Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

thousand dollars," I said. "Sorry."
    "No. You wouldn't be here, if you had the money. Or would you?" There was a cold sneer on his face now, but it looked artificial.
    "I'd do a lot for eight thousand dollars," I said. "But if I wanted to kill a man with a sap, I'd only hit him twice at the most--on the back of the head."
    He nodded slightly. One of the dicks behind him spit into the wastebasket.
    "That's one of the puzzling features. It looks like an amateur job, but of course it might be meant to look like an amateur job. The money was not Marriott's, was it?"
    "I don't know. I got the impression not, but that was just an impression. He wouldn't tell me who the lady in the case was."
    "We don't know anything about Marriott--yet," Randall said slowly. "I suppose it's at least possible he meant to steal the eight thousand himself."
    "Huh?" I felt surprised. I probably looked surprised. Nothing changed in Randall's smooth face.
    "Did you count the money?"
    "Of course not. He just gave me a package. There was money in it and it looked like a lot. He said it was eight grand. Why would he want to steal it from me when he already had it before I came on the scene?"
    Randall looked at a corner of the ceiling and drew his mouth down at the corners. He shrugged.
    "Go back a bit," he said. "Somebody had stuck up Marriott and a lady and taken this jade necklace and stuff and had later offered to sell it back for what seems like a pretty small amount, in view of its supposed value. Marriott was to handle the payoff. He thought of handling it alone and we don't know whether the other parties made a point of that or whether it was mentioned. Usually in cases like that they are rather fussy. But Marriott evidently decided it was all right to have you along. Both of you figured you were dealing with an organized gang and that they would play ball within the limits of their trade. Marriott was scared. That would be natural enough. He wanted company. You were the company. But you are a complete stranger to him, just a name on a card handed to him by some unknown party, said by him to be a mutual friend. Then at the last minute Marriott decides to have you carry the money and do the talking while he hides in the car. You say that was your idea, but he may have been hoping you would suggest it, and if you didn't suggest it, he would have had the idea himself."
    "He didn't like the idea at first," I said.
    Randall shrugged again. "He pretended not to like the idea--but he gave in. So finally he gets a call and off you go to the place he describes. All this is coming from Marriott. None of it is known to you independently. When you get there, there seems to be nobody about. You are supposed to drive down into that hollow, but it doesn't look to be room enough for the big car. It wasn't, as a matter of fact, because the car was pretty badly scratched on the left side. So you get out and walk down into the hollow, see and hear nothing, wait a few minutes, come back to the car and then somebody in the car socks you on the back of the head. Now suppose Marriott wanted that money and wanted to make you the fall guy--wouldn't he have acted just the way he did?"
    "It's a swell theory," I said. "Marriott socked me, took the money, then he got sorry and beat his brains out, after first burying the money under a bush."
    Randall looked at me woodenly. "He had an accomplice of course. Both of you were supposed to be knocked out, and the accomplice would beat it with the money. Only the accomplice double-crossed Marriott by killing him. He didn't have to kill you because you didn't know him."
    I looked at him with admiration and ground out my cigarette stub in a wooden tray that had once had a glass lining in it but hadn't any more.
    "It fits the facts--so far as we know them," Randall said calmly. "It's no sillier than any other theory we could think up at the moment."
    "It doesn't fit one fact--that I was socked from the car, does it? That would make me