Dead of Night

Chapter twenty-two: The third corpse

The only known species of plain-clothes operative which doesn’t try to conceal the fact it is engaged in detective work is the sort of security men employed by hotels like the Brulard. Instead of mingling with the guests, these house officers advertise their calling in an attempt to intimidate the evildoer, warn him off the premises, show him he’s under surveillance. Pat Ashmore, at the Brulard, would stand in the lobby, feet planted wide, arms folded on chest, cigar between teeth, glaring at some citizen trying to make an impression on a strange pair of nylons. That’s the way Pat worked. Only way he knew how to.

Pat was by the newsstand when we went in. He spotted us right away, but didn’t recognize me until we’d crossed almost to the registration desk. Then he laid the cigar on the edge of the closed magazine counter, sauntered over, about as subtly as if he’d been blowing a whistle.

Pat knew me from our Protective Men’s Association; was a time when they risked solvency by making me treasurer. But of course he couldn’t understand what I was doing in the Brulard. Especially with a girl!

I parked Tildy in a big chair with her back to the main desk, went over to Pat.

“Hi, Junior.” He weighed two-thirty without his mustache.

“H’are ya, y’old yentzer.” He shook hands. “What is that you got there, th’ most beautiful floatin’ rib in captivity, huh?” He admired Tildy’s legs discreetly.

“We want a big double or a suite if you have any.”

“Ah, now, Gilbert — not in the Brulard.” He pursed his lips in disappointment.

“No time to go into details,” I said, “but nothing lecherous, ’pon honor.”

“Honest, Gil, if it was the Ma-ha-ra-ja of Kablootz, I couldn’t.”

“You can. You will. Not for me. For the girl. She’s in a bad jam. Matter of life and death. No kidding at all. She has a suite with us. But it’s not safe there for her.”

His eyes grew round. “But you said — ‘We.’”

“’Sright. You feex. But quick. I’ll put cards on the table with you tomorrow. This is serious, Pat.”

“I dunno — no luggage.” He pondered. “You want to register?”

“Sure. But you get the key and the card. Take us up. I’ll sign there.”

He did it. In three minutes we went through the “ill-fitting door to the empty room that smells like a fairly empty tomb” as Ogden Nash once described it. Musty brocade by the windows, musty plush on the overstuffed chairs. Standing lamp that had seen better days and a lot of ’em. A vintage bed. A bathroom that made me look to see if they’d taken out the gaslight fixtures.

After the broken-down old bellman departed with the registration card, Tildy slumped forlornly in one of the upholstered monstrosities. “You must think I’m a worthless little slut.”

“No. I think you’re too scared to know what you’re doing.”

She examined me searchingly then for the first time. “Yes, I am, that’s true. I shouldn’t have expected you to come up here with me. I have no justification for dragging you into this hideous business.”

“You didn’t drag me up here. I came willingly.” I wasn’t surprised to find the telephone one of the old-fashioned sort with the receiver hanging on a hook. I picked it up, waited for the operator.

“They must have thought it queer, downstairs. How did you register? John J. Jones and wife?” She made an attempt at a smile.

“Maybe I should just have written Mister and Missus Lx.” I jiggled the hook.

She stood in front of the gay-nineties bureau, taking off the kerchief; she froze with both hands up to her head.

“Lx. What do you mean?”

I took the note out of my pocket. “This was stuck in your mail pigeonhole after you left the suite tonight.”

She came, reached for it as if it were a scorpion. Her expression was wooden; she didn’t seem puzzled at all.

The operator came on. I gave the P-R number. Asked for Fran Lane.

“Fran? Mister V.”

“Yes, sir. We weaned that playboy away from his fair charmers. They’re out.”

“Swell.” I appreciated her choice of words. “That’s not what I’m calling about. I’m at the Brulard. Know it?”

“Why, certainly.”

“Hike over. Room four-one-six. Bring a nightgown or pajamas or whatever you wear.”

“Sir?” She must have thought I was completely off my rocker.

“This is not Lothario Vine speaking.”

“Oh?”

“And, Fran. Do you happen to have any Rip Van Winkles?”

“I can get some.”

“Do so. Make it quick-like. And if anyone wants to know where I am, I’m at the automat trying to find the place to put my nickels for crepes suzette.”

Tildy came right up close to me, lifted her face to mine. “You’re getting your girl friend to come over here, to stay with me.”

“My assistant. She doesn’t know you’re here. She mistrusts my intentions, I fear.”

“I could have called Nikky.”

“So the gent with the boom-boom could trail her right over here? No, thanks. Fran’s dependable. If there’s anything else you want, she can get it for you.”

“You’re just real nice, Mister Vine.”

“Awarding of prizes later. What’s with the note?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Dow—” She stopped. “What are you waiting for? Another victim?”

I never thought the time would come when I’d be alone in a bedroom with a girl as pretty as that, and have my only emotional reaction anger. That’s the way I felt. I was beginning to be leery of her. “Roffis dead. Lanerd dead. Few minutes ago you said you’re to blame. Why are you?”

“Because if I’d kept my mouth shut right at the beginning, down in that wretched café, none of it would have happened.”

“Don’t give me that. You said it was because you were a coward. That wasn’t cowardly, identifying Gowriss.”

“Oh — by being a coward—” she was flustered, “I only meant I’d been afraid somebody’d be killed trying to protect me; if I’d just run away from the hotel before — and let Gowriss or his gang shoot me — the others would have lived.”

It was thin as wet tissue, but I couldn’t bully her around to get the truth out of her. If Lanerd’s death wouldn’t make her talk, I didn’t know what would.

“What about that ‘had to do it’ business MacGregory mentioned?”

She’d had time to think up an answer. “I meant that if eloping with him was the only way for me to be with Dow, I had to do it; I couldn’t give him up.”

It clicked into place all right, but I couldn’t tell when to believe her any more. “You know Edie Eberlein?”

“I used to. Years ago. On the Coast.” She didn’t ask why I wanted to know.

“Seen her lately? Give her the key to your Plaza Royale suite?”

“No — to both.”

Right then Fran knocked; I let her in.

She had a bag with her, a train box I believe they call those things that are too small for a suitcase and too big for a handbag. She and Tildy liked each other; Fran didn’t seem to mind when I told her she was in for the night.

“Bring those sleeping-pills?”

“Phenobarbs. Yessir.”

“Take a couple, Tildy,” I told her. “Whether you want to or not. Understand?”

“Where you going?”

“Plaza Royale. See you at breakfast.”

She threw her arms around me and kissed me; none of that cheek-against-cheek routine, either. Fran made big eyes and a round mouth at me, behind Tildy’s back. I went away.

Zingy saw me the second I came through the Fifth Avenue door. He touched his index finger to his forehead. The head man, that meant. “They’re all up on the twenty-first, Mister V. Want you right up there.” They were in the 21CC living-room. Tim, Reidy, Hacklin, Schneider, another eager beaver from the Prosecutor’s homicide detail. They were all solemn and brooding; Tim and Reidy because Lanerd’s death meant the worst possible break for the house, the others because an important witness in the Roffis matter had been demised right under their noses. Hacklin, especially, was a very subdued man.

Tim took me in to see the body. It was in the bathroom opening off the room with the ticket-littered twin beds.

Lanerd lay on his side beside the bathtub, as if he’d been sitting on the edge of it when the bullet went into his right temple. There was very little blood. The gun wasn’t there. His face was gray and drawn beneath the once-radiant tan; the carved-marble hair looked like wet ashes in the snow. The fingers of his right hand made a claw. He didn’t have that Man of Distinction look, there with his head beneath the wash basin. The resemblance to the Mr. Giveaway on the cover of the magazine was still there, but the contrast with the flood of cars and washing machines and money was pretty pitiful.

What a stir this man’s death was going to cause! What a stink, to the security office!

“They’re waitin’ for the camera crew,” Tim said. “They had another job up in Harlem. Be here any minute. The gun went down to the lab.”

“His own gun?”

“Yeah. My personal judgment, it was a self-exit, Gil.”

“That what the others think?”

“What else can they believe after readin’ th’ note?”

“He left a suicide note?”

“No. A farewell note from her. Tildy Millett. It’s out on the table.”

It was on that same Plaza Royale stationery.