“He says he don’t know.”
“So Lillian Shan and Wang Ma were still in the house when this pair left?” I asked. “They hadn’t started for the East yet?”
“So he says.”
“Has he got any idea why Wan Lan was killed?”
“Not that I’ve been able to get out of him.”
“Thanks, Bill! You’ll notify the sheriff that you’re holding him?”
“Sure.”
Of course Lillian Shan and the taxicab were gone when I came out of the Hall of Justice door.
I went back into the lobby and used one of the booths to phone the office. Still no report from Dick Foley—nothing of any value—and none from the operative who was trying to shadow Jack Garthorne. A wire had come from the Richmond branch. It was to the effect that the Garthornes were a wealthy and well-known local family, that young Jack was usually in trouble, that he had slugged a Prohibition agent during a café raid a few months ago, that his father had taken him out of his will and chased him from the house, but that his mother was believed to be sending him money.
That fit in with what the girl had told me.
A street car carried me to the garage where I had stuck the roadster I had borrowed from the girl’s garage the previous morning. I drove around to Cipriano’s apartment building. He had no news of any importance for me. He had spent the night hanging around Chinatown, but had picked up nothing.