There was a slight pause, then Ed said wearily, “Oh, yeh. What’s up, Brett?”
“I don’t know, but I’m a little worried about something and you can do me a hell of a big favor if you will.”
“Sure.” He was wide awake now, and affable as always. “Shoot.”
“It’s this. Do you know anyone at headquarters you can call to ask if there’s anything wrong at a certain apartment on East Thirty-Eighth Street? Without explaining that I asked you to do it?”
“U-m-m. Yes. I can do that, if it’s important. Give it all to me, Brett.”
“Got a pencil?”
“Yes.”
I gave him the address. “The apartment’s on the third floor. Three-C, I think. It’s in the name of Ryerson Johnson, but is being sublet at present by a girl named Elsie Murray.”
“Hold it, Brett. I know Johnny Johnson. Has something happened…?”
“The Johnsons are away. In Maine, I think. It’s Elsie Murray I’m worried about.”
“Isn’t she the gal who was at the banquet tonight?”
“That’s the one. Look, Ed, I’ll give it to you straight, so you’ll know what you’re getting into. I met Elsie at the bar of the Henry Hudson tonight. We had a few drinks and went up to her place for a couple. She had part of a book manuscript she wanted me to read, and I brought it back to my hotel about an hour ago. I read one chapter and decided to phone her. A man answered her phone and I hung up. I can’t swear to it, but if I know anything about the breed, it was a cop’s voice. Can you check it?”
“Give me about ten minutes. Where can I reach you?”
I gave him my telephone number and room extension. Then I hung up. Ed Radin hadn’t laughed at my request. He’s like me. He’s been around enough not to laugh off possibilities.
I felt a lot better. If everything was all right, that was fine. If there was trouble, I’d be alerted in advance and have time to figure out just where I stood.
I wandered back into my sitting room, sat down and picked up Elsie’s manuscript again. I began riffling through the typewritten pages, reading a line or a paragraph or a page here and there to see what it was all about.
It was about what I’d expected, though really quite well written for an amateur. The dead man Aline found at the end of the first chapter was a complete stranger to her with no identification on his body. In a panic of fear that she has murdered him, she gets out of the hotel room without anyone seeing her.
Then she starts back-tracking, trying to find out what happened at the party after she passed out, who the dead man is and (of course) who killed him.
There were three male characters mixed up in the events of the evening, and from one after another, Aline had found out various things that occurred after she passed out. From my hasty look at the story, it appeared that Aline had been quite a girl with the men, and that, too, seemed to me to add up pretty well to an analysis of Elsie Murray. Finally, a disgruntled wife gets after her for stealing a husband, and the hell of it was that Aline didn’t know whether it was true or not.
That’s the point at which Elsie had stopped writing, admitting to me that she didn’t know how to finish it.
My telephone rang. I hurried in and it was Ed Radin. His voice was husky with excitement as he said hurriedly, “You hit it on the head, Brett, and it isn’t good. Elsie Murray is dead. Strangled. Within the past hour or so.”
So somebody else had finished it. Elsie’s story was ended.
I said, “She was alive when I left her, Ed.”
“I believe you. But its still a tough spot. Can you prove she was?”
“No. But they can’t prove she wasn’t.”
“Can you prove what time you left her? What time you reached your hotel?”
“Not a chance,” I said helplessly. “I didn’t meet a soul I know. I didn’t even glance at the desk clerk when I came in. The elevator boy may remember bringing me up, but there’s no reason for him to remember the time. I’ve been sitting here alone sipping a drink and reading her manuscript.”
“All right. Here’s what I advise,” said Ed rapidly. “Sit tight and say nothing. They’ll probably be around to you soon enough. If they don’t, by any chance, wait until you see a morning paper with the story in it, and then call in fast. Tell them the truth except for having telephoned me. Everything else, but for God’s sake keep that back. I’m going over to the apartment now to get the whole story. Chances are, I’ll be able to drop in on you and give you all the dope before they reach you. Don’t leave your room. Just go along normally until something breaks that pulls you into it.”
He hung up abruptly. I followed suit more slowly. So, this was it. After writing murder stories for fifteen years, I was suddenly in the middle of one up to my neck. I thought fleetingly about all the innocent guys I’d written about, caught in just such a set of circumstances and fighting desperately to prove their innocence. Now I knew how it felt to be trapped. The angry sense of futility. The outraged desire to proclaim my innocence and be believed.
I realized that every move I made from now on, every word I spoke, would be viewed with suspicion. I must do nothing to indicate that I was aware of what had happened to Elsie because Ed was covering for me and I’d get him in a hell of a jam if the truth ever came out.
I went back to the sitting room thinking deeply. There were the two telephone calls I had made through the hotel switchboard. There would be a record of those two calls. But they were both local, and I didn’t think the numbers would be available to the police. They would want to know about them anyway. All right, I’d tell the simple truth about the first call. That I had read a chapter of Elsie’s script and decided to phone her. When a man answered, I did the natural thing at that hour when you find another man is with a girl. I hung up.
I’d have to think of some explanation for my call to Ed Radin. That is, if the hotel did keep track of local numbers. Ed would know about that. We’d work something out together.
But the switchboard did keep track of long distance calls. That, I knew. And I wanted to make one fast.
I couldn’t afford to do anything to draw attention to me. Even going down in the elevator to a pay phone booth just off the lobby might well be noticed at that hour in a small, quiet hotel like the Berkshire.
But I had to make that call right away.
I checked the silver in my pocket and found I had only a couple of dimes. But that was all right. I could reverse the charges on this call.
Before leaving the room, I took off the black eye-patch I normally wear over my left eye. It is damnably noticeable, and removing it is a very practical method of disguise. I should explain that I wear it because of a boyhood injury to one eye which left me with a perfectly good eyeball but practically no sight in that eye. There is just enough vision so the eye strains to see if left uncovered, and I get bad headaches. I can and do leave the patch off for a few hours at a time with no bad effects. If I were seen going down to the pay phone without the patch on, the chances were I wouldn’t be recognized.
I went out into the corridor and down the rear stairs. I was on the third floor, and saw no one as I went down. Luckily, the stairs at the Berkshire end in a hallway at the rear of the lobby that leads into the dining room and The Five Hundred Room, and the phone booths are located at the end of that corridor. I went directly to them without having to pass through the lobby, and pulled a door shut behind me.
I used a dime, dialed operator, and put in a collect call to Miami, Florida.
I was tense and keyed-up as I waited. The call went through very fast, and I exhaled a vast sigh of relief when I heard a familiar voice answer at the other end. I heard the operator say she had a collect call from Brett Halliday in New York and would he accept the charges.
Michael Shayne said he would, and she said. “Go ahead, please.”
Mike said, “What the hell, Brett?” and I said, “How fast can you catch a plane to New York?”