‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant,’ he stammered, ‘but I can’t tel you what I don’t know. I haven’t seen Baird since the day before yesterday. I don’t know nothing about the bracelet…’
Olin got up.
‘I’ll get Baird,’ he said, his face set and menacing. ‘Make no mistake about it. Don’t kid yourself he won’t talk. He won’t go to the chamber alone. If you’re hooked up with him, you’ll go too! I’l give you one more chance, and you’d better take it. Have you got that bracelet?’
‘I tell you I don’t know a thing about it!’ Rico said, through clenched teeth.
Olin reached across the desk and grabbed hold of Rico’s coat front, pulling him out of his chair. He shook him savagely.
‘God help you if I find out you’re lying, you little creep!’ he snarled, and flung Rico back into his chair so violently the chair went over backwards and Rico sprawled on the floor. ‘And don’t think you’ve seen the last of me!’ Olin went on. ‘I’ll be back.’
For a long time after Olin had gone, Rico sat at his desk, staring with empty eyes at his twitching hands, and sweating.
II
Ed Dallas steered his tall, lanky frame into a pay booth. While he waited for a connection, he surveyed the busy hotel scene through the glass panel of the booth door, his eyes shifting from one beautiful woman to another, trying to make up his mind which of them he would take out for the night should a miracle happen and give him a choice.
A girl’s voice said in his ear, ‘International Detective Agency. Good evening.’