Cool & Lam 15 - Beware the Curves

owns the property next to your estate so we’ll have to wait until well after midnight. We’ll go out to your house. We’ll ease out of the side door. Then we’ve got to get down on our hands and knees and search every inch of that hedge by feeling.
    “But what will we do if you find it?” Barney Quinn asked.
    “ We’ll keep it,” I said.
    “It will be evidence,” Quinn pointed out. “It’s a crime to conceal evidence. It’s unprofessional conduct. They could disbar me for that.”
    I grinned at him. “You won’t be there, Barney. Tomorrow be sure to ask me if we found a gun in the hedge. Come on, Bertha, let’s go. We’ll see you at your place in a couple of hours, Mrs. Endicott. Leave the back door open for us. You can fortify us with coffee and assure us the coast is clear.”

CHAPTER 17 …

    IT was a dark night. High fog was drifting in from the ocean and there was a lot of humidity in the air.
    Bertha Cool and I were down on our hands and knees on the damp grass, crawling along the hedge, our fingers digging through every inch of the soil.
    “Why did you tell Betty Endicott to stay inside?” she asked.
    “For one reason, we can’t trust her,” I said. “For another reason, in case anybody comes she can give us a signal.”
    “I’ve ruined a dress, a pair of nylons and broken two fingernails,” Bertha Cool said.
    “That’s nothing,” I said. “You may be ruining your professional career.”
    “Why the hell do we do this?”
    “It’s a service we give our clients.”
    “I never did anything like this before you came along,” Bertha said. “It wasn’t until you teamed up with me that we started getting into all these damn scrapes.”
    “You never made money before,” I told her. “Shut up and get busy. Don’t just skim along the surface. Work your fingers down deep into the soil. The thing has been out here for years, and it’ll be pretty well covered.”
    “How come no one’s found it?” she asked.
    “No one’s looked. The gardener puts water on the hedge. He trims it once in a while. The hedge is so thick it keeps weeds from growing underneath and he’s never spaded it up to do a decent job of it. He’s cut sod around the edges and thrown dirt into the center . He’s probably covered the thing up years ago.” Bertha ripped out a string of cuss words.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “I’ve torn my dress and scratched my face. Donald, why the hell can’t we have a flashlight on this job?”
    “We can’t let anyone know what’s going on. The police may be keeping the place under surveillance. Hale lives next door.”
    Bertha grunted, groaned, heaved around on her hands and knees. She cussed me up one side and down the other, and then my fingers struck something.
    “Wait a minute, Bertha!” I said. “I think… it’s either a stone or... okay, this is it. It’s the gun!”
    “Well, thank God,” Bertha said. “It’s about time!” She heaved herself to her feet. “I don’t know how the hell I’m going to get into my apartment house. If the doorman gets a look at me, he’ll think I’ve been stealing chickens.”
    “Tell him he’s underestimating you,” I told her. “Tell him you’ve been compounding a felony. Stealing chickens is a misdemeanor .”
    “Well,” Bertha said, “let’s go tell Elizabeth Endicott, and I suppose we should telephone Barney Quinn .“
    “No,” I said.
    “ No what?”
    “We’ll tell Elizabeth Endicott we searched the whole damn hedge and couldn’t find anything,” I told her. “We tell Barney Quinn the same thing.”
    “Sometimes,” Bertha said with feeling, “I wish to hell I’d never seen you.”

CHAPTER 18 …

    There was one thing wrong with the story John Dittmar Ansel had told Barney Quinn.
    The gun was pretty badly rusted. I couldn’t even break the cylinder open without subjecting the gun to a lot of treatment designed to remove rust. But by using my flashlight after I’d cleaned out some of the dirt from the barrel, I could see, despite the rust, that the shell in line with the barrel had been fired. The beam of the flashlight very plainly showed the empty cartridge case. The other five cartridges had bullets in them.
    It was one hell of a mess.
    The case started on schedule. We droned through getting the jury empaneled.
    Barney Quinn had our notes. He had us sitting in court where we could be consulted, but the guy had lost heart. He was like a man being dragged into the execution chamber.