“No.”
I said, “There were cigarette ashes on the top of the dresser; just a few that had spilled there.”
“I don’t think — Well, I don’t know. The maids are supposed to wipe off the tops of the dressers when they clean up.”
“I think this had been wiped. The cabin was slick as a pin.”
I took my billfold from my pocket and held it so she could see it.
“Let’s get one of the maids,” I said.
The manager stepped to the door of the office. “They’re down there at the far end. I don’t want to go away where I can’t hear the telephone. If you want to go down to the far end you might ask one of them to step in here. I’d like to have you question her in front of me. We can take them one at a time.”
“Okay by me,” I told her.
I walked out. She started to move even before I was out of the door.
The colored maid was a good-looking, intelligent young woman who seemed to have a good deal of savvy.
“The manager wants to see you,” I told her.
She gave me a searching look and said, “What’s the matter? Is something missing?”
“She didn’t tell me. Just that she wanted to see you.”
“You aren’t accusing me of anything?”
I shook my head.
“You were here yesterday in Number Five?”
“That’s right, I was,” I told her. “And there’s no complaint, but the manager would like to talk to you for a minute.”
I turned and started to the manager’s office and after a moment the girl followed me.
“Florence,” the manager said, when she entered the room, “was anyone in the cabin before this man was in there yesterday? Number Five?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I sat over on a corner of the desk and let one hand move over as though searching for something I could hold on to as a brace. The telephone was there. I let my fingers close around the receiver. It was still warm. The manager had telephoned someone while I’d been down at the far end of the court.
I said to the maid, “Wait a minute. I don’t mean someone who stayed there. I mean someone who came in just for a minute, probably someone who said he’d forgotten something and—”
“Oh,” she said, “that was the gentleman who stayed there Wednesday night. He’d forgotten something. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. Just said to let him in and he’d get it. I told him I didn’t think there was anything in there, but he handed me five dollars and — Lord, I hope I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That’s all right,” I told her. “Now, I want you to describe him. Was he a tall drink of water, about twentyfive or twenty-six, wearing a sport coat and slacks? He—”
“Lord, no,” she interrupted. “This gentleman was wearin’ a leather coat and a cap with lots of gold braid.”
“Military?” I asked.
“Like the swells on yachts,” she said. “But he sure was tall and string-bean-like.”
“He gave you five dollars?”
“That’s right.”
I gave her five dollars and said, “There’s the mate to it. How long was he in there?”
“He wasn’t in there more’n long enough to just turn around and come back. I heard a couple of drawers opening and closing and then he was right out all covered with grins. I asked him if he’d found what he’d lost and he laughed and said after he got in there he remembered he’d put it in the pocket of his other suit and packed his suit in the suitcase. He said he was kind of absent-minded, and jumped in his car and drove off.”
“Do you know he stayed there in that cabin Wednesday night?”
“Of course not. I go off work at four-thirty in the afternoon. But he said he’d stayed there Wednesday.”
The manager looked at me. “Anything else?”
I turned to the maid. “You’d know this man if you saw him again?”
“I’ll tell the world I’d know him, just like I’d know you. Five-dollar tips don’t grow on bushes on this job.”
I went back to the agency heap, drove to the nearest pay station, telephoned Elsie Brand, and said, “Elsie, I won’t be around for the weekend. I’m going to be in San Francisco. Tell Bertha, in case she wants to know, that whatever we’re working on is going to be in San Francisco.”
“Why?” she asked.
I said, “Because a six-foot string bean with a yachtsman’s cap has been down here in our honeymoon cottage.”
“Some honeymoon,” she retorted. “Give Sylvia my love.”
Chapter Six
Millicent Rhodes was engraved on a strip of cardboard which had been neatly cut from a visiting-card and inserted in the holder opposite the push button on Millie’s apartment out on Geary Street.
I pressed the bell button.
Nothing happened.
I pressed it again for a long ring, then three short rings.
The speaking-tube made noise. A girl’s voice said protestingly, “It’s Saturday morning. Go away.”
“I have to see you,” I said. “And it isn’t morning. It’s afternoon.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend of Sylvia’s — Donald Lam.”
She didn’t give assent specifically, but after a second or two the electric buzzer on the door signified that she had pushed the button which unlatched the door for me.
Millicent had apartment 342. The elevator was at the far end of the hall, but, since the oblong of light showed the cage was waiting at the ground floor, I walked back to it. It took the swaying, wheezy cage almost as long to get to the third floor as it would have taken me to walk up the stairs.
Millie Rhodes opened the door almost as soon as my finger touched the button.
“I hope this is important,” she said coldly.
“It is.”
“All right, come in. This is Saturday. I don’t have to work so I take it easy. It’s probably the one symbol of economic freedom I can afford.”
I looked at her in surprise.
She was a good-looking, well-formed redhead, despite the fact that there was no make-up on her face or lips. She had evidently tumbled out of bed in response to my ring and had simply thrown a silk wrap around her to answer the door. It was quite apparent she was easy on the eyes despite the attire.
“You’re different from the description I had of you,” I said.
She made a little grimace. “Give a girl a break. Let me get some make-up on and some clothes and—”
“I meant it the other way.”
“What other way?”
“You’re a lot more attractive than the description.”
“I guess I’ll have to speak to Sylvia,” she said grimly.
“Not Sylvia,” I told her. “Someone else. I gathered you were a demon chaperon.”
She looked at me with a puzzled frown for a moment, then said, “I don’t get it. Find yourself a chair and sit down. You’ve caught me pretty much unawares, but any friend of Sylvia’s is a friend of mine.”
“I waited as late as I could,” I said. “I was hoping you’d be up and I wouldn’t have to disturb you.”
“Skip it. It’s done now. Anyhow, I’m not working this week. The Saturday sleep is just a deeply entrenched habit.”
She looked as though she needed a cigarette. I offered her one, and she took it eagerly. She tapped the end of it gently on the edge of a little table, leaned forward for my light, settled back on the edge of the bed, then, after a moment, propped her back up with pillows, kicked her feet up, and said, “I suppose I should have kept you waiting while I made the bed, put it up out of sight, and spread the chairs around, but I decided you could take me as I am. Now, what about Sylvia?”
I said, “Sylvia told me an interesting story.”