She Woke to Darkness

5

That was the first chapter of Elsie Murray’s manuscript. I laid it aside and tossed off the rest of my cognac, thinking about Elsie and what she had told me about the script.

She did write pretty well for a beginner. With a lot of emotional intensity and feeling. Of course, the trouble in evaluating her as a writer came from the fact that I knew she was writing about an actual situation. If she had told me the truth back in her apartment, this whole thing had happened to her. She was Aline Ferris who had waked up in a strange hotel room and found a corpse in the bathroom.

I got up and paced back and forth while I wondered about Elsie. She had talked about the story as though it were an unsolved mystery. It was an intriguing situation for a book. If she had a good solution for it and could keep up the pace of the first chapter, it could well turn into a damned fine mystery.

But that was her trouble, of course. As she, herself, recognized. Almost anyone can describe interestingly something they have experienced personally. But without experience and a lot of solid craftsmanship, it’s very difficult to create situations and characters. She probably never would be able to finish the book.

But perhaps I could help her. I told myself it would be fun trying. It would be interesting to discuss the script with her, and find out exactly how closely she resembled the Aline Ferris in her story.

If she was a gal who passed out on her third martini and developed nympho tendencies… that made it all the more interesting.

I glanced at my watch and saw it was almost two o’clock. I remembered how she had kissed me just before her telephone rang, and mentally added up the number of drinks she had tossed off during the evening. It was more than three, that was a cinch. But she certainly hadn’t been even close to passing out with me.

Or… had she? How could one be certain? The way she described herself in the story, it was much more a mental blackout than a physical one that overtook her.

Maybe she had been on the verge of passing out while I was there. It was an interesting speculation.

I caught myself glancing down at the manila envelope with her telephone number penciled on it. She’d hardly be asleep yet, I thought. She’d be lying awake wondering if I had started to read her script, frightened to death that I’d think it horrible, yet very sure in her own mind that it was a masterpiece and that I’d recognize it as such.

It wasn’t difficult to convince myself that I really owed it to Elsie’s peace of mind to telephone her and say I thought the first chapter extremely good. I could do that honestly, and I knew I might have reservations if I waited to read more.

I went into my bedroom and gave the Murray Hill number to the hotel operator.

I heard Elsie’s telephone ring twice before there was a click and a man’s voice said, “Hello.”

I replaced my receiver very quietly without answering. I sat there on the side of the bed looking down at the instrument and thinking hard.

I could be mistaken.

But I didn’t think I was mistaken. I’ve worked with and around cops enough years to recognize the official sound of a policeman’s voice.

What was a cop doing in Elsie Murray’s apartment? Answering her telephone at two o’clock in the morning?

Of course, there had been that other telephone call which had made her so anxious to get rid of me. Maybe her jealous boy-friend was a dick. But why did he answer her phone instead of letting her do the honors?

I began to sweat a little as I sat there thinking it over. I’ve got too much imagination, of course. And I’ve worked around the police and criminals so much that I’m overly conscious of what can happen in this modern world of ours. The average man just doesn’t think about such things. He reads about murders and rapes in the paper, but they are always happening to someone else. It simply doesn’t occur to him that anything of that nature could ever come close to him.

I’ve noticed that time and again when covering a case with Mike Shayne. A man’s wife goes out for the evening, for instance, leaving him home with the kiddies. He goes to sleep at ten o’clock, expecting her back later, and wakes up in the morning to discover she hasn’t returned.

Does he get frightened and call the police at once? Not your normal, average American citizen. He doesn’t want to make himself conspicuous. He thinks the police would laugh at him for worrying. He thinks of a dozen plausible explanations for his wife’s absence. And deep down inside him is the positive assurance that nothing can possibly have happened to his wife. So he sends the kids to school and goes off to work, and it isn’t until that night or maybe even the next day that he allows himself to become worried enough to call the Missing Persons Bureau. By that time, she’s probably been stiff in the morgue for twenty-four hours.

If anything had happened at Elsie Murray’s apartment that had brought the police in, I wanted to know about it. I had Elsie’s lipstick on my mouth, and my fingerprints were in her place. A dozen or more people had seen us leave the banquet together.

The first chapter of her manuscript had something to do with my feeling, I suppose. Reading that, and knowing that she was depicting herself in Aline Ferris.

I didn’t like it at all, but I didn’t see what I could do. I couldn’t afford to call police headquarters and ask if something had happened to Elsie. If anything had, I’d be mixed up in it soon enough without volunteering any information. I reminded myself that I wasn’t in Miami now, and the name of Brett Halliday simply didn’t swing any weight in New York.

I got up and walked around the room and thought about it, and went back into the sitting room for another small drink. A very small one this time.

I thought of Ed Radin while I was drinking it. That was my answer. Edward P. Radin has been called the dean of true crime writers. For many years he has been covering the New York crime beat, reporting and writing up the more sensational murders for national magazines and for books that are considered classics in their field. He was on a first-name basis with most of the important homicide officials in the city, and it would be a simple matter for him to check for me.

I’ve known Ed for years, and knew I could trust him implicitly to keep my name out of things as long as it was decently possible.

And I had his number in my address book.

I got my book out and thumbed through it as I went back into the bedroom. It was an old number that Ed had given me years before, but he’s the steady sort of family man who stays put, and I was hopeful he hadn’t moved.

I gave it to the operator and waited. This time the phone at the other end rang eight times before a gruffly sleepy voice answered. I didn’t recognize it, and asked, “Is that Ed Radin?”

“Yes. Who’s calling?”

“Brett Halliday, Ed.”

There was a slight pause, then Ed said wearily, “Oh, yeh. What’s up, Brett?”

“I don’t know, but I’m a little worried about something and you can do me a hell of a big favor if you will.”

“Sure.” He was wide awake now, and affable as always. “Shoot.”

“It’s this. Do you know anyone at headquarters you can call to ask if there’s anything wrong at a certain apartment on East Thirty-Eighth Street? Without explaining that I asked you to do it?”

“U-m-m. Yes. I can do that, if it’s important. Give it all to me, Brett.”

“Got a pencil?”

“Yes.”

I gave him the address. “The apartment’s on the third floor. Three-C, I think. It’s in the name of Ryerson Johnson, but is being sublet at present by a girl named Elsie Murray.”

“Hold it, Brett. I know Johnny Johnson. Has something happened…?”

“The Johnsons are away. In Maine, I think. It’s Elsie Murray I’m worried about.”

“Isn’t she the gal who was at the banquet tonight?”

“That’s the one. Look, Ed, I’ll give it to you straight, so you’ll know what you’re getting into. I met Elsie at the bar of the Henry Hudson tonight. We had a few drinks and went up to her place for a couple. She had part of a book manuscript she wanted me to read, and I brought it back to my hotel about an hour ago. I read one chapter and decided to phone her. A man answered her phone and I hung up. I can’t swear to it, but if I know anything about the breed, it was a cop’s voice. Can you check it?”

“Give me about ten minutes. Where can I reach you?”

I gave him my telephone number and room extension. Then I hung up. Ed Radin hadn’t laughed at my request. He’s like me. He’s been around enough not to laugh off possibilities.

I felt a lot better. If everything was all right, that was fine. If there was trouble, I’d be alerted in advance and have time to figure out just where I stood.

I wandered back into my sitting room, sat down and picked up Elsie’s manuscript again. I began riffling through the typewritten pages, reading a line or a paragraph or a page here and there to see what it was all about.

It was about what I’d expected, though really quite well written for an amateur. The dead man Aline found at the end of the first chapter was a complete stranger to her with no identification on his body. In a panic of fear that she has murdered him, she gets out of the hotel room without anyone seeing her.

Then she starts back-tracking, trying to find out what happened at the party after she passed out, who the dead man is and (of course) who killed him.

There were three male characters mixed up in the events of the evening, and from one after another, Aline had found out various things that occurred after she passed out. From my hasty look at the story, it appeared that Aline had been quite a girl with the men, and that, too, seemed to me to add up pretty well to an analysis of Elsie Murray. Finally, a disgruntled wife gets after her for stealing a husband, and the hell of it was that Aline didn’t know whether it was true or not.

That’s the point at which Elsie had stopped writing, admitting to me that she didn’t know how to finish it.

My telephone rang. I hurried in and it was Ed Radin. His voice was husky with excitement as he said hurriedly, “You hit it on the head, Brett, and it isn’t good. Elsie Murray is dead. Strangled. Within the past hour or so.”

So somebody else had finished it. Elsie’s story was ended.

I said, “She was alive when I left her, Ed.”

“I believe you. But its still a tough spot. Can you prove she was?”

“No. But they can’t prove she wasn’t.”

“Can you prove what time you left her? What time you reached your hotel?”

“Not a chance,” I said helplessly. “I didn’t meet a soul I know. I didn’t even glance at the desk clerk when I came in. The elevator boy may remember bringing me up, but there’s no reason for him to remember the time. I’ve been sitting here alone sipping a drink and reading her manuscript.”

“All right. Here’s what I advise,” said Ed rapidly. “Sit tight and say nothing. They’ll probably be around to you soon enough. If they don’t, by any chance, wait until you see a morning paper with the story in it, and then call in fast. Tell them the truth except for having telephoned me. Everything else, but for God’s sake keep that back. I’m going over to the apartment now to get the whole story. Chances are, I’ll be able to drop in on you and give you all the dope before they reach you. Don’t leave your room. Just go along normally until something breaks that pulls you into it.”

He hung up abruptly. I followed suit more slowly. So, this was it. After writing murder stories for fifteen years, I was suddenly in the middle of one up to my neck. I thought fleetingly about all the innocent guys I’d written about, caught in just such a set of circumstances and fighting desperately to prove their innocence. Now I knew how it felt to be trapped. The angry sense of futility. The outraged desire to proclaim my innocence and be believed.

I realized that every move I made from now on, every word I spoke, would be viewed with suspicion. I must do nothing to indicate that I was aware of what had happened to Elsie because Ed was covering for me and I’d get him in a hell of a jam if the truth ever came out.

I went back to the sitting room thinking deeply. There were the two telephone calls I had made through the hotel switchboard. There would be a record of those two calls. But they were both local, and I didn’t think the numbers would be available to the police. They would want to know about them anyway. All right, I’d tell the simple truth about the first call. That I had read a chapter of Elsie’s script and decided to phone her. When a man answered, I did the natural thing at that hour when you find another man is with a girl. I hung up.

I’d have to think of some explanation for my call to Ed Radin. That is, if the hotel did keep track of local numbers. Ed would know about that. We’d work something out together.

But the switchboard did keep track of long distance calls. That, I knew. And I wanted to make one fast.

I couldn’t afford to do anything to draw attention to me. Even going down in the elevator to a pay phone booth just off the lobby might well be noticed at that hour in a small, quiet hotel like the Berkshire.

But I had to make that call right away.

I checked the silver in my pocket and found I had only a couple of dimes. But that was all right. I could reverse the charges on this call.

Before leaving the room, I took off the black eye-patch I normally wear over my left eye. It is damnably noticeable, and removing it is a very practical method of disguise. I should explain that I wear it because of a boyhood injury to one eye which left me with a perfectly good eyeball but practically no sight in that eye. There is just enough vision so the eye strains to see if left uncovered, and I get bad headaches. I can and do leave the patch off for a few hours at a time with no bad effects. If I were seen going down to the pay phone without the patch on, the chances were I wouldn’t be recognized.

I went out into the corridor and down the rear stairs. I was on the third floor, and saw no one as I went down. Luckily, the stairs at the Berkshire end in a hallway at the rear of the lobby that leads into the dining room and The Five Hundred Room, and the phone booths are located at the end of that corridor. I went directly to them without having to pass through the lobby, and pulled a door shut behind me.

I used a dime, dialed operator, and put in a collect call to Miami, Florida.

I was tense and keyed-up as I waited. The call went through very fast, and I exhaled a vast sigh of relief when I heard a familiar voice answer at the other end. I heard the operator say she had a collect call from Brett Halliday in New York and would he accept the charges.

Michael Shayne said he would, and she said. “Go ahead, please.”

Mike said, “What the hell, Brett?” and I said, “How fast can you catch a plane to New York?”

“Pretty fast, I guess. Why?”

“I’ve got a case for you.”

“I’ve got a case, Brett.” Mike’s voice was patient and reasoning. “Remember the Rathbone thing I told you about?”

“Lucy can cover you on that. I mean it, Mike. When does the next plane leave?”

“About four, I believe. You in some kind of jam?”

I said, “It’s bad.” Then I gave it to him straight down the line. All of it, from meeting Elsie at the bar to Ed Radin’s phone call.

“Don’t miss the four o’clock plane,” I ended urgently. “That’ll put you in about eight. Come straight to the Berkshire. You know. On Fifty-Second…”

“I know,” he growled, and I remembered he had stayed at the hotel himself a year or two previous while ending a case. “You sit tight and listen to Ed Radin. Best not admit you called me to come. We’ll say I had planned to meet you there all long. And listen, Brett. From what you told me about the girl’s manuscript I suggest you go through it pretty carefully while you’re waiting for the law to catch up with you. If she has put herself in the story as you think, it should give us a good line on her character and background. See you soon,” and he hung up.

I went out of the booth and along the corridor and up the stairs again without meeting anyone. I felt a hell of a lot better after bolting my door behind me. Michael Shayne is a name that does swing some weight in New York, even if Brett Halliday doesn’t.

I lit a cigarette and poured a short drink and got out a pencil and sat down again with Elsie’s typescript.

Reading the rest of it was going to be different. Now I knew the girl was dead, and the book would never be completed. Knowing it was basically a true story it suddenly seemed to me that the motive for her murder must be concealed somewhere in the typewritten pages.

I turned to chapter two of Elsie Murray’s manuscript and began to read.