Top of the Heap by Erle Stanley Gardner

police were not at all certain two people had not been killed. At least oneof the homicide experts felt that someone seated on the driver’s right had either been killed or seriously wounded.
    Police, trying to reconstruct Bishop’s trip, felt that the car might have been driven some little distance after Bishop’s body had been dumped out inasmuch as there was no sign of the body anywhere near the car.
    The most intensive search was along the main traveled highway, the assumption being that the murderers would have disposed of the body as soon as possible, and only after that had been done would they have driven the automobile up the little-used side road and then down the narrow lane to the place where it had been found. The murderers hardly dared risk driving any great distance with the body in the car, according to police reasoning.
    The paper published a photograph of Bishop’s wife making an identification of the contents of the suitcase. The picture showed that she was a good-looking babe, and while she was supposed to have been “overcome with grief“ she had, nevertheless, been carefully conscious of the camera angles at the time the picture was taken, or else the photographer had been pretty clever about posing her.
    The address was out in Berkeley and I decided to have a look for myself.
    Bertha would have approved of my economy. I was trying to keep Elsie Brand’s money as intact as possible. I went by bus.
    The bus let me off within three blocks of the place and when I got to it I found there were two official-looking automobiles parked in front of it. I waited for nearly half an hour, prowling around the neighborhood.
    The place was quite some mansion, a half-hillside sweep of grounds with a big house, a view, a swimmingpool, and a back lot where tons of crushed rock had been dumped into a fill.
    I felt there was a good big seventy-five thousand dollarsin real estate and improvements, and a lot more money was going to be spent on the place.
    At the end of about a half hour the last car was driven away and when it was out of sight around the terraced turn in the road, I went boldly up the front steps and rang the bell.
    A colored maid answered the door.
    I didn’t waste any time. I flipped a careless hand toward the left lapel of my coat, said, “Tell Mrs. Bishop I want to see her,” and pushed on in without taking my hat off.
    The maid said, “She’s pretty tired now.”
    “So am I,” I said, and, still with my hat on, walked over to slide one hip over a mahogany library table.
    I felt certain no one was ever going to say anything to me about impersonating an officer. I could well imagine the chagrin of the police department if the maid got on the stand and said, “Yes, sir! I knew he was an officer from the way he acted. He didn’t tell me nothin’. He just walked in with his hat on, so I knew he must be an officer.”
    The woman who entered the room after about three minutes was tired to the point of being mentally numb.
    She wore a simple, dark-colored dress that had a V in front low enough to emphasize the creamy smoothness of her skin. She was brunette, slate-eyed, nice-figured, in the mid-twenties, and ready to drop in her tracks.
    “What is it?” she said, without even bothering to look at me.
    “I want to check up on some of your husband’s associates.”
    “That’s been done already a dozen times.”
    “Did he know anyone by the name of Meredith?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. I haven’t heard him speak of any — Man or woman?”
    “Man.”
    “I haven’t heard him speak of any Meredith.”
    “Billings?” I asked.
    For a swift instant I felt there was a startled flicker of expression in her eyes, then she said in the same flat, weary voice, “Billings — That name is familiar. I may have heard George use it.”
    “Can you tell me a little something about his trip?”
    “But we’ve gone over this, over and over and over.”
    “Not with me, you haven’t.”
    “Well,