Double or Quits Read online

  “This is Donald Lam….

  I’ve poisoned Mrs. Devarest…

  I’ve poisoned Dr. Geldertield’s father….

  I’ve poisoned–poisoned….”

  He dropped the phone and passed out.

  Detective Donald Lam was on the spot.

  He was already suspected of one murder.

  And now he was forced to confess to two more.

  It was that kind of case….

  It began quietly with a hunt for a missing secretary and some stolen jewels…. It got complicated with blackmail, the old confidence game-and murder…. It became fascinating with a rich divorcee and a lonely widow…. And it reached a climax when Donald took a long drink from a bottle of poisoned Scotch….

  He had to think fast and act faster, because it was….

  Double or Quits

  Double

  Or

  Quits

  by A. A. FAIR

  (Erle Stanley Gardner)

  Chapter I

  THE big fishing barge rolled lazily on the backs of incoming swells. It was still too early for the crowd. Only a few scattered fishing poles were cocked at various angles over the rail. To the east, the sun cleared the tops of California’s coast range, beat down on the oily surface of the windless sea, and reflected in a glitter of eye-aching glare.

  Bertha Cool, as solid and as competent as a coil of barbed wire, sat in the director’s chair, her feet propped on the rail, a long bamboo pole held steadily. Her calm grey eyes, diamond-hard and watchful, were fastened on the line just where it entered the water, watching for that first little jerk.

  She reached in the pocket of her sweater, pulled out a cigarette, and fitted it to her mouth without taking her eyes off the fish line. “Got a match?” she asked.

  I propped my fish pole against the rail, held it in position with my knees, struck a match, cupped the flame in my hands, and held it across to her cigarette.

  “Thanks,” she said, sucking in a deep drag of smoke.

  Bertha’s sickness had dropped her down to a hundred and sixty pounds. As she got her strength back, she began to go fishing. The outdoor life was making her brown and hard. She still tipped the beam at a hundred and sixty, but now it was solid muscle.

  The man on my right, a heavy-set individual who gave the impression of wheezing as he breathed, said, “Not much doing, is there?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’ve been here quite a little while, haven’t you?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You two together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Caught anything at all?”

  “A few.” We fished for a while in silence, then he said, “I don’t care whether I get/ anything or not. It’s so much fun being out where you can relax, inhale the salt air, and get away from the infernal din of civilization.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I get so a telephone bell sounds as ominous as a bomb.” He laughed, almost apologetically, and said, “And it seems only yesterday, when I was starting my practice, that I’d keep watching the telephone, as though looking at it would make it ring. Just like your Pardon me. She isn’t your wife or”

  “No.” He said, “I started to call her your mother, and then I realized you never can tell these days. Well, anyway, she’s watching the fish line just as I used to watch the telephone, trying to make something happen.”

  “Lawyer?” I asked him.

  “Doctor.” After a little while he said, “That’s the way with us doctors. We get so busy safeguarding the health of other people, we neglect our own. It’s constant grind. Operations in the morning, then hospital calls. Office every afternoon. Visits in the evening, and invariably someone who’s been nursing a pain all day will wait until you’re just getting comfortably settled in bed to call and ask you to come over.”

  “On a vacation?” I asked him.

  “No, just playing hookey—trying to do it every Wednesday.” He hesitated, then added. “I have to. Doctor’s orders.” I looked at him. He was a little too heavy. The tops of his eyelids were puffed a little so that when he lowered his lids he seemed to have a little trouble getting them back up. His skin was pale. Something about him made me think of a batch of dough which had been put on the back of the stove to raise.

  He said, “Your friend certainly looks fit.”

  “She is. She’s my boss.”

  “Oh.” Bertha might or might not have been listening. She kept her eyes on her fishing line as a cat watches a gopher hole. There was nothing indefinite about Bertha when she wanted something. Right now she wanted fish.

  “You say you work for her?”

  “Yes.” His forehead showed he was puzzled.

  “She runs a detective agency,” I explained. “B. Cool—Confidential Investigations. We’re taking a day off—in between cases.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  Bertha’s eyes grew harder. She tensed her muscles, leaned slightly forward, motionless, waiting.

  The tip of her pole bent down. Bertha clamped her right hand on the handle of her reel. Her diamonds glittered in the morning sunlight. The tip of her pole went down again and stayed down. The line started cutting through the water in a series of swift, irregular patterns.

  “Pull in your line,” Bertha said to me. “Give me room.” I started to pull in my line. Something gave a terrific jerk, as though trying to pull the pole out of my hands. My own line began hissing through the water.

  “Oh, I say,” the doctor said. “That’s splendid! I’ll get out of the way.” He got up and started walking along the rail, then his own pole bent almost double. I saw his eyelids flutter. His face twisted with excitement.

  I tried to hang on to my pole. I heard Bertha’s voice over on my left say, “Reel him in. Start pumping.” The three of us were busy. Occasionally down in the green depths of the water, I could get the flash of silver as a fish flung himself against the pull of the line.

  Bertha braced herself. Her shoulders heaved against the drag of the pole. A big fish leaped out of the water, and Bertha used the momentum of that leap to keep him coming right on up over the rail.

  He hit the deck as though he’d been a sack of wet meal, and then started beating the planks with his tail.

  The doctor landed his fish.

  Mine got away.

  The doctor grinned across at Bertha Cool. “Yours is bigger than mine,” he said.

  Bertha said, “Uh huh.”

  “Too bad yours got away,” the doctor said to me. Bertha said, “Donald doesn’t care.” The doctor looked at me curiously. I said, “I like the air, the exercise, and the feeling of leisure. When I’m on a case, it’s an all-out affair. I like to rest in between times.”

  “Same with me,” the doctor said. Bertha looked him over.

  From the hot-dog stand at the centre of the boat, savoury odours came eddying down wind to our nostrils. The doctor said to Bertha, “How about a hot dog?”

  “Not now,” she said. “Fish are running.” She competently detached her hook, slid the big fish into a sack, put on more bait, threw her line over the side.

  I didn’t put my pole out again, but stood watching Bertha fishing.

  She tied into another one within thirty seconds. The doctor got another strike, and his got away. Bertha landed hers. After that the doctor landed a good-sized one. Bertha got a small one. Then the run was over.

  “How about that hot dog?” the doctor asked.

  Bertha nodded.

  “You?” he asked me.

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll get ‘em,” the doctor said. “We should celebrate. You stay here and fish. Will you keep an eye on my pole?” I told him I would.

  The sun had risen
higher over the mountains. The morning mists had dispersed. You could see automobiles moving along the paved road which bordered the ocean.

  “Who is he?” Bertha asked, her eyes on her fish line.

  “A doctor who’s been working too hard and not playing enough. His doctor told him to take it easy. I think he wants something.”

  “Didn’t I hear you telling him who I was?”

  “Uh huh. I thought he might be interested.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “You never can tell where you’ll pick up a piece of business,” and then, after a moment, added, “He wants something, all right.” The doctor came back with six hot dogs on toasted buns, plenty of pickles and mustard. He ate his first one with relish. The large fish scales that were stuck to his hands didn’t take his appetite.

  He said to Bertha, “I never would have picked him for a detective. I thought detectives had to be big, tough individuals.”

  “You’d be surprised about him,” Bertha said, flashing me a glance. “He’s chain lightning. Brains count in this business.” I saw the swollen-lidded eyes studying me speculatively, then the lids closed, and after a moment fluttered laboriously back open.

  Bertha said, “If something’s on your mind, for God’s sake go ahead and spill it.” He flashed her a startled look. “What? Why, I didn’t ” and then he gave way to real shoulder-shaking laughter. “All right,” he said, “you win! I’ve prided myself on diagnosing patients as they walked across the office. It never occurred to me I’d have someone do the same to me. How did you know?” Bertha said, “You were wide open. Ever since Donald told you who I was, you’ve been sizing us up. What is it?” The doctor held his second hot dog in his left hand. He took a card case from his pocket, opened it with something of a flourish, and took out two cards. He gave one to Bertha and one to me.

  I glanced at my card, and pushed it in my pocket. I learned that he was Dr. Hilton Devarest, that his hours were by appointment only, that his residence was in a swanky suburban district, and that his office was in the Medical Mutual Building.

  Bertha rubbed her thumb over the engraving, snapped the corner of the pasteboard against her nail to determine the quality of the cardboard. Then she slipped it down in her sweater pocket. She said, “The organization’s all here—all that counts. I’m Bertha Cool. He’s Donald Lam. Let’s hear what’s bothering you.” Dr. Devarest said, “My problem is really very simple. I’ve been the victim of a theft. I’d like to get the stuff back. I’ll run over the facts. Adjoining my bedroom is a den which is fixed up with a lot of obsolete stuff I’ve picked up—old X-ray machines, various electrical equipment, a microscope under a glass shell. It makes a very impressive-looking place.”

  “You work there?” Bertha asked.

  His stomach jiggled with amusement. The slightly puffy lids of his eyes lowered, and after a moment fluttered back. “I do not,” he said. “The obsolete equipment is simply a stage setting to impress visitors. When I’m bored by company I plead some research work which has to be done, excuse myself, and go up to my den. All of my guests have seen that den, and have been properly impressed by it. I can assure you that, to a layman, it is very impressive.”

  “What do you do when you get up there?” Bertha asked. “In one corner of the room,” he said, “is the most comfortable chair I have been able to buy, and a very satisfactory reading lamp. I sit there and read detective stories.” Bertha nodded approvingly.

  Dr. Devarest went on, “Monday night we had some particularly boring guests. I retired to my study. After the guests went home my wife came upstairs ”

  “How does your wife feel about you ducking out and leaving her to entertain the bores?” The smile left Dr. Devarest’s face. “No one ever bores my wife,” he said. “She’s interested in people, and she—well, she thinks—that I’m working.”

  “You mean that she doesn’t know this study setup is a fake?” Bertha asked.

  He hesitated, trying to select just the right words.

  “Don’t you see?” I said to Bertha. “He fitted it up primarily to fool her.” Dr. Devarest stared at me. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  I said, “You’re too smugly satisfied with it. You chuckle every time you think of it. Anyhow, it doesn’t make any difference. Go ahead with the story.”

  “A very discerning young man,” he said to Bertha.

  “Told you so,” she commented dryly. “What happened Monday?”

  “My wife was wearing some jewellery. I have a wall safe in the study.”

  “Something obsolete like the rest of the stuff?” Bertha asked.

  “No,” he said. “There’s nothing obsolete about that safe.

  It is the last word.”

  “What happened?”

  “My wife gave me the jewellery she was wearing, and asked me to put it in the safe.”

  “Does she usually do that?”

  “No. She said she felt nervous Monday, as though something was going to happen.”

  “Did it?”

  “Yes. The jewellery was stolen.”

  “Before you put it in the safe?”

  “No. Afterwards. I put it in the safe, and went to bed. I had a call yesterday morning about six o’clock. It was a ruptured appendix. I rushed to the hospital and operated. Then I had my morning routine of operations.”

  “Where does your wife ordinarily keep her jewels?”

  “Most of the time in a safety deposit box at the bank. She telephoned. my office about noon and wanted to know if I would drive by and open the safe for her before I went to the office.”

  “She doesn’t have the combination?” Devarest said positively, “I am the only one who knows how to open that safe.”

  “What did you do?”

  “My office nurse relayed the telephone call to me at the hospital. I said I’d drive by the house some time before two o’clock. I made it about one. I was in pretty much of a hurry. I hadn’t eaten either breakfast or lunch, just had a few cups of black coffee. I ran into the house and dashed upstairs.”

  “Where was your wife?”

  “She was with me when I entered my study.”

  “You opened the safe?” Bertha asked.

  “Yes. The jewels were gone.”

  “Anything else missing?” He looked at her with the same expression on his face Bertha had when she’d been watching the fishing line. He said shortly, “No. Just the jewel case. There wasn’t much else in the safe. A couple of books of travelers’ cheques that I keep for emergencies, and some notes on research work I’m doing in connection with nephritis.”

  “Exactly where was your wife when you opened the safe?”

  “She was standing in the door of the study.”

  “Perhaps,” Bertha said, “you didn’t lock the safe when you put the jewels in.” He said, “No. That’s out.”

  “I take it the safe hadn’t been tampered with.”

  “No. Whoever opened it had learned the combination.”

  “How?”

  “That’s what I don’t know.” Bertha asked, “Could anyone have ”

  “We know who did it,” he said. “That is, we know who knows who did it.”

  “Who?”

  “A young woman named Starr, Miss Nollie Starr—my wife’s secretary.”

  “What about her?” Dr. Devarest said, “There are times when you doubt the evidence of your own senses. You rub your eyes and wonder if perhaps you aren’t dreaming. I felt the same way when I opened the safe. Naturally, my wife asked a good many questions. Those questions served to clarify my impressions. I distinctly remembered having put the jewels in the safe, and spun the combination.”

  “What’s that got to do with the Starr girl?”

  “My wife called Miss Starr, told her to notify the police.”

  “What happened?”

  “When the police didn’t show up after an hour, my wife tried to find out what was causing the delay. She rang for Miss Starr. Miss Starr had disappeared. The po
lice hadn’t been notified. That gave her an extra hour in which to escape.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then the police came out. They tried to develop latent fingerprints on the safe. They found someone had gone over it carefully with an oiled rag. In Miss Starr’s room, concealed in an empty cold cream jar, they found the oiled rag.”

  “Same one?” I asked.

  “They were able to demonstrate that it was the same. A certain distinctive brand of gun oil was on the rag. It was the same oil that was on the safe. The half-used bottle of gun oil also was found in Miss Starr’s room. Everything indicated a hasty flight. Miss Starr had not taken anything with her. She’d left her toilet articles, even her toothbrush. She’d simply walked out.”

  “And the police haven’t found her?” Bertha asked. “Not yet.”

  “What do you want us to do?” He turned to look out at the ocean, and said, “Until I met you I hadn’t been aware that I wanted anything done, but—well, if you could get in touch with Miss Starr in advance of the police and tell her that if she’ll return the missing articles I’ll be willing to let bygones be bygones, I could pay you a good fee.”

  “Meaning you won’t prosecute?” Bertha asked.

  “I won’t prosecute,” he said, “and I’ll give her a cash reward in addition.”

  “How much?”

  “One thousand dollars.” He stood on the swaying deck of the barge, looking out across the ocean, waiting for Bertha to say something. I knew the question that was in Bertha’s mind. She waited to ask it until her very silence had caused him to turn back toward her.

  “What’s in it for us?” Dr. Devarest took me home with him for dinner. He made no bones about introducing me. I was a private detective he’d hired to “supplement the activities of the police.” His house confirmed the impression I’d formed of him. It had cost money to build it, and it was costing money to keep it up. It was Spanish architecture, white stucco, red tile, verandas with wrought-iron grille work, landscape gardening, servants’ quarters, oriental rugs, bathrooms stuck all over the place, big plate-glass windows, rich, heavy drapes, a large patio, fountains, goldfish, cactus gardens, and atmosphere. There was too much food, and it was too rich, too highly spiced.