Confess, Fletch

Six

The eggs were cold. They were also watery.

Mrs. Sawyer had set a place for him at the dining room table.

He presumed the telephone was for Bart Connors.

Mrs. Sawyer pushed open the kitchen door.

“It’s for you. A Mister Flynn.”

Fletch took his coffee cup with him, across the dining room, through the living room, through the hall, to the den. He also took the hotel room key.

“Good morning, Inspector.”

“Now who would this be?”

“Fletcher. You called me.”

“Oh, yes. Mister Fletcher. I forgot who I was calling.”

“Inspector, you’ll be glad to know I passed a lie detector test this morning.”

“Did you, indeed?”

“Administered by a Mrs. Sawyer, who comes in to clean twice a week. She arrives very early.”

“How did she administer it?”

“She asked me,if I killed the girl.”

“And I daresay you had the gall to say you didn’t?”

“She stayed to do her work.”

Flynn said, “I was reasonably startled when a live woman answered your phone this morning. I said to myself, ‘What is this boyo we have here?’ I thought of giving the woman some warning.”

“Which makes me think, Inspector. Did your men find a key to this apartment among the girl’s possessions?”

“Only a Florida driver’s license. And that was in her left shoe.”

“No key? Mrs Sawyer had a key.”

“Cleaning ladies are apt to have keys. Girl friends aren’t. But I take your meaning, Mister Fletcher. Other people might have keys to that apartment.”

“Mrs. Sawyer found a key this morning. Just off the carpet in the corridor.”

“A key to your apartment?”

“No. A hotel key.”

“How very interesting.”

Fletch looked at it in his hand.

“The tag on it says ‘Logan Hilton—223.’ How could your men have missed it?”

“How, indeed? It’s possible, of course, they didn’t miss it—that it wasn’t there at all. The suicide note hasn’t been found yet, either.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that the theory you’re working on this morning, Mister Fletcher? That the young lady let herself into your apartment with her own key, undressed in your bedroom, went into the living room, and hit herself over the head?”

“I’m not working on any theory, this morning, Inspector.”

“I know you’re not. You’re just trying to be helpful. Even your defensive theories are peculiarly lame. I’ve never known a man so indifferent to a murder be might have committed.”

“What did the driver’s license say?”

“That Ruth Fryer lived in Miami, Florida.”

“That all? Is that as far as you’ve gotten this morning?”

“Plodding along, Mister Fletcher, plodding along. Today should turn up some interesting facts.”

“I’ll keep this key for you.”

“We have turned up one curious fact already. I called customs officials this morning. You did arrive from Rome yesterday at about three-thirty. Trans World Airlines flight number 529.”

“What’s curious about that?”

“Your name isn’t Peter Fletcher. The name on your passport is Irwin Maurice Fletcher.”

Fletch said nothing.

Flynn said, “Now, why would a man lie about a thing like that?”

“Wouldn’t you, Inspector, if your first names were Irwin Maurice?”

“I would not,” said Flynn. “My first names are Francis Xavier.”