The Whispering Master

Chapter Two

Johnny Fletcher stepped out of the elevator and crossing the narrow hall, opened the door of Room 821. As he entered the room Sam Cragg popped out of the bathroom.

“Johnny!” he cried, “my clothes are gone!”

Johnny cocked his head to one side and sized up the apparel of his roommate and partner. “Shoes, socks, shorts,” he enumerated, “shirt and necktie—”

“It’s my pants and coat,” Sam wailed.

“Oh yes, I didn’t notice.”

“What do you mean — you didn’t notice? When a guy ain’t got his pants on, you can’t help but notice.”

“All right, Sam, so you haven’t got your pants on. What of it? There’s no law against not wearing your pants in your own room.”

“But I’m telling you, Johnny — they’re gone. Somebody swiped ’em.”

Johnny looked thoughtfully at Sam, then stepped to the closet. He opened the door and peered in.

“Not here,” he said. “Have you tried the bathroom?”

“I’ve looked everywhere — even under the carpet. They’re gone.” Sam seated himself heavily on the edge of one of the twin beds. “And Peabody’s going to throw us out at noon! How can I walk the streets without any pants on?”

“You can’t.”

“But what’ll I do, what’ll I do?”

Johnny stepped to the window and looked across the eight-foot air shaft. “You can relax, Sam. I’ll think of something... Hello — what’s Peabody doing in the good-looking blonde’s room?”

“I don’t know. There’s some monkey business going on over there.”

Johnny exclaimed. “Monkey business! Those are flatfeet with Peabody.” Johnny turned to look at Sam, then caught sight of the metal disk on the nearest twin bed.

“Where’d this come from?”

Sam shrugged. “Search me. I was lookin’ for my pants and I stepped in the bathroom and when I came out there it was on the bed. Guess somebody tossed it through the window.”

Johnny looked at his friend in astonishment, then he stepped back to the window and peered across the air shaft again. “I don’t see the girl.”

Sam groaned. “Johnny, never mind what’s going on over there; think of us — me. I need pants and I need ’em bad. By twelve o’clock.”

Johnny’s eyes still searched the room across the air shaft. “There’s no hurry. We’re not moving at twelve o’clock.”

“Why not? We got Peabody’s third and positively final ultimatum, didn’t we?”

“Yes, but I just paid ten dollars on account. We’re good until...” Then Johnny caught himself. But it was too late. Sam came around the beds and caught Johnny’s arm.

“Where’d you get the ten bucks?”

Johnny pulled his arm free of Sam’s savage grip. “Why do you suppose I got up so early this morning? I went out and raised the money. Twelve dollars. I gave the hotel ten and—”

“You pawned my suit!” Sam howled. “You hocked the clothes off my back.”

Johnny swallowed hard. “Take it easy, Sam. It’s only for a couple of hours. I’m going down to Mort Murray’s this afternoon and put the bite on him.”

“Why didn’t you see Mort this morning?”

“I tried. He wasn’t at his place—”

“At eight in the morning? Of course not.”

“That’s what I said... You know Peabody; he hates my guts. On the stroke of twelve he’d lock us out. That’s why I thought I’d be on the safe side...”

“But we couldda gone out and sold some books before twelve.”

“If we had any books, which we haven’t.”

Sam staggered back to the bed and sat down heavily. A sob shook his massive torso. “Johnny, we’ve been through thick and thin together. But stealin’ my clothes is the last straw...”

“I didn’t steal them.”

“It’s the same as stealin’. Why didn’t you sell your clothes?”

“How could I? I couldn’t walk the streets without any clothes on, could I?”

“Can I?”

“You don’t have to. You can stay in here until I get your outfit back.”

“But what if you don’t get it back?”

“Have I ever let you down, Sam?”

“Yes!” cried Sam. “You’ve let me down a hundred times.”

“So it’s come to this.” Johnny sighed wearily. “All right, I’ll get you back your suit this afternoon and then we’re through — finished.”

Sam gasped. “What? What’d you say, Johnny?”

“I said we were through. You can go your way and I’ll go mine.”

Sam sprang to his feet. “Johnny, don’t talk like that. For Pete’s sake...” He grabbed Johnny’s wrist and looked sharply into Johnny’s face. “For a minute I thought you were serious.” He tried a weak grin. “I never know when you’re kiddin’.”

“I’m not kidding.”

Sam let go of Johnny’s wrist and slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I take it back, Johnny. I apologize. Give me a swift kick, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“It wouldn’t,” Johnny shook his head sadly. “You hurt my feelings.”

“Jeez, Johnny!”

The door resounded to the rapping of knuckles. Johnny leaped away from the window. “Get in bed, Sam,” he whispered tautly, “and here, put this under the covers with you...” He handed Sam the metal disk and started toward door.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Fletcher,” called back the voice of Mr. Peabody, the manager of the Forty-fifth Street Hotel, “I’d like a word with you.”

Johnny turned, saw that Sam was scrambling into bed, then went to the door. He pulled it open. There was somebody with Mr. Peabody, a big, truculent-looking man of about forty.

Johnny handed Mr. Peabody a little slip of paper. “Sorry, old boy.”

Peabody looked at the slip. “I just checked with the desk. All right, you’re good for another week. But that’s not why I’m here...” He stepped around Johnny and saw Sam in the bed.

“Hi!” Sam said.

Mr. Peabody nodded curtly, disapprovingly, then turned back to Johnny. “Mr. Fletcher, this is Lieutenant Rook of the Police Department...”

“Crook?”

The lieutenant smiled without humor. “Rook.”

“Rook as in rook?”

Rook’s smile faded. “A wise guy!”

He came fairly into the room and surveyed Sam, sitting up in bed. “A rough night?”

“I ain’t feelin’ so good,” Sam retorted, “so I thought I’d sleep late this morning.”

“You sleep with your shirt and necktie on?”

“Any law against it?”

“For all of me,” shrugged Rook, “you can sleep with your shoes on.”

Sam brought his feet out from under the covers. “Well, I got them on, too.”

He’d forgotten about Mr. Peabody being present. The hotel manager stormed forward. “Mr. Cragg — our sheets!”

“He wanted to feel at home,” Johnny said, “he sleeps with his shoes on at home...”

“There’ll be an extra charge for those sheets...”

Sam sprang to his feet. “Oh yeah?”

Lieutenant Rook suddenly chopped the air with his right hand. “Just a minute, I’m here investigating a homicide—”

Johnny recoiled. “Not that good-looking blonde!” His eyes went to the window. “Over there?”

“You knew her?”

Johnny shook his head. “Only from seeing her through the window. And I saw her in the lobby once...”

“She never even spoke to you!” cried Peabody.

Rook gave the hotel manager a dirty look. “Please — I’ll do the talking.”

“Go ahead,” invited Johnny. He exhaled heavily. “That’s a real jolt.”

“Why?” snapped Rook.

“Are you kidding? A girl who looked like that... The only reason I didn’t make her acquaintance was, well...” He cleared his throat and looked at Peabody. “I’ve been a bit short of...”

“Money!” snapped Peabody.

Johnny smiled. “You took the word out of my mouth.”

Lieutenant Rook stabbed a stubby forefinger at Johnny. “All right, we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s get down to cases.”

“Shoot!” Then Johnny coughed. “I guess I shouldn’t have used that word.”

“Why not?”

Johnny nodded to the window.

“She wasn’t shot,” Rook snapped. The lieutenant took a huge object from his pocket, which on closer examination turned out to be a watch. “It’s nine-thirty-five,” he said. “Where were you between seven-thirty and nine o’clock this morning?”

“At seven-thirty,” Johnny said, “I was standing outside Uncle Ben’s Loan Shop on Eighth Avenue...”

“What for?”

“I was waiting for the place to open.” Johnny smiled at Mr. Peabody and took a pawn ticket from his pocket and held it up. “See...?”

“It didn’t take you from seven-thirty to nine-thirty to pawn whatever you pawned,” Rook snapped.

“Right. But the shop didn’t open until eight-thirty. I was the first customer in the store and I was in there for about fifteen minutes...”

“Why should it take fifteen minutes to pawn something?”

“Because there was a difference of opinion. Uncle Ben had one idea of the value of the, ah, merchandise and I had another. It took fifteen minutes to reconcile our viewpoints — reach a meeting point, so to speak.”

Lieutenant Rook glowered. “All right, that’s eight-forty-five. It didn’t take you over five or ten minutes to come back to the hotel...”

“I stopped off at the Automat on Broadway and had some corned beef hash... They have the best corned beef hash in town at the Automat...”

“All right, what time did you reach the hotel?” Rook snarled.

“About nine-twenty. You can check that because I stopped at the desk downstairs to pay my bill...”

“Ten dollars on account,” Peabody corrected.

“All right, ten dollars on account. Anyway, I didn’t come up in the elevator until nine-twenty-five. I was in here six or seven minutes before you pounded on the door.”

Rook looked steadily at Johnny for a moment, then walked to the stand between the beds and picked up the phone.

“Desk,” he said, then: “This is Lieutenant Rook of the Police Department. I’m up here in Room 821 with Mr. Peabody the manager... Fletcher, who occupies this room claims he stopped at the desk this morning and paid something on his bill... What time was that...?” He scowled at the phone. “You’re sure?” He nodded unhappily. “All right.”

He put the receiver back on the hook, looked down at it for a moment, then suddenly whirled on Sam Cragg. “You... you were here in your room, all morning...!”

“So were about two hundred other people in the hotel,” cut in Johnny, coming to Sam’s aid.

“Fletcher,” Rook said ominously, “I didn’t like you when I first came into this room. I’m liking you less every minute.” He turned back to Sam Cragg. “You can talk, can’t you?”

“Yes,” snapped Sam. “And I can read and write too. And I went clear through long division in school and was starting on decimals.”

Johnny, glancing through the window, gave a sudden start. “Hey!” he cried. “I thought you said it was the girl...” He rushed to the window.

Rook followed him.

Seated in a chair in the room across the air shaft was a girl — not Marjorie Fair, but a girl who looked very much like her, who was, if anything, even more attractive.

“It’s her sister,” Rook said. “She found the body.” He turned away from the window, looked at Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg, then shook his head. Then he started for the door. Peabody darted after him. At the door, the lieutenant turned.

“Don’t go taking any sudden trips,” he said and went out. Peabody followed him. Sam Cragg opened his mouth to say something, but Johnny gave him a warning shake of the head. He went to the door, listened for a moment, then opened the door suddenly. There was no one out in the hall and he closed the door again. He exhaled heavily.

“Now, what do you know about it, Sam?”

“Just what I told you... nothin’...”

Johnny went to Sam’s bed and pulling back the covers, brought out the metal disk. Sam crowded over. “I thought phonograph records were made out of wax or some kinda plastic,” he said.

“They are, but this is a master record.”

“It says Mariota on it.”

Johnny gave Sam a quick, chiding look. “That’s the name of the record company. A master record is the — the record from which all the others are made. I guess.”

Sam was reading the circular centerpiece on the record. “Con Carson: say, he’s all right!”

“He was all right,” Johnny corrected. “He was killed two days ago in that airplane crash in Nevada.”

“Zat so?” Sam whistled a note or two, off-key. “I guess this must have been his last song. I never heard it. Mmmm, Moon on the Desert... wonder what it’s like?” Then suddenly he looked at Johnny, wide-eyed. “Say, d’you suppose the girl across the way...?”

“Threw this over here? You’re sharp, Sam, awfully sharp today... I guessed that about nine and three-quarters minutes ago...”

Sam winced. “Then why didn’t you give it to the flatfoot?” Alarm came into his tone. “Johnny, you aren’t figuring on playing detective again — not when I haven’t even got a pair of pants...?”

“You’ll have your pants this afternoon, Sam; stop worrying. And your coat, too.”

“The maid’s due to clean up...”

“You’re not feeling well today, you thought you’d stay in bed,” Johnny suggested the alibi. “I’ll go down again to Mort’s.” He started for the door, but Sam called him back.

“What about my breakfast?”

Johnny pointed to the phone. “Room service. Here’s a buck.” Johnny tossed a crumpled bill on the bed. That left him with seventy-five cents.