A retail-credit association member had delivered groceries to a Mrs. Sidney Jannix in an apartment on California Street.
I went out to the place, parked the jalopy, climbed stairs, and pressed a buzzer.
The woman who opened the door was Corla Burke.
“May I come in?” I asked.
“Who are you?”
“A friend of Helen Framley.”
She frowned at me. For a moment, there was quick alarm in her eyes. “How did you find me?”
“That,” I said, “is something of a story. Do I tell it out here, or inside?”
“Inside,” she said, and held the door open so I could come in.
I sat down by the window. Corla Burke, seated across from me where the light etched expression on her face, played into my hands by opening the conversation. “I, simply couldn’t have taken advantage of Miss Framley’s offer,” she said. “I wrote and told her so.”