Free Gold Comes in Bricks by A. A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)

that—but they were full of reminiscences about our trip. Some things were so lovely. We sailed into Tahiti late one night—you’d have to see that to realize it—the native dancers waiting around little fires. We could see the red points of light dotting the shore. Then, as the ship came in, we could see the forms of the dancers around the fires. We could hear the drums beating, that peculiar Tap-tap-TAP! Tap-tap-TAP! Tap-tap-TAP! Then they threw more fuel on the fires. Someone turned floodlights down on the quay, and there were these dancers, with nothing on but grass skirts, stamping their bare feet in the rhythm of a dance, then pairing off and facing each other in a sort of hula which became more and more violent. Then, at a signal, they’d all start a running kind of dance around the fires. He reminded me of that—and other things. They were wonderful letters. I saved them and read them over whenever I felt blue. They were so vivid—”
    I said, “Sounds like things a magazine would pay money for, but I don’t see why you should pay thirty thousand dollars for letters you didn’t answer.”
    She said, “Brace yourself, because I’m going to give you a shock.”
    I said, “You mean that the letters did something to you that he himself hadn’t been able to do? That you—”.
    She colored. “No, no, no! Don’t be a fool.”
    “I can’t imagine anything else that would be worth thirty thousand bucks to a young woman who’s as independent as you are.”
    “You’ll understand when I tell you.”
    “Well, go ahead and tell me.”
    “The man’s name,” she said, “was—”
    She broke off.
    “What’s his name got to do with it?” I asked.
    She took a deep breath, and then blurted, “Hampton G. Lasster.”
    “That’s a funny name to get romantic about,” I said. “You seem to think it should mean something. What is he, a—” All of a sudden an idea hit me with the force of a blow. I stopped mid-sentence and stared at her. I saw by her eyes that I was right. “Good Lord,” I said, “he’s the man who murdered his wife.”
    She nodded.
    “Wasn’t there a trial?”
    “Not yet. Just a preliminary hearing. He was bound over.”
    I grabbed her shoulders, spun her around so I could look down in her eyes. “You didn’t have an affair with this man?”
    She shook her head.
    “Did he see you after you got back?”
    “No.”
    “And you didn’t ever write to him?”
    “No.”
    “What happened to his letters?”
    “Those are what I was buying back,” she said.
    “How did Ringold get them?”
    “Some smart detectives working out of the district attorney’s office figured that what they needed to make a perfect case against Lasster was a motivation—one which would prejudice a jury. They checked back on Lasster just as much as they could. He couldn’t account for his time covering a period of eight weeks during the summer, while his wife was away. The detectives couldn’t find where he’d been.”
    “Then, in searching a woodshed, they came on an old trunk which had a steamer label on it. They traced that back and found out about the trip to the South Seas, then got a passenger list, and interviewed passengers. Of course, it was a cinch after that. They found out that Lasster had been definitely interested in me while he was on the cruise.”
    “Still,” I said, “if you were reasonably discreet, that didn’t give them anything they could work on—not if he kept his mouth shut.”
    “But don’t you understand? It gave them just the lead they wanted. They waited for the right opportunity, managed to break into the house, go through my room in my absence, and— Well, they found the letters. You see what that means. I can swear on a stack of Bibles a mile high that I haven’t written Lasster or seen him since I found out he was married. No one would believe me.”
    “How did it happen you bought the letters in three installments?”
    She said, “There were three detectives.