Shills Can't Cash Chips by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner [Gardner, Erle Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

I showered, shaved, had three cups of strong, black coffee, got in the agency heap and drove to the Perkins Hotel.

There was a message in the box to call Lorraine Robbins at the Miramar Apartments.

I hesitated a moment whether to call her that early but finally decided that as a working girl, she’d be up.

I put through the call and she answered almost instantly.

“Donald?”

“That’s right.”

“Look, Donald, I’m worried about Mr. Holgate.”

“It’s too early to do any worrying yet, Lorraine. Does he have some appointments this morning?”

“Yes, he has some appointments with important customers.”

“Well,” I said, “wait until you see if he keeps those appointments. For all we know, he may be in his apartment sleeping off a convivial evening.”

“He isn’t,” she said. ‘“He isn’t anywhere.”

“What do you mean, anywhere, and how do you know he isn’t in his apartment? Perhaps he isn’t answering the phone.”

“I’ve been up to his apartment, Donald. The bed hasn’t been slept in.”

“How did you get in?”

“The manager knows me. I told him that I had some important papers that I had to deliver and asked if he’d open up the apartment for me.”

“What would you have done if you’d found Holgate with some beautiful babe?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I had a definite feeling he wasn’t with any beautiful babe. I knew what I’d find.”

“What did you find?”

“The bed hadn’t been slept in. No one was there—and of course I wasn’t foolish enough to go into the bedroom while the manager was there. Mr. Holgate has a very fine three-room apartment.”

“Everything seemed to be in order? Any indication the place had been ransacked?”

“No. Everything was in order.”

“All right,” I said, “when I left you last night, did you go right to bed?”

“Why?”

“I want to know.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know what advice to give you. You are asking me whether you should notify the police. It could be very embarrassing to your boss if the police should be notified and it turned out he was simply on a social engagement.”

“All right, Donald, I’ll be frank with you. There was one place where I thought he might be, one apartment.”

“And you got the young lady up out of—”

“Don’t be silly, I was looking for his car. If he’d been there, his car would have been parked near the apartment house. I went out and covered the place thoroughly. His car wasn’t there.”

“Then what?”

“I called his apartment two or three times during the night and of course got no answer. I’m worried.”

I said, “Wait until those appointments come up. If he doesn’t keep the appointments, and they’re important ones, you’ll know that the police had better be notified.”

“Well,” she said somewhat reluctantly, “the first appointment is at ten o’clock. I don’t like to wait until then but … well, I guess it is the best thing to do.

“Are you going to be around here today, Donald?”

“I’ll be in and out. I’ll keep in touch with you. You’ll be at the office?”

“After nine o’clock, yes.”

“I’ll either drop in and see you or give you a buzz,” I said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.