“If you talked my language,” she drawled, looking narrow-eyed at me, “I might be able to give you some help.”
“Maybe if I knew what it was.”
“Money,” she explained, “the more the better. I like it.”
I became proverbial:
“Money saved is money earned. I can save you money and grief.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” she said, “though it sounds like it’s meant to.”
“The police haven’t asked you anything about the check?”
She shook her head, no.
I said:
“Noonan’s figuring on hanging the rap on you as well as on Whisper.”
“Don’t scare me,” she lisped. “I’m only a child.”
“Noonan knows that Thaler knew about the check. He knows that Thaler came here while Willsson was here, but didn’t get in. He knows that Thaler was hanging around the neighborhood when Willsson was shot. He knows that Thaler and a woman were seen bending over the dead man.”
The girl picked up a pencil from the table and thoughtfully scratched her cheek with it. The pencil made little curly black lines over the rouge.
Rolff’s eyes had lost their weariness. They were bright, feverish, fixed on mine. He leaned forward, but kept his hands out of sight below the table.
“Those things,” he said, “concern Thaler, not Miss Brand.”