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He clapped me on the back, turned to Bertha, and said, “Now, that’s the kind of work I like! That’s real detective work!”
    Bertha unscrewed the cap, and handed him her fountain pen.
    “I don’t get it,” he said. “What? Oh.”
    He laughed, sat down, and made out a check for five hundred dollars.
    Bertha beamed as though she wanted to kiss both of us.
    I handed Carver a neatly typed report. “This tells how we found Sylvia Tucker,” I said, “what her story is, where she works, and her home address. It also has the story she told me about what happened last Tuesday evening. You can get her to make an affidavit if it’s important.”
    “You didn’t ask her about making an affidavit, did you?”
    “No, I just got the information. I didn’t even let her know that I was trying to get that information. I just drew it out of her.”
    “That’s swell. I’m glad you didn’t tell her it was important.”
    “We figure our job is to get information, not to give it.”
    “Capital!” he exclaimed. “Lam, you’re all right. That’s fine.”
    He folded the report, put it in the pocket of his sport coat, shook hands once more all around, and walked out.
    Bertha beamed at me. “You’re crazy as a loon,” she said. “And sometimes I could kill you, but you sure as hell do bring home the bacon.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “That was fast work, Donald, lover. How did you do it?”
    I said, “I followed the paper trail.”
    “What do you mean, the paper trail?”
    “I followed the clues that had very carefully been left for me to follow.”
    Bertha started to say something, then suddenly blinked her hard little glittering eyes and said, “Say that again, Donald.”
    I said, “I followed the clues that had been carefully leftfor me to follow.”
    “What the hell do you mean by that?”
    “Just what I said.”
    “Who left the clues?”
    I shrugged my shoulders.
    “Are you trying to get temperamental with me now?”
    “No, not at all,” I said, “but why not think it out for yourself?”
    “How come?”
    I said, “Well, take the story of John Carver Billings the Second. You’ll remember he told about picking up these two girls who had just arrived in Hollywood on their vacation.”
    “Yes.”
    I said, “That was Tuesday night. He came to see us yesterday. Today is Saturday.”
    “Well?”
    “I found a label off a prescription box in the drawer in the motor court. I went to San Francisco and called on the girl. She said she’d just got back the night before and had gone to work yesterday morning.”
    “Well, what’s wrong with that?”
    I said, “According to her story they left San Francisco Monday evening at five o’clock. They drove as far as Salinas, stayed there that night, then drove down to Hollywood the next day. They went directly to a cocktail parlor. Billings picked them up. They went to the motor court. That was Tuesday night. They checked out Wednesday morning and went to another motor court. They were there Wednesday night. Then, early Thursday morning, they left to return to San Francisco. They got to San Francisco late Thursday night and the girls started working again yesterday.”
    “So what?”
    “Hell of a vacation, wasn’t it?”
    Bertha said, “Lots of people have to take short vacations. They can’t get away for longer periods.”
    “Sure,” I said.
    “Well, what’s wrong with that?” Bertha demanded.
    I said, “Suppose you had four days that you could take as a vacation, and you wanted to go to Los Angeles; what would you do?”
    “I’d go to Los Angeles,” Bertha said. “Dammit, come to the point.”
    I said, “You’d arrange your vacation so it started on Monday or so it ended on Saturday, or both. You’d leave on Saturday morning — or Saturday noon — if you had to work Saturday morning. You’d have all Saturday afternoon and Sunday added to your vacation. You wouldn’t work Monday, then leave Monday night and get back Thursday night so you could go to