Holley, I may as well tell you why I’ve come,” he continued. “But I rely on your discretion. This isn’t an interview.”
“Suit yourself,” Holley answered. “I can keep a secret if I have to. But tell me or not, just as you prefer.”
“I prefer to tell you,” Eden said. He recounted Madden’s purchase of the Phillimore pearls, his request for their delivery in New York, and then his sudden unexpected switch to the desert. “That, in itself, was rather disturbing,” he added.
“Odd, yes,” agreed Holley.
“But that wasn’t all,” Bob Eden went on. Omitting only Charlie Chan’s connection with the affair, he told the whole story—the telephone call from the cigar store in San Francisco, the loving solicitude at the dock and after of the man with the dark glasses, the subsequent discovery that this was Shaky Phil Maydorf, a guest at the Killarney Hotel, and last of all, the fact that Louie Wong had been summoned from the Madden ranch by his relative in Chinatown. As he related all this out there on that lonesome desert, it began to take on a new and ominous aspect, the future loomed dark and thrilling. Had that great opening between the hills been, in reality, the gateway to adventure? Certainly it looked the part. “What do you think?” he finished.
“Me?” said Holley. “I think I’m not going to get that interview.”
“You don’t believe Madden is at the ranch?”
“I certainly don’t. Look at Paula’s experience the other night. Why couldn’t she see him? Why didn’t he hear her at the door and come to find out what the row was
