Tanner’s eyes gleamed. He spoke softly. “That is exactly what I’m hoping for. After all, the murderer is still at large. And the key to the suite is still missing.”
A couple of hours later, on the plane, Alec Norton refreshed his memory of the Clark case by reading teletype flimsies — spot news stories about the crime sent out by the Pearson City Star, a member of the Syndicated Press.
Diana Clark was a promising young actress living in New York. Two weeks ago she had gone to the Texan border town of Pearson City. Daniel Forbes, her divorced husband, lived there. So did the firm of lawyers who had got her the divorce, Kimball and Stacy. She reached Pearson City at nine p.m. and went straight to the Hotel Westmore. She telephoned the junior partner of her law firm, Martin Stacy, and asked him to call at her hotel that evening.
At the time of her divorce Forbes had promised to pay her a lump sum in lieu of further alimony if she re-married. According to Stacy, Diana Clark told him she was planning to remarry and she wanted him to ask Forbes for the lump sum. Stacy replied that it would bankrupt Forbes who had just sunk all his money in a real estate venture.
Stacy said he left her hotel suite at nine forty-five p.m. She was in good health and spirts, but still determined to get the money from Forbes. No one saw Stacy leave. No other visitor inquired for Diana Clark that evening.
Next morning she was found dead in her suite with a bullet from a .22 calibre Colt revolver in her brain. According to the medical examiner, she was shot between eleven p.m. and one a.m. Her door was locked and the key was missing. So was the gun.
When Norton finished reading, his hasty surmise was that either Forbes or Stacy had killed Diana Clark. Forbes had a motive and Stacy an opportunity. Find a motive for Martin Stacy or an opportunity for Daniel Forbes and the case would be solved.
Arriving in Pearson City, Alec Norton found the Hotel Westmore to be one of the older hotels in town. Norton’s first impression of the lobby was gloomy, Victorian dignity — black walnut and red plush, a black and white tiled floor and Persian rugs.
He studied the night clerk as a man measures an adversary. “I’d like the suite I had the last time I was here.”
“Certainly, sir.” The clerk was young and limp with a tired smile. “Do you recall the room number?”
“It was eleven-o-five.”
The clerk’s smile vanished. “That suite is taken.”
Norton’s glance went to a chart of guest names and room numbers hanging on the wall behind the clerk. Opposite the number 1105 stood one word: Unoccupied.
The clerk’s glance followed Norton’s. “We have better rooms vacant now,” he protested. “Larger and more comfortable, and at the same rate.”
Norton leaned on the desk, holding the clerk’s eyes with his. “Suppose you tell me the real reason why you don’t want me to have that suite,” he said. “There might be a story in it.”
“Story — what do you mean?”
“I’m with the Syndicated Press. A newspaper feature service. Either I get the story — or I get the suite.”
It was blackmail and the clerk knew it. “There is no story,” he said tremulously. “Front! Show this gentleman to eleven-o-five.”
Norton followed a bellhop across the lobby to the elevator. He could feel eyes on his back. He wished it had not been necessary to announce the number of his suite quite so publicly.
The corridor on the eleventh floor was dimly lighted by electric globes at intervals of thirty feet. A thick, crimson carpet muffled every footfall. At the end of the corridor Norton noticed a door marked: Fire Stairs. It was a neat setup for a murder trap.
The bellhop unlocked a white door numbered, 1105. The room was dark but a neon sign flashed and faded beyond the window. A few snowflakes sifted down through the theatrical red glow, languid as falling feathers. Hastily the bellhop switched on a ceiling light. The room looked normal and even commonplace.
Norton played the part of a curious tourist. “Tell me something,” he said. “Is there anything wrong with this room?”
“N-no.” The bellhop dropped his eyes.
“Afraid you’ll lose your job if you talk?”
The bellhop raised his eyes. “Listen, mister. If you want my advice, pack up and take the next plane back to New York.”
“Were you on duty here two weeks ago?”
The bellhop hesitated. Then, “I’m not talking. But I wouldn’t spend a night in here for a million bucks!”
He was in a hurry to get out of the room. Norton gave him a fifty-cent tip and let him go.
Alone, Norton examined the doors. There were three — one leading to a bathroom, one to the hall and the one to the room next door was immovable — locked or bolted on the other side. He locked the hall door and put the key with his watch on the bedside table. It was just a quarter of nine.
Norton glanced into the bathroom. He remembered what Dave Tanner had told him — Blood in the bathtub where the murderer appears to have washed his hands. It seemed clean now, but Norton decided against a bath. He crawled into bed and switched off the light.
In the darkness he could see the crimson reflection of the neon sign on the wall opposite the window. It winked steadily as a metronome — on, off... on, off. In less than five minutes, he was asleep.
Norton never knew just what woke him. Yet suddenly he was wide awake. There was no sound and apparently no movement in the room but the noiseless pulsation of the red light on the wall.
He lay still, listening to the silence, watching the light. Somewhere in the city a big clock sounded twelve solemn notes — midnight. According to the medical examiner she was shot between eleven p.m. and one a.m.
Alec Norton heard a faint sound. It was inside the room. He let his eyelids droop and breathed heavily, feigning sleep. The sound was coming nearer. A large shadow fell across the illuminated wall, distorted and indefinable.
Cautiously, Norton tensed his muscles, ready to jump. The bed-springs betrayed him with a creak. The shadow vanished. Someone had moved beyond the range of the light from the window.
Abandoning caution, Norton leapt out of bed and groped for the light switch. Before he could snap it on, a stinging blow caught him in the ribs. He lashed out blindly with his right.
There was a thick, squashy crack of fist on flesh. Something hard grazed his knuckles. He put everything he had into the next blow and aimed down where the stomach ought to be. Rough cloth rasped his fist. There was a grunt, curiously inarticulate, like an animal in pain. Something heavy shook the floor as it dropped.
Norton waited a moment, on guard. Nothing happened. Again he groped for the light switch. This time he snapped it on.
The blue rug had been rolled up and stacked in one corner of the room. On the bare floor boards a man lay face down. He had a short powerful body. Norton turned him over and discovered a round, lumpy face with narrow slanting eyes.
There was a slight bulge under the left armpit. It proved to be a shoulder holster and Alec promptly removed the gun. A professional gunman would not have killed Diana Clark with a weapon of such small calibre as a .22. Nor would he choose a respectable hotel as the scene for a killing when it would be so much safer to take his victim for a one-way ride on a lonely country road.
The man’s eyelids fluttered. He opened his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Norton asked.
The man made no reply. His eyes were dazed. His lips were bruised and swollen where Norton had hit him.
“Did you kill Diana Clark?”
Norton expected an indignant denial, but there was no response at all.