The door pushed open as though a steam roller had been on the other end of it. Gabby jumped up in the air, grabbed his left big toe, and started hopping around in agonized circles.
A tall competent-looking man in a gray suit, a gray hat to match, with a face that was lean and bronzed, pushed his way into the room and slammed the door shut behind him.
Gabby managed to sidetrack the pain of his skinned toe long enough to get belligerent. “Say,” he demanded, “who the hell do you think you are? Get out of here, and—”
“Now then,” the man announced, “what kind of a damn racket are you two guys pulling?”
“And just who are you?” I asked.
“Inspector Fanston, Headquarters. What’s the idea?”
“The idea of what?”
“Who was the jane who was just up in the room?”
I said, “I’m not going to lie to you, Inspector. Her mother and I are estranged and she came to get me to go home. But I told her nothing doing. I shouldn’t have married a woman who was forty-five years older than I was in the first place, and I should never have had a daughter who was only five years younger. It makes for a terrific strain on family life. Or don’t you think so?”
“Do you,” he asked, “think this is a gag?”
“Why not? We’re over twenty-one. And if a woman can’t pay us a five-minute visit in a hotel room without some house dick—”
“Forget it. I’m not a house dick. I’m from headquarters. I want to know who the woman was, and when you get done making wisecracks I want to know what the hell the idea was ringing up headquarters and telling them a murder had been committed at the Redderstone Apartments.”
Neither Gabby nor I said anything for a minute.
The Inspector grinned, settled down on the edge of the bed, and said, “That makes it different, doesn’t it, wise guy?”
“That makes it very much different,” I told him. “How — how did you—?”
“Easy,” he said. “When the desk sergeant told you he was consulting with the broadcasting system he was tracing the call. The hotel clerk remembered you going in to telephone, and there’s been a cute little number dropping in... What the hell’s the idea? What are you two guys trying to do?”
I cleared my throat. “About the purse,” I said.
“Let’s talk about the murder first, if you don’t mind.”
I said, “I — er — thought—”
“Did you?” he interrupted. “Well, try thinking it out straight this time. I suppose you boys are on the loose for a little night, life, and it’s okay by me just so you don’t start pulling practical jokes about murders.”
“Practical jokes!” I exclaimed. “A man had the back of his head caved in.”
“What man?”
“The man in 218 at the Redderstone Apartments.”
He said, “Get up and get your clothes on,” and nodded to Gabby. “You too.”
We went to the Redderstone Apartments and up to the second floor. An officer in uniform was on guard in the living room of 218. The bedroom was just as we had left it, except now the bed was a spotless expanse of smooth counterpane.
I had been bracing myself for the shock of being called on to identify the body — perhaps being accused of having had something-to do with the crime, and wondering just how I could establish an alibi. But the sight of that smooth bed was too much for me. I stood there for a good two or three seconds.
“Any old time,” Fanston said.
Gabby and I both started talking at once. Then Gabby quit and let me tell the story. I knew there was only one thing to do. I told it right from the beginning, with the uniformed cop looking at me skeptically and Fanston’s eyes drilling tunnels right into my brain.
“You sure this was the apartment?”
“Absolutely.”
Inspector Fanston didn’t give up. “All right, let’s concede that he looked dead — that you thought he was dead. Those things don’t just happen, you know.”
“It happened this time.”
“Wait a minute until you see what I’m getting at. Suppose it was all planned. A purse is planted where you’ll be certain to find it. There’s enough money in it so you’ll really start doing something about it. It’s a foregone conclusion that you’re coming to this apartment — not once, but twice. And the second time you come back you find the outer door open. A man is lying sprawled on the bed. There’s a violet-colored bulb in the lamp over the bed. That would make anyone look dead as a doornail.
“My best guess is that it’s either some new racket or a frame-up to get you two guys on a spot because you two guys just happen to be you two guys. If it’s a racket, you look old enough to take care of yourselves. If either one of you has any particular military information, or is here on some secret mission — well, I think that now would be a good time to take the police into your confidence.”
He looked at Gabby. “Right, soldier?”
Gabby just looked innocent. Then he took a leather case from his pocket and handed it to the Inspector. “Keep it to yourself,” he said.
The Inspector turned his back. I saw slight motion in his shoulders as he opened the leather case. Then he was motionless and silent for a few seconds.
I heard the snap of a catch, and the Inspector turned, poker-faced. He handed the leather case back to Gabby.
“Then you don’t think there really was anybody?” I asked.
Fanston said, “Hell, no. Now, go home. If you start buzzing these janes in the morning, be careful — that’s all.”
Gabby snorted. “They’re so dumb they think they’ve fooled us. Do you want to go back to the hotel now, Jay?”
“No. Let’s find out some more about that stick — and what’s happening at Puzzle Number Two shortly after midnight.”
We found Fred Sanmore still on duty, tired to the point of utter weariness, but still shoving traffic through the yards.
“Look, Fred.” Gabby said, “those brake sticks the men use — does it make any difference which is which?”
“What do you mean?”
“Can any man pick up any stick?”
Sanmore laughed. “Gosh, no. That’s a sure way to pick a fight. Each man has his own stick. When a shift comes on duty, they’ll bundle up all of the sticks and heave them out as far as they can throw them. The man whose stick goes the farthest puts it in the last hole. He’s the last one out.”
“How do they tell them apart?”
“Oh, various markings.”
Gabby said, with what seemed to me just a little too much innocence, “I don’t suppose you happen to know who owns the stick that has three rings out near the end with a series of crosses between the rings?”
“No, but I can find out for you.”
“If you could do it quietly,” Gabby said, “so your inquiries didn’t attract too much attention, that might help.”
“Come on,” Sanmore said.
We started up toward the place where the men were sitting in front of the line of pegs. There weren’t so many of them now. The cut that was going over the hump was getting down to the last ten or fifteen cars.
Sanmore left us and talked with two or three of the switchmen in a low voice, then was back to say, “As nearly as I can tell, it’s a man named Carl Greester. He went off duty at midnight, but he’s still around somewhere. He has a friend visiting him in the yards.”
“What do you mean, a friend?”
Sanmore grinned. “I mean a friend,” and holding up his hands in front of him he made an hourglass outline of a woman’s figure. “She came down with a pass from headquarters. And she had another woman with her. Greester is having a confab with them.”
“You don’t know where Greester lives, do you?” I asked.