"Mr. Willsson wants to draw a ten-thousand dollar check to the order of the Continental Detective Agency. Also he wants to write a letter to them, saying that the ten thousand dollars are to be used in investigating crime and so forth in Personville, and giving the Agency full power to conduct the investigation as they see fit."
The secretary looked questioningly at the old man, who scowled and nodded his round white head.
"But first," I told the secretary as he moved to the door, "you'd better phone the police that we've a dead burglar here. And call Mr. Willsson's doctor."
The old man flared up:
"I don't want any damned doctors!"
"You're going to have a nice shot in the arm so you can sleep," I promised him, stepping over the corpse to take the black gun from the bed.
He said he wouldn't, making a long and profane story of it. He was still going strong when the secretary returned with the check and a typed letter. The old man gave up his cursing long enough to put a shaky signature on each. I had them folded in my pocket when the police arrived.
XI
The first copper into the room was the chief himself, fat Noonan. He nodded amiably at Willsson, shook hands with me, and looked at the dead man with twinkling green eyes.
"Well, well," he said. "It's a good job he did, whoever did it—Yakima Shorty. And will you look at the sap he's toting?" He kicked the big blackjack out of the dead man's hand. "Big enough to sink a battleship. You drop him?" he asked me.
"No, Mr. Willsson."
"Well, that certainly is fine," he congratulated the old man. "You saved a lot of people a lot of troubles, including me. Pack him out, boys," he said to the four men behind him.
The two in uniform picked Yakima Shorty's remains up by legs and armpits and went away with him, while one of the others gathered up the blackjack and a flashlight that had been under the body.
"If everybody did that to their prowlers, it would certainly be fine," the chief babbled on. He produced three cigars, stuck one at me, threw one over on old Elihu's bed, and put the other in his own mouth. "I was just wondering where I could get hold of you," he told me as we lighted up. "I got a little job ahead that I thought maybe you'd like to be in on." He put his mouth close to my ear and whispered: "Going to pick up Whisper. Want to go along?"
"I do."
"I thought you would. Hello, Doc!" He should hands with a man the secretary had just ushered in—a little plump man with a tired round face and eyes that still had sleep in them.
The doctor went over to the bed, where one of Noonan's men was asking Willsson all about the shooting. I followed the secretary out into the hallway and asked him:
"Any men in the house besides you?"
"Yes—a chauffeur, the gardener, and the Chinese cook."
"Let one of 'em stay in the old man's room tonight. I don't think you'll have any more excitement, but no matter what happens don't leave the old man alone. And don't leave him alone with Noonan or any of Noonan's men."
The secretary's mouth and eyes popped wide.
"What time did you leave Donald Willsson the night he was killed?" I asked.
"At precisely ten minutes after nine." He seemed to have been expecting the question.
"You were with him from five o'clock till then?"
"From about a quarter after five. We went over some financial statements and that sort of thing in his office until seven o'clock. Then we went to Bay-
