Beware the Curves

Upstairs bedroom. Endicott was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He was stone dead. A .38 bullet had smashed into the back of his head.”
    Bertha’s little, greedy eyes were glittering with intense concentration.
    “What about the cabdriver?” she asked.
    “The cabdriver knows that the man reached the house a minute or so before nine o’clock, because he went off duty at nine. He was seven minutes late turning in his cab at the station. The witness Hale places the shooting at exactly nine o’clock, and the service station man at Citrus Grove says Mrs. Endicott drove in, then left his station at exactly nine o’clock. He was just closing up.
    “Mrs. Endicott drove to Sap Diego. No one knew where she was. Later on, she told police she knew nothing about the murder until the next morning when she heard it on the radio. She returned for the funeral. Endicott left no will. His wife inherited everything. There were no other heirs.
    “After a few months Mrs. Endicott settled down in the Whippoorwill, the Endicott home. She seldom goes out and is reported to be living the life of a recluse.
    “Hale has told intimate friends that shortly before the murder Endicott had confided in him his wife had left him for good, that Endicott was pretty well broken up and exceedingly nervous.
    “The police have the idea Endicott was paying blackmail to someone and that the person who killed him may have been the blackmailer.”
    “How come?” Bertha asked.
    “Endicott had drawn twenty thousand dollars in cash that morning. It was the third time he had drawn large amounts in cash within a period of three months. The other times he had drawn ten thousand. He had told Hale he was expecting a visitor who would take only a few moments.”
    “Fry me for an oyster!” Bertha Cool said. “Ten grand a month! That’s some blackmail!”
    “That’s some blackmail,” I agreed.
    Bertha thought things over.
    “Did you let him sell you a bill of goods or are we in the clear?” I asked her.
    “What the hell do you mean, ‘a bill of goods’?” Bertha asked.
    I said, “He matches the description of the guy described by the taxi driver, the one who called on Endicott a few minutes before the shot was fired. Police think this guy was the blackmailer and that Endicott issued some sort of an ultimatum that he was through paying.”
    “Well?” Bertha asked.
    I said, “What would you do if you were a blackmailer, Bertha? Suppose you had a sucker who was good for ten grand a month. Would you kill him?“
    “Hell, no!” Bertha said. “I’d take out fife insurance on him, and hire a bodyguard to keep him under observation and see he didn’t walk in front of any streetcars.”
    “Exactly,” I told her.
    Bertha thought things over. “Then if it wasn’t for that taxi driver they wouldn’t have any case at all.“
    “Probably,” I said. “However, you never can tell about the police. They’re pretty damn smart.”
    “They sure are,” Bertha agreed. “Do you know the cabdriver’s first name?”
    “An unusual name.”
    “What was it?”
    I pulled out a notebook. “Drude. D-r-u-d-e. Drude Nickerson,” I said.
    A smile twisted the corners of Bertha’s mouth. “Someday, Donald,” she said, “you’ll admit that while you have brains when it comes to solving a case, Bertha has brains when it comes to raking in the cash.“
    “What do you mean?” I asked.
    Bertha opened the drawer in her desk and pulled out five new, unfolded, one-hundred-dollar bills.
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    “A retainer,” she said.
    “For what?”
    “For information that we’ve got already.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “How did you get the information about the murder?”
    I said, “When I knew we’d been suckered into a deal we probably didn’t want, I ran through the newspapers in order to find out what we might be up against.“
    “Well, you’ve got the information,” Bertha said. Take a look at this.”
    She handed me a newspaper clipping which had been cut from the obituary column of one of the papers.
    I read it. “Nickerson, Drude, beloved husband of Maria Nickerson. Killed in automobile accident near Susanville, California. Private funeral, Susanville Undertaking Parlors. No flowers.”
    “How nice!” I said. “What does that have to do with the five-hundred-dollar retainer?”
    “Were to find out if this dead guy is the same Nickerson who drove the cab to the Endicott house. We get five hundred bucks more when