“On your way. They’re waiting.”
Mason pressed the button on the elevator. When the cage came back to the ground floor, he got in, closed the door, pressed the button for the second floor, stepped out of the elevator, and the uniformed officer in the corridor jerked his thumb toward the suite. “They’re waiting for you, Mr. Mason.”
Mason nodded, entered the suite, noticing as he did so that the notebook of the shorthand reporter had now been half-filled with notes, indicating that the somewhat dejected-looking Paul Drake, who seemed as wilted as a warm lettuce leaf, had been submitted to a searching interrogation.
Drake gestured toward the young woman, said, “This is my night switchboard operator, Perry, Minerva Hamlin.”
“How do you do, Mr. Mason,” she said, with the close-clipped accents of a young woman who prides herself on her business efficiency.
Mason said, “Tragg, I’ve told you that I was responsible for Miss Hamlin being sent down here. I wanted to find out the identity of the person who was in room 721 with me.”
“We know all about that,” Sergeant Jaffrey said.
Lieutenant Tragg produced a photograph. “Now, Miss Hamlin,” he said, “we’re going to ask you a question. It’s a very important question both to you and to your employer. I want you to be very careful how you answer it.”
“Why, yes, of course,” she said. “I’m always careful.”
“I may as well tell you,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “that a murder has been committed in this hotel. We are investigating that murder and certain things indicate that we’re working against time. I don’t want to threaten you, but I do want to warn you that any attempt to stall us or to delay matters may make quite a difference. I think you are aware of the penalties for suppressing evidence.”
She nodded, a swift decisive nod of affirmation.
“Now wait a minute,” Sergeant Jaffrey said, “let’s do this thing right, Tragg.”
“How do you mean?”
“We’re going to have an identification of a photograph. This girl may be all right. She may not. I can tell you a lot of things about this dump. I’ve been in it a hundred times. They’ve pulled everything here from call girls on up, or down, whichever way you want to look at it. Now, Frank Hoxie, the night clerk, has one gift. He never forgets a face. You can show him a photograph and if he’s ever seen the face he’ll remember it — even if it’s after weeks, and even if it’s someone who just casually walked across the hotel lobby.”
“Okay,” Tragg said, “let’s get him in, but we can ask Miss Hamlin...”
Jaffrey said with a significant jerk of his head, “Let’s get Hoxie up here first. Show him the picture. Let’s find out definitely who this dame really is.”
Lieutenant Tragg hesitated a moment, then picked up the telephone and said to the plain-clothes man who was at the switchboard, “Send up Frank Hoxie, the night clerk... That’s right. Send him up here right away.”
He hung up.
Jaffrey said, to no one in particular, “Of course, in a way you can’t blame the place. It’s a run-down dump and no one is going to put up money to bring it back into shape, not with this location, not with the reputation the place has, and not with the price that hotel furnishings are selling for these days. They tell me they try to do the best they can, and I’m inclined to believe them, but once a place gets this reputation, a certain class of trade gravitates toward it and there’s nothing much you can do about it.”
Tragg nodded.
Mason said casually, “That picture, is it anyone I know?”
“We don’t know,” Jaffrey said.
“Perhaps I could tell you.”
“You haven’t told us who the woman was who was in the room with you yet,” Jaffrey said.
“I don’t know,” Mason said.
“She told you she was Dixie Dayton, didn’t she?”
Mason started to say something, then changed his mind and remained silent.
“We’ll get around to you in a minute,” Jaffrey said. “We have an ace or two up our sleeve on this deal... Don’t think this is just an ordinary murder case, Mason. This is going back to a cop killing. This Dixie Dayton is hot as a firecracker. She’s tied up with Tom Sedgwick, who, from all we can tell, fired the shots that killed Claremont. Of course, we don’t have anything to say about what cases a lawyer takes, but we sure as hell can put the heat on a private detective if we have to — and we had to.”
“I think Lieutenant Tragg knows how I feel about this,” Mason said. “I’m not sticking up for any cop killers.”
“The hell you’re not,” Jaffrey grunted.
“But,” Mason went on, “how do you know who’s guilty? You haven’t a confession, have you?”
“I know,” Jaffrey said, “it’s the old line of hooey. You lawyers always pull it. A person is presumed to be innocent until he’s convicted. Every citizen is entitled to a jury trial and counsel to defend him. You wouldn’t represent a guilty person. Oh, no, not you! The law presumes your clients innocent until you get done defending them, or until...”
There was a trace of irritation in Lieutenant Tragg’s voice as he interrupted. “Let’s try as far as possible to confine our conversation to the investigation, if you don’t mind, Sergeant. You see, I want the shorthand reporter to be able to state that he took down every word that was uttered in this room and I don’t want to have too big a transcript.”
“And don’t want to have Sergeant Jaffrey cast as the villain of the piece,” Mason said, grinning.
“Well,” Tragg told him, “you know as well as I do, that if you can bait him into saying something he shouldn’t, you’ll subpoena the records and have a field day kicking him around the courtroom.”
“You misjudge me,” Mason said with elaborate politeness.
“Yeah!” Sergeant Jaffrey said sarcastically.
The uniformed officer opened the door. The slender, pale-faced night clerk, whom Mason had seen at the desk when he had first entered the hotel, came into the room and stood somewhat ill at ease in the presence of the officers.
Sergeant Jaffrey said, “Now, Frank, there’s nothing to be afraid of here. This is something you personally aren’t mixed up in. It isn’t like a raid by the Vice Squad. This is Homicide, and we want your co-operation.”
The clerk nodded.
“I want you to know you’re going to get a square shake here,” Jaffrey said. “I’m going to see that you do. No one’s going to push you around. This is Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide, and he wants to ask you to identify a photograph. I told him that you had a photographic memory, that you never forgot a face, and darn seldom forgot a name.”
There was a slight smile around Hoxie’s lips. “I try to be efficient,” he said, “and I think it’s part of the duties of a hotel clerk to be able to call guests by their name — when they want to be called by name.”
“I know,” Jaffrey said, grinning. “All you have to do is remember the name John Smith and you can greet nine people out of ten who register at this place...”
“You’ll pardon me, Sergeant, but we’re trying to run a clean place. Ever since that last time when — and that really wasn’t our fault.”
“Oh, I know, I was kidding,” Sergeant Jaffrey said. “Let it go. Take a look at that picture, will you, Frank?”
Lieutenant Tragg extended the picture.
Hoxie took the photograph, studied it for a moment* then nodded his head.
“You’ve seen her?”
“She’s the one who was registered in 815.”
“Did you register her?” Tragg asked.
“No, a man registered her in. He said she was his sister-in-law who had come for a visit. Mrs. Madison Kerby was the name.”
“But she’s the one who was in 815?”