Folded in with these pieces of newspaper, however, was a key attached to an oval brass tag carrying the imprint of the Redfern Hotel and the number of the room, 729.
His sense of prudence urged Conway to terminate the adventure then and there, but the mere thought of so doing gave him a feeling of frustration. The person who had dreamed up this plan had used applied psychology. Once persuaded to do a lot of unconventional things to avoid detection, Conway was conditioned for a step which he would never have considered if it had been put up to him at the start.
Conway pushed the strips of newspaper back into the envelope, put the envelope into the container for waste-paper and moved over toward the elevators. After all, he would at least go up and knock on the door.
The young woman who was operating the elevator seemed completely absorbed in her paperbacked novel. She gave Conway a passing glance, then lowered her eyes.
“Seven,” he said.
She moved the cage to the seventh floor, stopped it, let Conway out, and was dropping the cage back to the ground floor before Conway had more than oriented himself as to the sequence of numbers.
The hotel had an aura of second-class semi-respectability. The place was clean but it was the cleanliness of sterilization. The carpets were thin. The light fixtures were cheap, and the illumination in the corridor was somewhat dim.
Conway found Room 729 and tapped on the door.
There was no answer.
He waited and tapped again.
The key in his hand was an invitation. The thought of inserting it in the door and entering the room was only a little less distasteful than that of putting the key in his pocket, returning to the elevator and leaving forever unsolved the mystery of the locked room and the possibility of obtaining the lists of stockholders who had sent in proxies.
Jerry Conway fitted the key to the door. The spring lock clicked smoothly, and Conway pushed the door open.
He found himself peering into the conventional sitting room of a two-room hotel suite. The door that he judged would lead to the bedroom was closed.
“Anybody home?” Conway called.
There was no sound.
Conway closed the corridor door behind him, and gave the place a quick inspection. There was hope in his mind that this was part of an elaborate scheme to deliver the papers that he had been promised, a delivery that could be made in such a manner that he would have no contact with the person making the delivery.
He found nothing in the sitting room and was thoughtfully contemplating the bedroom door, when the knob turned and a young woman wearing only a bra, panties and sheer stockings stepped out into the parlor, closing the bedroom door behind her. Apparently, she hadn’t even seen Conway. She was humming a little tune.
Her hair was wrapped in a towel. Her face was a dark blob, which Conway soon recognized as a mud pack that extended down to her throat.
The figure was exciting, and the underthings were thin, filmy wisps of black lace which seemed only to emphasize the warm pink of the smooth skin.
Conway stood stock-still, startled and transfixed.
Then abruptly she saw him. For a moment Conway thought she was going to scream. Her mouth opened. The mask of the mud pack kept him from seeing her features. He saw only eyes and the red of a wide-open mouth.
“Now, listen! Let me explain,” Conway said, talking rapidly and moving toward the young woman. “I take it you’re not Rosalind?”
The figure answered in a thick voice due to the hard mud pack. “I’m Rosalind’s roommate, Mildred. Who are you? How did you get in here?”
She might have been twenty-six or twenty-seven, Conway judged. Her figure was full, and every seductive curve was visible.
Standing there in the hotel suite confronting this young woman, Conway had a sense of complete unreality as though he were engaged in some amateur theatrical, playing a part that he didn’t fully understand, and confronted by an actress who was trying in an amateurish way to follow directions.
“How did you get in?” she demanded in that same thick voice.
“Rosalind gave me her key,” Conway said. “I was to meet her here. Now look, Mildred, quit being frightened. I won’t hurt you. Go get your clothes on. I’ll wait for Rosalind.”
“But why should Rosalind have given you a key?” she asked. “I— That isn’t at all like Rosalind... You can imagine how I feel coming in here half-nude and finding a strange man in the apartment. How do I know Rosalind gave you the key? Who are you, anyway?”
“I’ve been in touch with Rosalind,” Conway said. “She has some papers for me. I was to pick them up here.”
“Papers?” Mildred said. “Papers. Let me see.” She walked over to the desk with quick, purposeful steps, and again Conway had the feeling that he was watching an actress playing a part.
She pulled back the lid of the desk, put her hand inside, and suddenly Conway heard the unmistakable click of a double-action revolver being cocked. Then he saw the black, round hole of a barrel held in a trembling hand, the young woman’s nervous finger pressing on the trigger.
“Hey!” Conway said. “Don’t point that thing at me, you little fool! That may go off!”
“Put your hands up,” she said.
“For heaven’s sake,” Conway told her, “don’t be a fool! You’ve cocked that revolver, and the slightest pressure on the trigger will— Put that gun down! I’m not trying to hurt you!”
She advanced toward him, the revolver now pointing at his middle.
“Get your hands up,” she said, her voice taking on an edge of hysteria. “You’re going to jail!”
The hand that held the revolver was distinctly trembling, her finger rested against the trigger.
Conway waited while she advanced one more step, measured the distance, suddenly clamped his left hand over her wrist, grasped the gun with his right hand. Her hand was nerveless, and he had no difficulty forcing up the barrel of the revolver and at the same time pushing his thumb over the cocked hammer of the gun.
Conway wrested the gun from her limp grip, carefully lowered the hammer, shoved the weapon in his pocket.
“You little fool!” he said. “You could have killed me! Don’t you understand?”
She moved back to the davenport, seated herself, and stared, apparently in abject terror.
Conway stood over her. “Now, listen,” he said, “get a grip on yourself. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not here to make any trouble. I’m only trying to get some papers from Rosalind. Can’t you understand that?”
“Don’t hurt me!” she said. “If you’ll promise not to kill me, I’ll do anything... Don’t hurt me! My purse is in the desk. Everything I have is in it. Take it all. Only please don’t— Don’t...!”
“Shut up!” Conway snapped. “I’ve tried to explain to you! Can’t you understand? Can’t you listen?”
“Just don’t kill me!” she pleaded. “I’ll do anything you say if you just won’t kill me.”
Conway abruptly reached a decision.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “Don’t go near that telephone for five minutes after I leave. Don’t tell anyone that I was here, no one except Rosalind. Do you understand that?”
She simply sat there, her face a wooden mask.
Conway strode to the door, jerked it open, slammed it shut, sprinted down the corridor to the red light that marked the stairwell. He pushed open the door, ran down two flights of stairs to the fifth floor, then hurried over to the elevator and pressed the button.
It seemed an age before the elevator came up, then the door slid open and Conway stepped inside, conscious of his rapid breathing, his pounding heart.
The girl who was operating the elevator shifted her gum to the other side of her face. She held her book in her right hand. Her left hand manipulated the control which dropped the elevator to the ground floor. She didn’t even look at his face, but said, “You must have walked down two floors.”