“I’ll try.”
Alder hung up. Before he had time to move away from the telephone, it rang.
“Mr. Alder?” said the hotel phone operator. “We have a long-distance call for you. From Los Angeles...”
“Tom, you louse!” cried Linda Foster. “You ran out on me!”
“You wouldn’t listen,” Alder said. “I tried to tell you I had a job to do...”
“You were afraid of me, weren’t you?”
“Maybe I was. Yes, I guess I was afraid.”
“For once you said the right thing. You didn’t trust yourself. But it’s no good — you’ll be back. Unless you’ve fallen for the gorgeous Nikki — Nikki Collinson, who makes every other beautiful woman look like a hag. It’s a good thing she’s married to a hundred million dollars. If she were in circulation I’d throw acid in her face.”
“She’s the woman who was in your party last night...”
“Whoa-ho!” cried Linda. “You’re not going to try that on me. She’s also the little lady whose hand you tried to hold on the plane all the way to Chicago!”
“Oh,” was all Alder could say, “you know about that!”
“How’d I know where you’d gone? She phoned me from Chicago this afternoon. It took me until now to find your hotel. I had the operators call every hotel in Manhattan.”
Alder settled back in his chair. “What did Nikki have to say?”
“About you? What could she say that I didn’t know already? That I was a fool...”
“She told you that?”
“That’s all I’m going to tell you. Any girl who’d talk to a man about Nikki deserves to wind up an old maid.”
“Just one thing, Linda — what was the occasion of Nikki’s calling you?”
“The occasion? None. She’s visiting her family in Chicago and she called Walt, as soon as she got there. I happened to be with Walt at the time...”
“With Walt — oh, Harris Toomey...”
“Now one moment, Tom — I won’t have you making wild guesses. You and I had a date for lunch at the Beverly Hills Brown Derby. You didn’t show up. At one o’clock, Walt Collinson came in — with his best friend who just happens to be Harris Toomey. One o’clock our time is three o’clock in Chicago and Nikki’s plane landed in Chicago at ten minutes to three. She called from the airport...”
“She called the Brown Derby?”
“Walt told her that was where he’d be for lunch. See, darling, it’s all very simple. That detective brain of yours — never mind that! I should have let you figure it out yourself. Let you worry about it. Also, what I am doing this evening...”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m calling you from The Tuilleries. Sitting beside me is, mmm, Hollywood’s gift to women, Leroy Dane, your movie star friend. Now would you like to call me back — at The Tuilleries and make sure that I am here?”
“Where are you, really?”
“At my hotel, stupid. I’m lying here on the bed, reading a good book. No, I’m talking to you, but when I get through I might, I just might, do some reading. There’s a Gideon Bible in the drawer of the telephone stand. I’ve always wanted to read one — a Bible. And what are you doing, Tom?”
“I’m going to bed in about two minutes.”
“Not in two minutes you aren’t. Well, all right, I’ll let you go. You’re probably pretty tired, the trip — and last night...” Her tantalizing laugh had a wicked note to it. And then she hung up. But not before Alder heard a sound over the wire, a voice speaking on a loudspeaker: “Flight to New York...”
She had muffled the announcement with her laughter. But she was at the airport. She would be in New York in ten hours.
As tired as he was, Alder had difficulty going to sleep. He tossed and twisted until well past two o’clock. His brain would not relax, but he finally fell asleep. And then it seemed only a moment or two before he was awakened.
It was daylight and the phone was ringing. He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to eight.
Chapter 11
The voice on the phone was Jim Honsinger’s. “I’m still at home, Tom, having breakfast, but my night manager just called me with what they were able to get during the night. Sally Weaver first. She’s married. Mrs. Kirby Bokker. Her husband’s in Wall Street. Home address, 881 Fifth Avenue.”
Alder was already writing it down. “Go ahead, Jim. Anything else?”
“The pediatrician, Dr. Drucker, 220 West 72nd. Big Frenchy — I’ve got a report on him as long as your arm. I’ll have the office send it over to you by messenger. Too long to read over the phone. One thing I noticed, though. He couldn’t have had anything to do with the Delaney case. He was doing a stretch in Atlanta at the time. Went in ’35, didn’t get out until ’42. The same year he went back in — this time to our own little Siberia, Dannemora. The big stretch. Life. But he somehow beat it, because he got out four years ago. Nothing on him since then. Retired, I guess. May dig up something on him during the day.”
“Perhaps not. That pretty much checks with his story.”
“His story?”
“He was here last night. I talked to him — rather I listened, because when Pleschette gets going that’s all you can do — listen. Anything else, Jim?”
“Mrs. Delaney. She’s going to be difficult. She’s become a recluse. No phone listed. I did manage to get her address, however. Madison Avenue, 645. The dope is she won’t talk to anyone about the case — and that anyone means anyone.”
“I’m not surprised, Jim. All right, keep at the rest of it, will you?”
“Lunch?”
“I don’t know yet. It depends. I’ll call you.”
Alder swung out of bed, headed for the bathroom. He took an icy shower, rubbed himself dry and dressed, putting on a suit he had had delivered only the week before.
He had breakfast in a modest place on a side street, then stepped into a taxi and gave the cabby an address on Fifth Avenue.
It was a fairly expensive apartment building, but the doorman was quite willing to let Alder ride up unannounced. For a dollar. Alder pressed the button at the door of Apartment 5D. The door was opened to the length of the chain, about three inches. A black face appeared in the slot.
“We don’t wan’ anythin’,” the owner of the face said.
“I’m not selling anything,” Alder replied. “I’d like to talk to Mrs. Bokker.”
“’Bout what you wan talk?”
“I’ll tell her. My name is Mister Alder.”
The door was closed. A full minute went by, then the black face appeared in the aperture. “Mis’ Bokker say, you leave name, telephone. She don’ feel so good.”
A dollar had worked downstairs. Alder tried one now. “I’m from out of town and it would not be convenient to talk later. Tell Mrs. Bokker it’s important — and urgent.”
Another minute went by and the chain was removed from the door. Alder crossed a foyer, went into the living room. Sally Weaver Bokker was propped up on a sofa, pillows behind her back, her feet up on the sofa. But she was fully dressed.
She had to be within a year of Doris Delaney’s age, so she was either thirty-seven, thirty-eight, or thirty-nine. But she looked a good forty-five. She was plump; dumpy would perhaps be a better description. Her hair was short, faded from too much bleaching. Her skin was sallow.
She looked at Alder as he approached. “I don’t believe I know you, Mr. Adler.”
“Alder. I want to talk to you about Doris Delaney.”
The sallow face twitched and a spark came into the dull eyes. “That’s your important business? Good day, Mr. Alder.”