into a shower, hit the high spots with an electric razor, jumped into clothes and drove through deserted streets to the office building.
The night janitor was accustomed to the crazy goings- on of a detective agency. He grumbled a bit about people who tried to run offices on a twenty-four-hour basis, but took me up.
I latchkeyed the door and went on in to Bertha’s private office.
Bertha was being very maternal to a sad-eyed woman around thirty, who was sitting perfectly still in the chair, but who had been twisting her gloves until they looked like a piece of rope.
Bertha beamed. “This is Mrs. Endicott, Donald.”
“How do you do, Mrs. Endicott,” I said.
She gave me a cold hand and a warm smile.
“Donald,” Bertha said, “this is the damnedest story you ever heard in your life. This is absolutely out of this world. This is— Well, I want Mrs. Endicott to tell you in her own words.”
Mrs. Endicott was a brunette. She had big dark eyes, high cheekbones, smooth complexion, and, aside from a general air of funereal sadness about her, might have been a professional poker player. She’d learned somewhere to keep her emotions under complete control. Her face was as expressionless as the marble slab of a gravestone.
“Do you mind, dear?” Bertha asked.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Endicott said in a low but strong voice. “After all, that’s why we got Mr. Lam up out of bed, and he can’t very well work on a case unless he knows the facts.”
“If you can just give him the highlights,” Bertha said, ‘I can fill him in later on.”
“Very well,” Mrs. Endicott said and twisted her gloves so tight it seemed the stitching would start ripping.
“This goes back almost seven years,” she said.
I nodded as she paused.
“Just the high spots,” Bertha said, in a voice that was dripping with synthetic sympathy.
“John Ansel and I were in love. We were going to get married. John was working for Karl Carver Endicott.
“Karl sent John Ansel to Brazil. After John got to Brazil, Karl sent him on an expedition up the Amazon. It was a suicide trip. Karl claimed he was looking for oil prospects. There were two men in the party. He offered each of them a twenty-thousand-dollar bonus to make the trip if they completed the mission successfully.
“They were, of course, under no obligations to go, but John wanted that money very badly because that would have enabled us to get married and he could have started a business of his own. That trip was legalized murder. It was carefully designed to be such. I didn’t know it at the time. The expedition didn’t stand one chance in a thousand. The cards were stacked against them, and Karl Carver Endicott made damn certain that the cards were stacked against them.
“After a while Karl came to me with tears in his eyes. He said he had just received word that the entire party had been wiped out. They were, he said, long overdue and he had sent planes out to search. He’d also sent out ground parties. He’d spared no expense.
“It was a terrific shock to me. Karl did his best to comfort me and finally offered me security and an opportunity to patch up my life.”
She stopped talking for a moment and gave her gloves such a vicious twist that the skin over the knuckles went white.
“You married him?” I asked.
“I married him.”
“And then?”
“Later on he fired one of his secretaries. She was the first who told me. I couldn’t believe my ears. But everything fitted in with other facts as I’d come to know them.
“This ex-secretary told me that Karl Endicott had made a very careful examination in order to pick out a locale for a suicide trip. He had sent John Ansel to his death just as surely as though he had stood him up in front of a firing squad.”
“Did you go to your husband and face him with the facts?” I asked.
“There wasn’t time,” she said. “I had the most terrible, the most awful, unexpected, devastating experience. The telephone
The night janitor was accustomed to the crazy goings- on of a detective agency. He grumbled a bit about people who tried to run offices on a twenty-four-hour basis, but took me up.
I latchkeyed the door and went on in to Bertha’s private office.
Bertha was being very maternal to a sad-eyed woman around thirty, who was sitting perfectly still in the chair, but who had been twisting her gloves until they looked like a piece of rope.
Bertha beamed. “This is Mrs. Endicott, Donald.”
“How do you do, Mrs. Endicott,” I said.
She gave me a cold hand and a warm smile.
“Donald,” Bertha said, “this is the damnedest story you ever heard in your life. This is absolutely out of this world. This is— Well, I want Mrs. Endicott to tell you in her own words.”
Mrs. Endicott was a brunette. She had big dark eyes, high cheekbones, smooth complexion, and, aside from a general air of funereal sadness about her, might have been a professional poker player. She’d learned somewhere to keep her emotions under complete control. Her face was as expressionless as the marble slab of a gravestone.
“Do you mind, dear?” Bertha asked.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Endicott said in a low but strong voice. “After all, that’s why we got Mr. Lam up out of bed, and he can’t very well work on a case unless he knows the facts.”
“If you can just give him the highlights,” Bertha said, ‘I can fill him in later on.”
“Very well,” Mrs. Endicott said and twisted her gloves so tight it seemed the stitching would start ripping.
“This goes back almost seven years,” she said.
I nodded as she paused.
“Just the high spots,” Bertha said, in a voice that was dripping with synthetic sympathy.
“John Ansel and I were in love. We were going to get married. John was working for Karl Carver Endicott.
“Karl sent John Ansel to Brazil. After John got to Brazil, Karl sent him on an expedition up the Amazon. It was a suicide trip. Karl claimed he was looking for oil prospects. There were two men in the party. He offered each of them a twenty-thousand-dollar bonus to make the trip if they completed the mission successfully.
“They were, of course, under no obligations to go, but John wanted that money very badly because that would have enabled us to get married and he could have started a business of his own. That trip was legalized murder. It was carefully designed to be such. I didn’t know it at the time. The expedition didn’t stand one chance in a thousand. The cards were stacked against them, and Karl Carver Endicott made damn certain that the cards were stacked against them.
“After a while Karl came to me with tears in his eyes. He said he had just received word that the entire party had been wiped out. They were, he said, long overdue and he had sent planes out to search. He’d also sent out ground parties. He’d spared no expense.
“It was a terrific shock to me. Karl did his best to comfort me and finally offered me security and an opportunity to patch up my life.”
She stopped talking for a moment and gave her gloves such a vicious twist that the skin over the knuckles went white.
“You married him?” I asked.
“I married him.”
“And then?”
“Later on he fired one of his secretaries. She was the first who told me. I couldn’t believe my ears. But everything fitted in with other facts as I’d come to know them.
“This ex-secretary told me that Karl Endicott had made a very careful examination in order to pick out a locale for a suicide trip. He had sent John Ansel to his death just as surely as though he had stood him up in front of a firing squad.”
“Did you go to your husband and face him with the facts?” I asked.
“There wasn’t time,” she said. “I had the most terrible, the most awful, unexpected, devastating experience. The telephone
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