his office and he spoke to me. He said that he just received my third letter and that he would talk to me that evening.

"He asked me to meet him at a downtown caf , I went there and after a while he drove up. He was rather excited and seemed a little drunk. We discussed the situation and he told me that he was not going to give up this woman. I said that if he did not do so I would divorce him. Then he said that if I did so he would rather leave the country than pay me alimony. He was furious and his eyes were blazing, and when he tried to drink his coffee he could hardly hold the cup because his fingers were trembling so.

"I told him that I had no need to worry about alimony; that I had the two hundred thousand Dollar Bonds that he had made over to me. For a moment I thought he was going mad, he was so enraged. Then, after a little while he said that I'd better go back to Connecticut for a week or so and that he would think it over and write me and we could come to some decision. But he said definitely that if I divorced him his life would be ruined and he would finish everything.

"I went straight back to the depot and left for Hartford. Two days afterwards Langdon Burdell telephoned me that Granworth had committed suicide. I reproached myself terribly. I thought that perhaps I was responsible for his death; that possibly I should have handled the situation differently.

"I returned to New York immediately, but when I arrived the inquest was over. Langdon Burdell told me that he had instructed the servants to say nothing about my being in New York that day; that if this fact had been mentioned the police would probably be unpleasant and question me. Burdell had said at the inquest that I was in Connecticut at the time. I was grateful for this.

"I stayed in New York for a little while, and Granworth's affairs were settled up. In his will he had said that he wanted Burdell to carry on and to have the business and offices, and there was an instruction that certain debts including the mortgage on the Hacienda Altmira - which Grarnvorth had built years ago - were to be paid out of his insurance.

"But the Insurance Company refused to pay because of the suicide clause, and so Periera who held the mortgage on the Hacienda couldn't get his money. If he hadn't been so unpleasant about the fact I would have paid him - or tried to do so-out of the bonds which had been handed to me and which were my own personal property, because Granworth had given them to me.

"You know the rest of the story. When my banking account ran down here I took one of the bonds down to the bank and tried to collect on it. They told me it was counterfeit, and that the rest of the bonds were too. Then I was in a spot. I had no money at all, and so Periera allowed me to stay on at the Hacienda in return for my services as hostess.

"That's the story, Mr Caution. Some time ago Fernandez - whose real name is Juan Termiglo and who was our chauffeur - asked me to marry him. He seems to have acquired a sort of partnership with Periera. When I laughed at him he told me that it might not be so good for me if the police knew that I had concealed the fact that I had quarrelled with my husband an hour or so before his death, and when I discovered that the bonds were counterfeit he asked me again and practically suggested that the safest thing for me to do would be to marry him in order that the other servants should keep quiet about what they knew."

"OK, Henrietta," I tell her. "If that's the truth it's a good story an' if you made it up it's still good. Tell me one little thing, who was this dame that Granworth was runnin' around with?"