“All that I had.”
I said, “Well, the D.A.’s office told me to take care of your expenses, and I can let you have an advance.”
She walked very determinedly over to the chair, jerked it out from under the knob of the door, and slammed the door shut.
I said, “Wait a minute. Your good name will be ruined. Mrs. Eldridge will kick you out for that. She’s the kind who puts her offspring out in snowstorms and—”
Marian Dunton came walking over to me. “Now, you look here, Donald Lam,” she said. “I’d do almost anything for you. You’ve been treating me like an unsophisticated little country girl. I suppose I am, but at least I have some human intelligence. You’ve been nice to me, and I like you, and I have confidence in you, but you can’t steal my purse and get away with it.”
“Steal your purse!” I said.
“Yes, steal my purse. I know you’re a detective. I know you’re doing things that you don’t want me to know anything about. I know that you’ve been using me to have the case break the way you want it to break. I figure you’re entitled to that much. You gave me the right steer from the start, but you’ve been lying to me all afternoon, and I don’t like it.”
I raised my eyebrows, and said, “Lying to you?”
“Yes, lying to me,” she said. “I don’t think you even went to the district attorney’s office. I think you just hung around the apartment house.”
“What makes you think that?”