I answered him from halfway to the door—the pieces were beginning to fit together under my skull.
“Going to run some more circles! Come on, Mac!”
McClump and I held a conference on the fly, and then I got a machine from the nearest garage and headed for Tavender. We made time going out, and got there before the general store had closed for the night. The stuttering Philo separated himself from the two men with whom he had been talking Hiram Johnson, and followed me to the rear of the store.
“Do you keep an itemized list of the laundry you handle?”
“N-n-no; just the amounts.”
“Let’s look at Thornburgh’s.”
He produced a begrimed and rumpled account book and we picked out the weekly items I wanted: $2.60, $3.10, $2.25, and so on.
“Got the last batch of laundry here?”
“Y-yes,” he said. “It j-just c-c-came out from the city t-today.”
I tore open the bundle—some sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths, towels, napkins; some feminine clothing; some shirts, collars, underwear, socks that were unmistakably Coons’s. I thanked Philo while running back to my machine.
Back in Sacramento again, McClump was waiting for me at the garage where I had hired the car.
“Registered at the hotel on June fifteenth, rented the office on the sixteenth. I think he’s in the hotel now,” he greeted me.
We hurried around the block to the Garden Hotel.