The Reliance Indemnity Company had offices in the Graas Building, three small rooms that looked like nothing at all. They were a big enough outfit to be as shabby as they liked.
The resident manager was named Lutin, a middle-aged baldheaded man with quiet eyes, dainty fingers that caressed a dappled cigar. He sat behind a large, well-dusted desk and stared peacefully at my chin.
"Marlowe, eh? I've heard of you." He touched my card with a shiny little finger. "What's on your mind?"
I rolled a cigarette around in my fingers and lowered my voice. "Remember the Leander pearls?"
His smile was slow, a little bored. "I'm not likely to forget them. They cost this company one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I was a cocky young adjuster then."
I said: "I've got an idea. It may be all haywire. It very likely is. But I'd like to try it out. Is your twenty-five grand reward still good?"
He chuckled. "Twenty grand, Marlowe. We spent the difference ourselves. You're wasting time."
"It's my time. Twenty it is then. How much cooperation can I get?"
"What kind of co-operation?"
"Can I have a letter identifying me to your other branches? In case I have to go out of the state. In case I need kind words from some local law."
"Which way out of the state?"
I smiled at him. He tapped his cigar on the edge of a tray and smiled back. Neither of our smiles was honest.
"No letter," he said. "New York wouldn't stand for it. We have our own tie-up. But all the co-operation you can use, under the hat. And the twenty grand, if you click. Of course you won't."
I lit my cigarette and leaned back, puffed smoke at the ceiling.
"No? Why not? You never got those marbles. They existed, didn't they?"
"Darn right they existed. And if they still do, they belong to us. But two hundred grand doesn't get buried for twenty years-and then get dug up."
"All right. It's still my own time."
He knocked a little ash off his cigar and looked down his eyes at me. "I like your front," he said, "even if you are crazy. But we're a large organization. Suppose I have you covered from now on. What then?"
"I lose. I'll know I'm covered. I'm too long in the game to miss that. I'll quit, give up what I know to the law, and go home."
"Why would you do that?"
I leaned forward over the desk again. "Because," I said slowly, "the guy that had the lead got bumped off today."
"Oh-oh," Lutin rubbed his nose.
"I didn't bump him off," I added.
We didn't talk any more for a little while. Then Lutin said: "You don't want any letter. You wouldn't even carry it. And after your telling me that you know damn well I won't dare give it you."
I stood up, grinned, started for the door. He got up himself, very fast, ran around the desk and put his small neat hand on my arm.
"Listen, I know you're crazy, but if you do get anything, bring it in through our boys. We need the advertising."
"What the hell do you think I live on?" I growled.
"Twenty-five grand."
"I thought it was twenty."
"Twenty-five. And you're still crazy. Sype never had those pearls. If he had, he'd have made some kind of terms with us many years ago."
"Okey," I said. "You've had plenty of time to make up your mind."
We shook hands, grinned at each other like a couple of wise boys who know they're not kidding anybody, but won't give up trying.
It was a quarter to five when I got back to the office. I had a couple of short drinks and stuffed a pipe and sat down to interview my brains. The phone rang.
A woman's voice said: "Marlowe?" It was a small, tight, cold voice. I didn't know it.
"Yeah."
"Better see Rush Madder. Know him?"
"No," I lied. "Why should I see him?"
There was a sudden tinkling, icy-cold laugh on the wire. "On account of a guy had sore feet," the voice said.
The phone clicked. I put my end of it aside, struck a match and stared at the wall until the flame burned my fingers.
Rush Madder was a shyster in the Quorn Building. An ambulance chaser, a small-time fixer, an alibi builder-upper, anything that smelled a little and paid a little more. I hadn't heard of him in connection with any big operations like burning people's feet.