Beware the Curves

motives.”
    “How did he know what they were going to encounter in the Amazon?”
    “Some other people had been up in that same territory. That had been a bona fide expedition. The people had been killed. Endicott knew they had been killed.“
    “How?”
    “It was an expedition by another oil company and Endicott got the information on that.”
    “How?”
    “By correspondence.”
    “Where’s the correspondence?”
    “In his files, I guess.”
    “You didn’t take it out when you left?”
    “No, I wish I had.”
    “You have no photostats?”
    “No.”
    “No way of proving what you know?”
    “Only that I saw the letters. I typed some of his letters of inquiry.”
    “Did Endicott make any settlement when you leftP Any sort of property adjustment?”
    “Why should he?”
    “Did he?”
    “No.”
    “You’re dependent on your salary?”
    “I’m a working girl.”
    I sized her up. Six years ago she had been quite a dish. She was still a good-looking babe. Then she had been twenty-nine. Now she was thirty-five. She could type like nobody’s business.
    I said, “It would be unfortunate if some of this came out.”
    “In what way?”
    I said, “Employers don’t like secretaries who become temperamental and go to wives with stories of the husband’s business.”
    She thought that over.
    I looked at my watch.
    “Gosh, Helen,” I said, “I’ve got to rush on. I’m working on this Endicott case, and I’ve got a million and one things to do. It was perfectly swell of you to give me an evening of your time.”
    “Thank you for a wonderful dinner, Donald,” she said.
    She came to the door with me. I kissed her good night but it wasn’t much of a kiss. She was preoccupied with her thoughts, and she was worried to beat hell.

CHAPTER 14 …

    MAYOR TABER was a man in his middle fifties with heavy jowls, thick lips, cold gray eyes, and a habit of talking in rapid spurts making the words sound like bursts of machine-gun fire.
    Cooper Hale was short, fat and quiet. He looked me over, then turned his eyes away, then looked me over, then turned his eyes away.
    Bertha performed the introductions, and both men shook hands. Taber did the talking.
    “Very unfortunate publicity, very unfortunate indeed! It seems to have emanated from this office. Now I don’t know what your sources of information are, Lam, and I don’t give a damn. All I can say is that it has been insinuated the city government of Citrus Grove has been asleep at the switch, that we’ve let some stupid zoning ordinance stand in the way of development.”
    He stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, went on rattling out the words. “I don’t like it. That’s not the way to fight. If you have any legitimate grievance against the city, come down to Citrus Grove and tell us about it. I don’t know what you’re trying to do. I do know you’re mixed in this Endicott murder case, and while I’m not prepared to make any direct accusations in public—as yet—I can’t get it out of my mind that there must be a tie-in.”
    “Meaning the information I had is false?” I asked. “Of course it’s false.”
    “What about Crosset’s campaign fund?” I asked. “Well now there is a matter which is rather unfortunate. I’m very friendly with Crosset, and I respect and admire the man enormously. He’s a man of upright integrity. He has such rigid principles, such high standards of honor that anything that would cast the faintest smirch on his character would be magnified in his mind. I’m terribly sorry it happened.”
    “So is Crosset,” I said.
    “He’s entitled to accept campaign contributions provided he acts in good faith.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, then why bring the matter up?”
    “He resigned, didn’t he?”
    “He resigned.”
    “Why?”
    “Because, as I have explained to you, his standards of honor are so high that he would lean over backwards.”
    “What about the others?”
    “What others?”
    “The others who had two thousand dollars donated to their campaign funds.“
    “Do you know that any of the others did?”
    “I understand one of the others stated a similar contribution had been made.”
    “Well, what’s wrong with that?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Then why bring it up?”
    “I didn’t.”
    “You asked the question.”
    “I was trying to familiarize myself with the situation.” Hale shifted his position, raised his eyes to look at me. “After all,” he said, “you may not be in an