The Guilty Are Afraid

I

I learned from a traffic cop that the Musketeer Club was on the top floor of the Ritz-Plaza Hotel, and this came as a surprise to me. I had imagined the club would be an ornate palace standing in its own grounds.

“You mean it’s just a collection of rooms on the top of a hotel?” I said. “I thought it was the Taj Mahal of this city.”

The cop took off his cap, wiped his forehead and squinted at me.

“Taj who?” he said. “What are you giving me, Mac?”

“I thought it was certain to have its own grounds and be a sort of palace.”

“I can’t help what you thought, can I? It’s way up on the twenty-fifth floor with a roof garden. But what are you worrying about? You’re not going up there, Mac. Me neither.”

I thanked him and went back to the Buick. I sat behind the wheel and thought for a few minutes. Then I remembered Greaves had said that at one time he had been a house dick at the Ritz-Plaza. It occurred to me he might have an idea as to how I could get into the dub.

I drove to the nearest drug store and called him.

“I could use a little help if you can spare the time,” I said, listening to his heavy breathing coming over the line. “How about meeting me some place? I’ll buy you a beer.”

He said he would meet me in half an hour at Al’s Bar on 3rd Street.

I drove over to 3rd Street, left the car in a parking lot, found Al’s Bar and went in.

It was one of those intimate places with booths, and I took the end one against the wall, facing the entrance, and sat down. I ordered a beer and asked the barman if he had an evening paper I could look at.

He brought the beer and the paper.

There was an account of the inquest and a photograph of Rankin looking a little like Sherlock Holmes just after he’d given himself a shot in the arm. On the back page was a photograph of Thelma Cousins. The caption said the police were pursuing their inquiries concerning the second mysterious stabbing in a Bay Beach bathing station.

While I was looking at the photograph, Greaves came in and spread his fat form on the bench seat opposite me.

After I had bought him a beer, I told him I was planning to gate-crash the Musketeer Club and had he any idea how I could do it.

He looked at me as if he thought I was crazy.

“You have as much chance of doing that as you have of gate-crashing the White House,” he said.

“I’m not convinced. I hear it’s on the top floor of the Ritz-Plaza. As you’ve worked in that hotel, you should know the layout of the club.”

Greaves swallowed half his beer, set down his glass and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“That won’t help you. They have the whole of the top floor, and they have two private elevators. You go into the hotel, through the lobby, down a passage on the left. At the far end there’s a grill guarded by a couple of guys who know all the answers. They damn well have to or they wouldn’t last five minutes. Unless they recognize you they don’t open the grill. It’s as simple as that. If they recognize you, they open up and you have to sign the book. Then you’re taken up in one of the elevators. What happens after that I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been up there. They wouldn’t recognize you so they wouldn’t open up. So skip it. You’re just wasting your time.”

“They have a restaurant up there?”

“Sure. It’s supposed to be the finest restaurant in the country. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never fed there. What’s that to do with it?”

“Don’t tell me they cart sides of beef and boxes of fish through the lobby of the hotel. I just won’t believe it.”

He rubbed his fat nose with the beer glass.

“Who said they did? They share the hotel’s goods entrance. It’s around the back, down an alley. It so happens the hotel has its kitchens on the tenth floor as the restaurant is up there. I don’t know what the club’s system is for delivering the stuff, but I’ve seen goods going up there and the guys who deliver the stuff go up with it.”

I smiled at him.

“I was hoping you’d say that. If I took a package up there I might get a chance to have a look around. You wouldn’t know any of the staff who could be persuaded to co-operate? I’d spring fifty bucks if I had to.”

Greaves thought for a long moment, then finished his beer before saying, “You’re sticking your neck out, but there was one guy I knew who worked there: Harry Bennauer. I don’t know if he’s still there. He was fourth barman or something like that. He was always right out of dough: a sporting man. I’ve never known a guy to bet the way he did. It wouldn’t surprise me if he mightn’t be willing to help.”

“Try him, will you?” I said. “See if he’s still around. Ask him if he’d like to make fifty easy bucks. If he shows interest, tell him I’ll be up by way of the goods elevator at seven o’clock sharp.”

Greaves thought about it. I could see he wasn’t too enthusiastic.

“You’re taking a risk. Bennauer might sell you out. There could be a reception committee waiting for you. From what I hear the bouncers working for the club aren’t a bunch of powder-puffs. You might get bounced pretty hard.”

“That’s my funeral. Go ahead and try him.”

Greaves lifted his massive shoulders, got to his feet and went over to the row of telephone booths. While he was in one of the booths I ordered a second round of beers.

He talked for five minutes or so, then he came back and sat down.

“I got him,” he said. “Right now, he tells me, he’s so short of dough, he’d sell his wife for fifty bucks. It’s a deal so far as he’s concerned. It’s up to you now. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him — not as far. He might go to the management and sell you out for fifty-five bucks.”

“Suppose he did? They can’t kill me. All they can do is to toss me out. I don’t bounce easy anyway. You told him seven o’clock?”

Greaves nodded.

“He’ll be waiting by the elevator. He’ll probably double-cross you. You probably won’t get further than the elevator doors. As soon as he gets the money, like as not, he’ll kiss you good-bye.”

“He won’t get it until I’ve seen what I want to see.” I looked at my watch. I had forty minutes to seven. “You wouldn’t have any suggestions about what I should take up there just in case of trouble?”

He bent his brains to the problem. After turning it over for a while he said, “Stick around. I’ll see what I can do.” He finished his beer, then pushed his way out of the booth and left the bar.

I waited, sipping my beer, looking at the newspaper and wondering what I was walking into.

He came back within the half-hour.

He was carrying a brown-paper parcel under his arm and as he sat down opposite me he put out his big hand, palm upwards.

“You owe me twenty bucks.”

I took out my billfold, parted with four five-dollar bills and asked, “What does that buy me?”

He put the parcel on the table.

“A guy I know is in the brandy trade. He wants to get his liquor into the club. He hasn’t a hope, but he doesn’t seem to realize it. I kidded him you could get a sample bottle of the stuff before the management. This is it.” He tapped the parcel. “For the love of Mike, don’t drink it. It’ll raise callouses the size of tomatoes in you if you do.” He felt in his vest pocket and put a card on the table. “That’s his trade card. Now it’s up to you to take it from here.”

I picked up the card and stowed it away in my billfold.

“That’s just what I’m looking for. Thanks a lot. Well, if I’m going, I’d better go.”

“The hunk of beaten-up meat I’ll find outside the Ritz-Plaza with his brains beaten in will be you,” Greaves said soberly. “You insured?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said, and picked up the parcel. “I’ve been in plenty of tough spots in my time.”

“But none tougher than this, brother,” Greaves said with feeling. “And don’t kid yourself that you have.”

II

There was a fat, elderly man guarding the goods entrance to the hotel. He gave me a sour look as I came into his vision.

“This right for the Musketeer Club?” I asked, coming to rest before him.

“Could be,” he said. “What’s it to you?”

I poked the trade card under his nose and let him browse over it.

“I have a date with the wine waiter. Big deal, pop. You’re holding up the wheels of commerce.”

He sneered at me, then jerked his thumb to the elevator.

“There’s the elevator. Right the way to the top.”

He went back to his day dreams. They couldn’t be anything to get excited about, but probably they amused him.

I got into the elevator, pressed the button marked Musketeer Club and leaned against the wall while I was hauled up into the stratosphere. It took time. This was a goods elevator: there was nothing express about it.

As I went up, I put my hand inside my coat and touched the butt of the .38 I had strapped on before leaving my hotel. The cold feel of the gun butt gave me a little comfort, but not much.

After what seemed an age, the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid back. My wrist-watch showed me that it was exactly seven o’clock.

Facing me was a small lobby stacked with wooden cases, and waiting, a cigarette hanging from his thin lips, was the character Greaves had told me about: Harry Bennauer. He was a pint-size hunk of humanity, wearing a white coat and black trousers. His face was something a headhunter from Borneo would have been proud to have added to his collection. The sunken eyes, the thin lips and the flared nostrils were arresting but scarcely beautiful.

I stepped out of the elevator and smiled at him.

“Let’s have the dough, bud,” he said, “and snap it up.”

I produced five five-dollar bills and offered them to him.

His face hardened.

“What’s this? Greaves said fifty.”

“Greaves also said you weren’t to be trusted, bud,” I said. “Half now, half later. I want to look this joint over. On my way out you collect the other half.”

“You go beyond that door and you’ll walk into trouble,” he said, putting the bills hurriedly into his hip pocket.

“You’re the boy who is going to keep me out of trouble,” I said. “What do you think you’re getting fifty bucks for? Is there anyone around out there?”

“Not right now, but they will be in about ten minutes. The boss is in his office.”

“Cordez?”

He nodded.

“The wine waiter here yet?”

“He’s in his office too.”

“Well, okay, you go ahead and I’ll follow you. If we run into trouble I’m here on business with the wine waiter. I’ve got a sample for him.”

Bennauer hesitated. I could see he didn’t like this set-up, but he wanted the other twenty-five bucks. I had an idea greed would win, and it did.

He went through the doorway. I gave him a few seconds start, then I went after him. We went down a passage to another door and into a vast cocktail lounge that was really something. It was the most elaborately equipped bar I have ever been in. There was seating for about three hundred people. The bar, shaped like the letter S, ran the length of two of the walls. The floor was made of black glass. Half the room had no roof and overhead I could see the stars. There was a terrace overlooking the sea and the ten-mile promenade. Banana and palm trees grew in enormous tubs. Flowering creepers covered the roof and the walls with a multitude of red, pink and orange blossoms.

I joined Bennauer by one of the palm trees.

“The offices are through there,” he said, pointing to a door behind the bar. “The restaurant is thataway. What else do you want to see?”

“I’d like a souvenir to take away,” I said. “Get me some of those match folders you hand out to the boys and girls.”

He looked as me as if he thought I was crazy, but he went over to the bar, went behind it and produced a handful of the folders.

“This what you mean?”

I joined him. I took three from him, opened them and checked the back of the matches. There were no ciphers printed on them.

“This all you’ve got?”

“What do you mean? They’re match folders, ain’t they? That’s what you asked for, isn’t it?”

“Is there any other type: the ones the boss gives away?”

“Look, Joe, cut it out, will you?” His face was beginning to grow shiny with sweat. “I’d lose my job if you were found in here. Take your goddamn matches and beat it.”

“Any chance of looking in some of the offices?” I asked. “I’d spring another fifty if I could.”

I could see he was rapidly losing his nerve by now.

“You’re nuts! Come on, get the hell out of here!”

Then the door behind the bar, the one Bennauer had told me led to the offices, opened, and a fat man wearing a white coat on which was a badge bearing a beautifully embroidered bunch of grapes to tell me he was the wine waiter came into the bar.

He was a Latin type with thick, heavily oiled hair and a Charlie Chan moustache. His small black eyes moved from Bennauer to me and the muscles of his face, under their covering of fat, tightened.

Bennauer didn’t entirely lose his head. He said, “Here’s Mr. Gomez now. You’ve got no business to barge in here without an appointment.” He turned to Gomez. “This guy wants to talk to you.”

I gave the fat Latin a servile smile.

“Could you spare me a moment of your time, Mr. Gomez? I’m O’Connor: Californian Wine Co.”

As Gomez moved over to me, I produced the trade card and laid it on the bar. He picked it up with fat fingers and studied it: his face was as expressionless as a hole in a wall. I could smell the pomade with which he had soaked his hair: it wasn’t a particularly pleasant smell.

Having read the card, he turned it on its edge and began to tap with it on the counter while he looked me over.

“I have no account with your people,” he said.

“That’s something we want to put right, Mr. Gomez. We have several lines that would interest you. I’ve brought a bottle of our very special brandy for you to try.”

His black eyes moved to Bennauer.

“How did he get in here?” he asked.

Bennauer had got his second wind by now. He shrugged his shoulders.

“I was here and he just walked in and asked for you.”

“I came up in the goods elevator. The guy on the door downstairs told me to come up,” I said. “Did I do wrong?”

“I don’t see any salesman without an appointment.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gomez. Maybe you could give me a date for to-morrow.” I put the parcel on the counter. “If you could look at this in the meantime, we might be able to talk business to-morrow.”

“We’ll talk business now,” a voice said behind me.

Both Gomez and Bennauer became as rigid as marble statues. Okay, I admit my heart did a back flip. I looked over my shoulder.

A dark man in a faultless tuxedo, a white camellia in his button-hole, stood about twenty feet from me. He bad the face of an eagle, narrow with a big, sharp nose, a thin mouth and black restless eyes. He was thin and tall; the South American type that women rave about and men watch uneasily when they are raving.

I was pretty certain this was Cordez. These other two wouldn’t be behaving as if they were in the presence of a real hot shot unless he was.

The tall man moved up to the bar, held out a brown, thin hand for the card Gomez was holding. Gomez gave it to him. He stared at it, then with no change of expression he bent it in two and flicked it behind the bar.

“That...” he said, and pointed to the brown-paper parcel on the counter.

Gomez hurriedly stripped the wrapping off the bottle and laid the bottle on the counter so Cortez could read the label.

He read it, then he turned sleepy black eyes on me.

“I said no to this a month ago,” he said. “Don’t you know what ‘no’ means?”

“Why, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m new to this territory. I didn’t know someone had shown it to you before.”

“Well, you know now. Get out of this club and stay out!”

“Why, sure. I’m sorry.” I made out I was pretty confused. “Maybe if I leave the bottle... it’s pretty good brandy. We could supply it on very favourable terms.”

“Get out!”

I stepped away from the bar, turned and started across the vast acreage of black glass. I hadn’t taken six steps when I became aware that three men in tuxedos had appeared. They stood in a semi-circle, blocking the way out.

Two of them I had never seen before. They were big, beefy Latin-Americans. Their faces were hard and expressionless.

The third man, standing between them, a snarling grin on his broken face, made me feel suddenly a little weak at the knees.

It was Hertz.

III

For a long moment Hertz and I stared at each other. His tongue came out and went over his thick lips, the way a snake flicks out its tongue before it strikes.

“Hello, peeper,” he said softly. “Remember me?”

I remembered him all right.

I hadn’t reckoned on being bounced by Hertz. I had been prepared to be roughed up a little and shot out on my tail on the hard, cold sidewalk, but having Hertz in it as well hadn’t come into my calculations.

I did some rapid thinking. I moved sideways so I could see Cordez while at the same time I could watch Hertz.

Cordez said, in his flat, bored voice, “What is this?”

“The creep’s name is Brandon,” Hertz said. “He’s a shamus. He’s that punk Sheppey’s side-kick.”

Cordez stared at me, his eyes completely impersonal, then he lifted his shoulders, walked around the bar and made for the door leading into his office. There he paused, looking at Hertz.

“Get him out of here.”

Hertz smiled.

“Sure,” he said. “Give me a little room, boys, I want to take this baby on my own.”

He waved the other two hunks of beef aside, and still smiling, his close-set eyes glittering, he came across the glass floor towards me.

There were five against one; six if Mr. Cordez would condescend to join in, and that seemed to me overlong odds.

I equalized the situation by sliding my hand inside my coat and throwing my .38.

Relax, I said, and let the gunsight swing in a semicircle to cover Hertz, the two toughs, Gomez, Bennauer and Cordez. “Don’t let’s have any rough stuff or there could be some damage around here.”

Hertz came to an abrupt stop as if he had walked into a brick wall. He stared at the gun as if it were the last thing he expected to see.

Cordez paused, his hand on the doorknob, his eyes on my face.

The two muscle-men remained motionless. They were professionals, and they were quick to realize I would shoot if I were crowded.

Cordez moved back to the bar and leaned against it.

“I told you to get out, didn’t I?” he said. “Well, get out!”

“Keep this ape out of my way and I will,” I said, nodding at Hertz.

Then the lights went out.

Maybe that was Gomez’s contribution to the tableau. I shall never know. I heard a quick patter of feet and I squeezed the trigger. An orange spurt of flame came from the gun and the bullet smashed a mirror somewhere ahead of me. Then a wave of bodies rolled over me, taking me to the floor. Hands groped for my throat, my arms, my wrists. I was squeezing the trigger again as the gun was wrenched out of my hand. A fist that felt more solid than a lump of pig-iron smashed against the side of my head. A boot thumped into my side as someone fell over me. I hit out blindly. My fist hit a face, and there was a grunt. Something whistled past my face and made a dull thud on the glass floor. Hands found me. I fought, kicked out and mentally cursed, then a fist slammed me on the side of the jaw and that was that.

Lights came on again.

I lay on my back staring up at the two thugs and Hertz. One of the thugs had my gun which he held down by his side.

My jaw ached and my head felt as if it were bursting. I heard the sound of footsteps across the glass floor. Cordez joined the happy band. His thin face was still indifferent, still without expression.

I pushed myself to a sitting position, my hand holding my aching jaw.

“Take him away and dump him,” Cordez said. “Make sure he doesn’t come back.”

He turned and walked away. It was then that I saw he was wearing very high-heeled shoes: just another phony who wanted to look better than he was.

Neither Hertz nor the two thugs moved until Cordez had gone through the doorway at the back of the bar. Gomez and Bennauer had already faded out of sight.

Hertz held out his hand for my gun and the thug who was holding it gave it to him. I watched Hertz slide the gun through his fingers until he was holding it by the barrel. All the time he stared at me, a meaningless smile on his moronic, battered face.

I had shaken off the effects of his punch by now. The movement he was making to hold the gun by its barrel told me I was in for a pistol whipping. He was aiming to club me with the gun. An expert pistol-whipper knows how to handle the gun. He hits you in every spot except a vital one. You’re out of action for months by the time he has finished with you. The gun, used by a vicious thug like Hertz, can do a lot of damage, but it needn’t be lethal.

I had served five years as a special investigator to the D.A.’s office in San Francisco. If you think there is any tougher place than San Francisco’s dock-land, tell me and I’ll keep clear of it. For five years I had rubbed shoulders with thugs like Hertz. So long as he didn’t get behind me, I wasn’t all that scared of him.

But I let him think I was.

As he swung the gun in his hand, I squirmed away, horror on my face.

“Let me out of here,” I whined. “I won’t make any trouble. Just let me out of here.”

Hertz’s grin widened.

“You’re going, pally,” he said in his soft, moronic voice. “And you’re going my way.”

He gave me time to squirm further from him. He even gave me time to get to my feet. Then he came dancing in, his ruined face alight with fiendish happiness as he swung the butt of the gun towards my head.

I timed it right. Just when he should have connected I shifted. The gun-butt flashed past me, his arm thumped on my shoulder and that brought him close to me. I grabbed hold of his coat lapels, bent my knees, leaned against him and heaved. He sailed over my head with the grace of an acrobat, arrived on his mouth and his nose on the glass floor with a crash that rocked the bottles on the shelves behind the bar, and slid along the floor to land with his head squarely connecting with the bar counter.

I went for one of the thugs the way a fighting bull goes for a matador. He swerved aside, his eyes bulging. But I wasn’t after him. That was just a feint. I was after his pal. He was standing close by, and he was totally unprepared. My fist caught him on the side of his jaw: a beautiful punch with all my weight behind it, and it lifted him off his feet and sent him sliding along the glass floor to take a toss that ended up with his head hammering against the wall. The contact between his head and the wall made such a mellow, lovely sound, I knew he would be out of action for some time.

That left the other thug.

He came at me like an enraged elephant. It was good to see the startled fear in his face. I slid under his right lead and thumped him in his ribs, sending him backwards. Then I dived for his ankles, grabbed them and jerked him upwards. The bang his skull made on the floor made even me wince. He gave one spasmodic heave of his body and then stiffened out cold.

I paused and looked over at Hertz. He was still counting stars, huddled up against the bar counter. I went over to him, took my gun out of his limp grasp, shoved it into my holster, than taking him by his ears, I lifted his head and connected it with the floor. He flopped around for a brief second like a landed trout, then went limp.

I stepped back and surveyed the wreckage. All this had taken about eighty seconds, no more; and I felt quite pleased with myself. I hadn’t had a rough house like this for four or five years. At least it showed me that I hadn’t lost my grip.

I now had two alternatives: I could either get out fast or I could remain on the premises, out of sight, in the hope of picking up some worth-while information.

Up to this moment I hadn’t found anything worth the risk of getting my neck broken. I decided, as I might never again get the chance of crashing this club, I had better stick around.

But where to hide?

I ran across the glass floor out on to the terrace. I could see a row of lighted windows to my right. Unless my geography had gone awry, these would be the windows of the club’s offices. I saw there was a wide ledge running below the windows. I looked up. The roof sloped gently away into the darkness. I could just make out a small flat roof at the top. It seemed to me if I could get up there, I would be out of trouble for a while, and when the club got busy, I had a chance of exploring without attracting attention.

I heard one of the thugs groan softly, and I knew I hadn’t much time. I stepped up on to the balustrade of the terrace, reached up for the narrow coping running along the edge of the roof, got a grip, then pulled myself upwards.

I have a pretty good head for heights, but while I was dangling in mid-air, I did think of the long, long drop far below.

I got my leg up on the roof, heaved upwards and slid my body on to it. For a long moment I remained there, clutching on to the tiles and wondering if I made one more move if I’d start a slide I wouldn’t be able to stop.

I made the move, got up on hands and knees, and then, very cautiously, I stood up. My crepe-sole shoes afforded a good grip. Bending low, I walked up the tiles to the flat roof and sat down.

There was no skylight. If anyone came after me, he would have to come the way I had, and with a gun in my hand, that made my position for the time being impregnable.

I had a magnificent view over the whole of St. Raphael City and I sat admiring it.

Around eight o’clock I heard the club suddenly come to life. Far below big Cadillacs, Packards and Rolls-Royces pulled up outside the hotel entrance. A very slick dance band started up: lights came on on the terrace. I judged it safe to light a cigarette. I decided to wait an hour and then see what I could see.

By nine o’clock the rush was on. Above the precision slickness of the band, I could hear a great buzz of voices and laughter. Now was the time and I stood up.

Going down the sloping roof was a lot more dangerous than going up: one slip and I would shoot over the edge and down on the sidewalk some three hundred feet below. I moved an inch at a time, squatting on my haunches, digging my heels into the tiles and checking myself with my hands. I reached the edge, got a grip on the coping, got my legs over the edge, twisted off and swung into space.

Away to my right I could see the brilliantly lit terrace with its tables, its elegantly dressed men and women and the regiment of waiters milling around them. I was just in the shadows, and unless anyone came right to the end of the terrace, I couldn’t be seen.

My feet touched the wide ledge that ran below the windows of the offices. I let myself drop: a dangerous move, and as I landed I nearly lost my balance and toppled backwards. But by dropping my head forward I just managed to correct my balance, then I hooked my fingers into the coping and held on while I got my breath back.

The rest was pretty plain sailing. All I had to do was to walk along the ledge and look in the windows as I passed.

The first two rooms I came to were empty. They were furnished as offices with desks, typewriters and filing cabinets: everything on the de luxe scale. The third window was much larger. I paused beside it and looked in.

Cordez sat in a high-backed chair before a big glass-topped desk. He was smoking a brown cigarette in a long holder and was checking figures in a ledger.

The room was big and done over in grey and egg-shell blue. All the desk fitments were of polished steel. Three big filing cabinets, also of steel, stood along the wall. Near where Cordez was sitting was a big safe.

I kept just out of the stream of light that came through the open window, bending forward so I could peer into the room.

Cordez worked quickly. His gold pencil travelled up the rows of figures, casting them with the practised ease of an accountant.

I remained watching him for perhaps ten minutes, and then, just when I was beginning to think I was wasting my time, I heard a knock on the door.

Cordez looked up, called, “Come in,” and then went back to his casting again.

The door opened, and a fat, white-faced man in a well-fitting tuxedo entered. He had a red carnation in his button-hole and diamonds glittered at his shirt-cuffs. He closed the door as if it were made of something very brittle and stood still, waiting, his eyes on Cordez.

When Cordez had finished casting a column, he noted down the total, then looked up.

His expression was coldly hostile.

“Now look, Donaghue,” he said, “if you haven’t any money, get out. I’ve had about all I’m going to take from you.”

The man fingered his perfectly set tie. Sullen hatred showed in his eyes.

“I’ve got the money,” he said, “and don’t give me any of your damned impertinence.” He hauled out a roll of bills from his hip pocket and threw them on the desk. “Here’s a thousand. I’ll have two this time.”

Cordez picked up the roll, straightened it and counted the bills. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and dropped the roll into it. He got to his feet and walked over to the safe. Standing squarely in front of it so his body hid the combination from Donaghue and myself, he twirled the dial and pulled the door open. He reached inside, took something out, closed the safe door and came back to the desk.

He flicked two match folders across the glass top of the desk so they came to rest before Donaghue.

Donaghue snatched them up, opened them and examined them carefully, then slid them into his vest pocket. He went out without a word, and Cordez returned to his desk. He sat for a long moment staring at the opposite wall, then he picked up his gold pencil and began casting again.

I remained where I was, watching.

During the period of forty minutes, two other people came in: a fat, elderly woman and a young fellow who looked as if he were still at college. They each parted with five hundred dollars for a match folder. Each time Cordez treated them as if he were doing them a favour.

By now it was ten minutes to ten, and I remembered my appointment with Margot Creedy.

I leaned forward and looked down. Ten feet below and to my left I could see a balcony to one of the hotel bedrooms. No lights showed from the window. I decided that would be my safest and easiest way out.

Crouching, I slid past Cordez’s window and arrived immediately above the balcony. Then I sat on the ledge, turned, caught hold of the coping, let myself hang, then dropped.

The french doors were easy enough to force, and a few minutes later I was in the bedroom. I groped my way to the door, opened it and looked cautiously out into a wide, deserted corridor.

Then I set off down the corridor in search of the elevator.

It was as easy as that.