Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 75, No. 4, April 15, 1933

Thompson, eastern manager of the Blaine Agency, said to me in the hotel room in Jacksonville, “Do dames fall for towheads like you, Mike?”

“Dames fall for anyone with a good line,” I said, and waited. Six years’ sleuthing with the Blaine agency had taught me that a fellow never knew what was coming next.

“You’ll need a good line,” Thompson grinned, fishing an old cigar stub out of his vest pocket. “There’s a dame in Palm Beach who’s responsible for the deaths of two men that we know of. And she’s about ready to put a third scalp in her belt. I want you to meet her.”

“Says you,” I told him. “Figuring me for the third corpse, I suppose?”

“You never can tell.” Thompson scraped a match under the edge of his chair and sucked on the cigar, rolling an eye at me as sober as a deacon.

“Who is this female execution squad — and where do I come in?” I asked him.

“She was baptized Gloria Whitney and has a string of aliases. Her nickname is the Orchid. Her specialty is blackmail. When she hooks a man he may as well pay up, take it on the front page, or write his own ticket. They fished one of her boy friends out of the river below New Orleans, and found another in his Park Avenue apartment with a bullet through his head. Not a bit of proof to connect the Orchid with either, of course. But there’s no law against guessing.”

“They should call her Aconite, the poison flower,” I wisecracked. “And what do I do with this hothouse assassin?”

Thompson rolled the cigar to the corner of his mouth and grinned at me. “I’m counting on that well known sex appeal of yours I’ve been hearing about from Trixie Meehan.”

I damned Trixie Meehan for spreading those yarns. She panned me every chance she got.

Thompson grinned again, and then became serious.

“The Orchid is one of the smoothest crooks in the country, Mike. She makes big money and makes it easy. As near as we can find out, she’s got a partner or so who don’t show often. She’s been in Palm Beach for a month, and made a killing — all but the collecting.”

“Or the suicide,” I suggested.

“Exactly!” Thompson snapped. “I talked to the poor devil this morning. It won’t take much to make him reach for a gun. He’s Waldo Maxwell of the State Trust.”

“Not the Waldo Maxwell?”

“None other,” Thompson assured me. “No fool like an old widower, and he took it hook, line and sinker, and put it on paper. He won’t stand a chance in court. And it will cost him a cool quarter of a million to buy back the evidence.”

“Holy catfish!” I gasped. “What a haul! Why doesn’t he take the publicity and save the dough?”

“Be yourself!” Thompson said. “He’d be the laughing stock of the country. Men who formerly trusted his judgment would think him doddering and senile. No telling what it would do to his financial strength. Not to speak of winding up a distinguished career as the country’s prize clown. He’ll pay if we can’t settle it some other way.”

Thompson was right. Waldo Maxwell had been a national figure for forty years. His bank was a Gibraltar of finance; he was the ultimate in conservative respectability. He’d be finished, out, if the scandal sheets got a thing like this.

“Maxwell retained the Blaine Agency,” Thompson continued. “The sky is the limit on expense. And we’re giving it to you. The Orchid is at the Palm Beach Palo Verde, registered as Miss Gloria Dean and maid. We don’t know anything about the maid. It’s a cinch she’s crooked too. Got any ideas?”

“Plenty,” I said, thinking fast. “First, make good on that expense account. And I’ll want a good looking woman with brains. Got one this side of New York?”

“Trixie Meehan is due here in the morning from Chicago. She’ll work with you.”

I groaned, knowing Trixie.

Next morning I bought luggage, evening clothes, dress shirts, shoes, hats, all the clutter an oil millionaire from west Texas would be likely to have.

Trixie Meehan blew in, had a conference with Thompson before he left town, did some whirlwind shopping herself. We made the train together with enough luggage to do a theatrical troupe.