Kept Women Can’t Quit

Chapter 6

The jet plane deposited me in San Francisco at seven-thirty P.M. I’d had a couple of complimentary glasses of champagne and a dinner. I took a taxi to the Palace Hotel, then did a little doubling around.

If they were following me it was such an artistic job I couldn’t detect it.

When I had my back trail cleared I went to the Caltonia Hotel, went up to Room 751 without being announced and knocked.

After a moment I heard motion behind the door, a sort of rustling cautious motion and then a woman’s voice saying, “Who is it?”

“Open up,” I said gruffly.

“Who is it?” she asked, and this time there was a note of alarm in her voice.

“Oh, for the love of Pete!” I said. “You should know my voice by this time. Open up.”

I heard the bolt turn and the door opened.

“I’m sorry, Inspector,” she said. “I didn’t recognize your voice the first time. I—”

She did a double-take and started to close the door.

I pushed a foot against the door, then a shoulder, and came on in.

“You — who are you?”

“The name,” I said, “is Lam. I’m an investigator.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” she said, “you’re the man whose trunk—”

“Exactly,” I said. “What I want to know is how he got hold of my trunk.”

She had on pajamas, a silk creation of clinging cloth and vivid color. The top was unbuttoned down to the third button and the lower part of the pajamas had been tailored to show curves.

She was quite a dish, and she’d been crying.

She looked me over and said, “I’m sorry you came. The police have your trunk. There’s nothing I can do for you.”

“Where did all this happen?” I asked.

“On the tenth floor.”

“When did it happen?”

“It must have been right after he arrived. He came in on the train and he had this suite reserved and—”

“Suite?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

“Why the suite?” I asked.

“That’s the reservation he made over the telephone.”

“But why a suite? Why not just a room?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” she said. “And there’s not much chance of that now, is there?”

“Apparently not,” I said.

“Sit down,” she invited, and draped herself on a davenport, sizing me up with large limpid eyes that tried to look naive and hurt but somehow seemed to contradict themselves. It was an expression of sinister innocence.

She said, “I understand you’re working for that woman.”

“What woman?”

“That woman — that Hazel Clune, She called herself Hazel Downer.”

“You don’t like her?”

“She’s just a... a creature.”

“We’re all creatures.”

“She’s a gold-digger.”

“How come?”

“You know, or at least you should know. She just latched on to Standley because she wanted money.”

“He gave her money?”

“Of course he gave her money. That’s why she ditched her regular boy friend and latched on to Standley. She milked him dry.”

“What did she do with it?” I asked.

This time the eyes snapped fire. “You know what she did with it,” Evelyn Ellis blazed. “She spent all she could get on glad rags, and then she stole fifty thousand more by switching the trunks. Then when poor Standley couldn’t payoff they thought it was a stall and rubbed him out.”

“Now,” I said, “you’re beginning to interest me.”

“Thank you,” she said sarcastically. “It’s so seldom I interest men that it’s a real thrill to have a big, strapping, stalwart, two-fisted hunk of man like you tell me he’s interested.”

She yawned ostentatiously.

I said, “He had fifty thousand in his trunk?”

“He did have.”

“And what happened to the trunk?”

“Hazel has it hidden away somewhere. She managed to switch your trunk so that he got the wrong trunk and then when he got here and opened it up and found he had the wrong trunk... well, then it was too late. He was... involved.”

“What do you mean, involved?”

“There were other people in with him and those people didn’t like the way things were going.”

“What do you mean, the way things were going?”

“He owed them money.”

“That he hadn’t paid?”

“That’s what I told you. He couldn’t pay. They thought he was stalling.”

“He was intending to pay?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

“And he had fifty thousand?”

“At least that. Perhaps more.”

“And where did this cash come from?”

She tilted her chin and looked down her nose. “I wouldn’t know,” she said demurely.

“Perhaps it would help if I did.”

“And perhaps it wouldn’t.”

“Have you told the police any of this?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They’ll find out, and when they find out they’ll have this Hazel creature dead to rights. If I tell the police and the police start running down that clue on my say-so, they’ll think I was jealous and trying to frame her. She’d tell them that it was all a cockeyed story made up by a jealous rival and the police might fall for it and give her enough of a head start to let her cover her back trail.

“By not telling the police anything and playing it dumb, when the police get on her trail they’ll go all the way before she has a chance to run to cover. I’ve answered the questions the police have asked and that’s all. I haven’t volunteered a thing.”

I said, “You knew he was coming in here on the Lark?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you meet him?”

“He didn’t want me to.”

“You knew he was going to have a trunk with him?”

“I knew he was bringing a large sum of cash with him so he could payoff. I didn’t know it would be in a trunk.”

“You knew he was going to stay at this hotel?”

She looked at me, moved slightly inside of the clinging silk so as to give her body a voluptuous sway, and said, “Look, Mr. Lam, I’m not a child, you know.”

“You knew he had a reservation here?”

“Naturally.”

“That it was a suite?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t go to the train to meet him?”

“He thought it would be too dangerous.”

“He was going to call you after he got in?”

“Yes.”

“But he never did?”

“No. The first I knew that he actually had arrived was when the police came. The chambermaid found his body.”

She whipped a piece of tissue from a container and dabbed at her eyes.

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know the exact time — between two and three o’clock.”

“Then there must have been several hours that you were wondering what had happened to him.”

“I knew that he’d get in touch with me as soon as the coast was clear and I didn’t want him to until the coast was clear.”

“I understand the police think he was killed right around ten o’clock in the morning.”

“The police haven’t confided in me,” she said.

“How did you know he had my trunk?”

“The police told me. They checked the cleaning marks on the clothing that was in there.”

“I thought they didn’t confide in you.”

“They didn’t. They were questioning me. They wanted to know everything I knew about you.”

“What did you tell them?”

“All I knew.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

I said, “This isn’t going to do, Evelyn. You knew that he was here the minute he arrived at the hotel. You went up to join him in the suite. You were there when he opened the trunk, and then you found that it wasn’t his trunk and that there wasn’t any money.

“This man was pretty hot, otherwise he’d have carried the money in a money belt. When a man has fifty grand and is so afraid of being held up for it that he puts it in a trunk he has to be pretty hot.

“Now, I imagine at about the time he opened the trunk he told you to get down to the Southern Pacific Depot and tell them there’d been a mistake. You knew what his trunk looked like and you were to identify his trunk, tell them you’d put up a bond or anything that was required but they weren’t to deliver that trunk to anyone else. Then you were to use a little bribery, a little sex appeal, and perhaps a little pull with some of the executives and try and get possession of the trunk.

“I have an idea you may have had a description of me. Anyway, you got there and became pretty well convinced that the trunk was gone, so then you started looking me up.”

She yawned.

“Well?” I asked at length, as silence descended on the room.

She said, “I’m ready to have you go now.”

“Oh, are you?” I said. “Suppose I’m not ready to go now?”

She said, “I can call the house dick or I can call the police.”

She yawned once more and patted her lips with polite fingers to mask the yawn.

“I may do a little calling myself,” I said.

“Please do, Donald. Any time. The police will be very glad.”

“What are you going to do now?” I asked.

“Go to bed — alone.”

“I mean, do you have a job or—?”

She got up, walked to the door and held it open.

I settled myself in a chair, picked up a copy of Hardware Age that was on the table and started to read.

Evelyn stood there by the door for a few seconds, then came back, closed the door, said, “All right, if I can’t do it the easy way, I’ll do it the hard way.”

“Attagirl!” I said. “I’m waiting for you to call the police.”

“I will,” she promised, “but I have a few things to do first.”

She put her hand to the top of the pajamas and jerked down. A button popped and then a jagged tear appeared in the silk.

She devoted her attention to the lower part of the pajamas. “I always like to be able to show evidence of attempted assault,” she said. “It makes a better impression on a jury.”

I got up, took the magazine with me and made for the door.

“I thought you’d see things my way,” she said. “And, by the way,” she called after me, “send me a new pair of pajamas, Donald. You’ve ruined these.”

I didn’t even stop to look back.

I heard her throaty laugh and then the sound of the closing door.

I stopped by the clerk’s desk and said, “I thought perhaps you’d like to have one of my calling cards.”

I handed him a folded ten-dollar bill.

“It’s certainly a pleasure to see you, Mr. Ten Bucks,” he said. “You should show up more often. What can I do for you?”

“How many switchboard operators on daytimes?” I asked.

“What do you mean by daytimes?”

“Nine o’clock in the morning.”

“Two.”

“House calls,” I said. “How are they divided? Any particular division?”

“Oh, yes. In periods of normal activity we divide at the sixth floor. The switchboard is so arranged that calls from rooms from the sixth floor on down are taken by the girl on the left and calls from the seventh floor on up are taken by the girl on the right.”

“The girl on the right, mornings,” I said, “is...?”

He said, “We wouldn’t want to have any scandal; that is, no indication that girls listened in on conversations and divulged what they heard.”

“Certainly not,” I said. “You couldn’t afford that and I couldn’t afford it. It would be a crime. Now, the girl on the right — you have her name and perhaps her address?”

“That would be frowned upon,” he said.

“I just want to talk with her for a while.”

“You understand the hotel has been placed in a very embarrassing position on account of the murder.”

“I understand,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to do anything that would cause any trouble or expose the hotel to any disadvantageous publicity.”

As he continued to size me up, I added, “I’m the soul of discretion.”

He scribbled a name and address on a piece of paper, pushed it face down across the counter, reached out and shook hands, and said, “It was a real pleasure to meet you. If you need anything up here again, remember that it’s a pleasure to be of service.”

“Thanks,” I told him. “I’ll remember.”

I walked out, hailed a taxicab and looked at the paper the clerk had given me.

The name was Bernice Glenn and the address was an apartment house not too far out.

I settled back against the cab cushions, looked at my watch and did some mental arithmetic. I couldn’t count on being very far ahead of pursuit. I had to make every minute count, but there was bound to be a period of inactivity between the time I exhausted the leads in San Francisco at night and the time the photographic store opened in the morning.

I put the cab on waiting time, took the elevator up to the third floor and knocked on the door of Bernice Glenn’s apartment.

The door was opened a crack by a horse-faced young woman who seemed embarrassed when she saw me there.

“Bernie is out,” she said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Ernestine Hamilton, her roommate. We share the apartment.”

“How did you know I wanted Bernie?”

“Why... they... I... well, I just assumed it.”

She laughed in a high-pitched, nervous manner.

“Actually,” I said, “I wanted to talk with both of you. How long before Bernie will be back?”

“She’s on a date — you know what that means.”

“Late?”

“Early.”

“A.M. or P.M.?”

“A.M.”

“May I come in and talk with you?”

“I’m a mess. The apartment’s a mess. I was cleaning up after dinner.”

“I’m good at washing dishes.”

“Not in an apartment of this size, you aren’t. Two people in the kitchenette would cause collisions. Why do you want to see us both?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Well, come on in and sit down. You can’t wait for Bernie because that’ll be too late and I need my beauty sleep, but I’ll be glad to talk with you if you’ll pardon me a minute.”

She opened a closet door, grabbed some clothes off a hanger, shot into the bathroom and closed the door.

I looked out in the kitchenette. The smell of recent cooking clung to the place. The dishes had been washed and stacked on the sink but not rinsed or dried. There was a kettle of steaming-hot water on the gas plate.

I rinsed out the dishes with hot water, picked up a dish towel, dried the dishes and stacked them.

I was just finishing up when I felt someone behind me and turned.

Ernestine Hamilton had taken off her glasses, had put on a cocktail gown and there was a heady trace of scent in the air.

“What in the world are you doing?” she asked.

“I’ve done it,” I said, hanging up the dish towel. “What have you been doing?”

“I always change after dinner,” she said. “Somehow it breaks the monotony. I... you caught me unexpectedly. You shouldn’t have done those dishes. What in the world? Who are you, anyway? What do you want?”

I carefully adjusted the folded dish towel on the rack, walked over to the davenport, took her arm and said, “I crave to talk. I want information.”

“Who are you? You... oh, I’ll bet you’re a police officer... but you don’t look the least bit like any police officer I ever knew.”

“How many have you known?” I asked.

“Not very many,” she said.

“Where?” I asked.

“Mostly on television.”

“Were they real cops or actors?”

She laughed and said, “All right. I’ll yield the point.”

I said, “It’s a temptation to ride along with the gag and let you go on thinking I’m an officer but I’m not. I’m a private detective.”

Her eyes widened. “Ooh,” she said, “a private eye!”

I looked over at the television set in the corner and made a little bow to it.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“For the build-up,” I said. “Now tell me about Bernie.”

“What about her?”

“What did she tell you about the dead man?”

“You mean the one that was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“I... why, why should she tell me anything?”

“People in a hotel aren’t exactly dumb, you know. They come pretty close to knowing what’s going on. Now, was Evelyn Ellis expecting him this morning or not?”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Donald,” I said.

“No other name?”

“Donald does it,” I said.

“I can’t figure you, Donald.”

“Don’t try,” I said. “Tell me about Standley Downer.”

“I never saw him in my life.”

“I know,” I said. “Tell me what Bernie told you about him.”

“What makes you think she told me anything?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Could I hear it?”

“Well,” I said, “you’re interested in people. You’re interested in things, but you don’t wear your heart on your sleeve. You’re not the kind of girl who goes out on casual dates and lets men paw you. When you give a man your friendship it means something.”

She looked at me in surprise, then said after a moment, “What... what does all that have to do with Bernice?”

“Well, now,” I said, “there’s a peculiar situation. Bernice is just the opposite from you. Bernice likes to go out and have a good time. She likes to keep in the swim. Men don’t mean very much to her except as escorts. She plays the field. She goes out with one one night and another the next night.”

Her eyes narrowed. She said, “You’re a detective. You’re deducing all that from the fact that when I opened the door I immediately assumed you must be coming to see Bernice. I told you she was out before you asked for her. You’ve put two and two together. The fact that you are a stranger to me, that I assumed Bernice had made a date with you and that somehow had got her wires crossed on this particular night and had made two dates for the same night — you’re just putting two and two together.”

“Well,” I said, “how did you expect me to know these things, by telepathy?”

“The way you... the way you read my mind.”

“I wasn’t reading your mind,” I said. “I was studying character. Now, there’s one thing about the sort of life you lead. You get rather lonely. You sit here in the evening and do some reading, but for the most part you watch television. You follow all the programs and have favorites on programs. You like the cops and robbers and you like the private eyes. I’ll bet you tune in on all of them.”

“I do,” she admitted.

“All right,” I told her, “that’s the sketch. You’re a girl who doesn’t go out much but you’re shrewd and you’re interested in people. You’re interested in television and there was a murder committed right in Bernice’s hotel. You couldn’t wait for Bernice to come home to find out what she knew about it.”

Suddenly the girl threw back her head and laughed. “All right, Donald,” she said, “you win. I pumped Bernice and turned her inside out.”

“And what did you find out?” I asked.

“I don’t know whether it’s right to tell you or not. Some of it is very confidential. Some of it, things she’s not supposed to tell.”

“I know,” I said. “Things she heard over the telephone.”

“Donald, you’re putting me in a spot.”

I said, “Which would you rather do, team up with me in working on the case and swap information, or try to hold out on me and have me hold out on you?”

“I... oh, Donald, would you let me work with you on the case?”

“If you’ve got some worthwhile information,” I said. “How long has this thing been going on between Evelyn Ellis and Standley Downer?”

“No one knows,” she said, “but it was long before she ever came to the hotel.

“She’d been living in Los Angeles in an apartment as Evelyn Ellis. About six weeks ago she came up here and registered in the hotel as Beverly Kettle. She kept her room by the month, but flew back and forth to Los Angeles.

“In Los Angeles she kept her apartment as Evelyn Ellis. She was building up two identities so that when she disappeared as Evelyn Ellis she had only to settle down here as Beverly Kettle.”

“Who knew about this?” I asked.

“Apparently Standley Downer was the only one. He used to call her four or five times a day on the long-distance telephone when she would be up here.

“But Downer’s girl friend, a girl named Hazel, found out about it some way. She came up here and there was a terrific scene, I guess. One of the adjoining rooms complained to the desk. There were very nasty words used.”

“What sort of words?”

“Nasty words, slut and witch, and... oh, Donald, you know how women are when they’re fighting. They aren’t at all careful of their language.”

“All right,” I said, “we’ll pass the language for a while, but what about the murder itself?”

“Well, I guess when Standley Downer arrived he called her the first thing and she must have been up there for a while and then... I guess that’s when they discovered there was something wrong with the trunk or something.”

“When did they start making calls?” I asked.

“Not a peep out of either of them. There was just silence from both the suite and her room.”

“But he did call her when he arrived in the hotel?”

“After he got up in his suite. He called her then.”

“And you think she went up?”

“I know she went up because somebody called for the suite and Bernie put the call through and Evelyn’s voice answered.”

“Do you know who made the call?”

“No, it was a man’s voice that was on the line. As soon as he said he wanted to talk with Standley, why, Evelyn turned the phone over to Standley.”

“And the conversation?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Bernie didn’t have time to listen. There were calls coming in and she had to keep things moving across the board.”

“No idea who it was that called?”

“No.”

“Have the police talked with Bernie?”

“Not yet.”

I took out my billfold and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “You’re going to run into some expenses in this thing, Ernestine,” I said. “I’d like to get a list of the numbers that Evelyn Ellis was calling during the last few days and I particularly would like to know whether she’s been doing any business with the Happy Daze Camera Company and whether she’s a nut on photography.”

“Does it make any difference? In the murder, I mean?”

“It might make quite a lot of difference. Think you can find out for me?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “Donald, how did you know all those things about me, about my character? Am I that obvious?”

“You’re not obvious,” I said. “It’s simply the lack of transparency that enables me to know you’re deep and loyal and true and just a little bit lonely.”

“Donald, you’re trying to let me down easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a wallflower,” she said. “I know it, and you’re smart enough to know it. You’re smart enough to describe a wallflower so she sounds attractive. I don’t know why I always team up with beautiful women as my roommates, but I do. I guess it’s because I have some kind of a self-punishment complex or something.

“Now, you take Bernie. She’s out almost every night. She doesn’t have any regular fellow. She plays the field and she keeps them all on the string. They’re simply ga-ga over her.

“She likes to have me around because when she’s going out I do the heavy end of the housekeeping. I like to have her around because early in the evening before she goes out, and while she’s dressing for her date, I turn her inside out. I make her tell me all of the details of where she went the night before, what she did and all the conversation — all the passes the fellows made, how they went about it and everything.

“I pump her about her job, about what she’s doing during the day. I make her give me all the gossip at the hotel and... well, a less patient girl would throw me out on my ear. However, Bernie is a wonderful companion. She’s very understanding, and, frankly, Donald, I think she understands me and knows that I’m suffering from some sort of a deep-seated frustration. I can’t live the kind of life I want myself and so I live a vicarious existence.”

“What do you do, Ernestine?” I asked.

“A bookkeeper,” she said. “I would have to study bookkeeping! Of course, I had some secretarial training, too, but I like figures and figures like me. I write a neat hand, I add columns of figures accurately, I can play tunes on an adding machine while I’m reading figures off of a column. I play the adding machine by touch and never make a mistake.

“That’s another thing about me. The other girls, who are secretaries, doll themselves up in good-looking clothes, take dictation from the boss and he notices them. He’s not offensive about it, but he sure notices when the girls have on nice-looking clothes. But a bookkeeper gets tucked away in a corner and no one ever notices what she’s got on.

“That’s me. That’s my niche in life.”

“You know what?” I told her.

“What?”

“You would make a jim-dandy female detective.”

“I would?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“Well, in the first place, you don’t stand out too much. The very qualities that you’ve been complaining about that cause you to be pushed back into a corner somewhere in an office would be ideal for detective work. You could get around without being noticed. You’re good at deduction and you have remarkable powers of observation. You have a retentive memory and you’re a pretty good judge of character — including your own.

“When I get back to Los Angeles I’m going to look around and see what I can find down there. The next time we have a case where we can use a woman operative I’m going to see if you want to get out of this bookkeeping niche and really get into the swim of life.”

“Would that mean quitting my job up here?” she asked.

I nodded. “How much of a sacrifice would that be?”

“Not too much.”

“You could get another job in case it didn’t pan out?”

“I could get a job anywhere any time. What’s your real name?”

I gave her one of my cards. She handled it as though it had been printed on platinum.

“How long have you been working at your present job?” I asked.

“Seven years.”

“Exactly,” I said. “You’re the type that keeps things running quietly and efficiently. That’s the reason Bernice likes to have you in the apartment. You keep things spick-and-span. I’ll bet that Bernice runs out about half the time leaving clothes scattered around the place and when she comes back she finds the bed turned down, her clothes all folded and put away — and I have an idea you do the same thing around the office. I think you pick up after the other girls. I think you cover up their mistakes. I think you keep things running with such quiet efficiency that nobody really knows you’re on the job. All they know is that whenever they want information it’s there on their desks, neatly typed, accurate, and produced at a moment’s notice.

“I have an idea that if you quit and they tried to hire someone to take your place, the whole shebang would go into chaos. People would be running around tearing their hair and the boss would be saying, ‘What the hell happened to Ernestine? Get her back. No matter what you have to pay, get her back.’ ”

Ernestine looked at me and her eyes began to blaze with enthusiasm. “Donald,” she said, “I’ve often wondered about that myself, only I’ve put the thought out of my mind and felt that I was just too conceited.”

“Conceited, nothing!” I told her. “Why don’t you make the experiment?”

“Donald, I’m going to do it. I’ve got some money saved up. I can get along for a while and... I’m giving my notice tomorrow.”

“Now, wait a minute, sister,” I said. “Let’s take it easy. Let’s not go completely overboard with the first wave that comes over the deck and—”

“No, Donald, I’m going to do it. I’ve been thinking it over in the back of my mind. I didn’t realize how much I have been dreaming about doing it until... oh, Donald!”

She had her arms around my neck and was squeezing me up against her with all her strength. I could feel the muscles quivering underneath the dress.

“Donald,” she said, “you dear, you darling! I’m going to start showing you what I can do, right tonight! When Bernice gets back I’ll get every blessed scrap of information about that murder and all the gossip from the hotel. I’ll milk her dry.”

I held her tight and patted her hips. “Good girl,” I said.

She took a deep breath and just lay quiet in my arms, her eyes closed, a smile on her lips. I’d caught her at exactly the right moment. She’d been building to this crisis for months and now suddenly she had made a decision and was on Cloud Seven.

She promised she’d plead a headache and duck out on her job tomorrow; that would leave her free to help me.

She couldn’t stop trembling from the excitement.

It was eleven o’clock when I checked in at a Turkish bath to spend the night. I had an idea the police might be combing the hotels for me, but I didn’t think they’d bother looking into a Turkish bath.

I was careful to give my right name and address.