“It isn’t safe, Marian. Can’t you understand? I promised Mr. Ellis. He’s holding me responsible. If anything happens, it would get me in Dutch with him.”
“Well, all right,” she said reluctantly.
She gave me the key to her apartment. I said, “In about an hour. So long.”
“So long,” she said.
I said, “Better check up on the towels, and make sure everything is all right.”
She said, “Oh, but it is. I know. I enjoyed being here before. I didn’t want to move out, but Mrs. Cool insisted—”
I said, “Okay. Check up on the towels just the same.”
She went over to the bureau drawer to look for towels, and I slipped her purse under my coat.
“Well, I’ll be seeing you,” I said.
I went back to the agency car, climbed in it, and drove to Marian’s apartment. I let myself in, switched on the lights, and went through her purse. There was a compact, lipstick, thirty-seven dollars in currency, some cards printed in the rough-and-ready style of the country newspaper with pale greyish ink in an old English type: Miss Marian Jean Dunton. There was a lead pencil, a notebook, a handkerchief, and a key ring with some keys on it that I figured opened doors in Oakview.