He accepted a refill of his coffee cup. He lighted a cigarette. And the telephone rang. Nathan went to answer it. Rose had already answered on the kitchen extension. She said, “Yes, Tony, he is,” and Nathan cut in.
Tony said, “Morning, Nate,” which meant he was not calling from the squad room. There it would have been “Good morning, Lieutenant.” Or even “Sir.” Tony was glad he had caught Shapiro before he left for the office. Because—
Shapiro listened to Tony’s report on last night’s episode of Bret Askew and the atropine. Yes, he’d heard of atropine…. Tony had failed to get hold of Ken Price; had got Martha Abel’s answering service but no Martha Abel. But had talked with Dr. John Knight … and had tried Price again this morning, so far without success. Sure, they’d have to keep on trying.
“Thing is,” Tony said, “they won’t ring his room before ten. After they’ve sent his breakfast up. Strict orders from a valued guest. No exceptions…. Sure, I told them it was a police matter, Nate…. No, I didn’t make it urgent—no use scaring him off, way I figured it. And after all, lots of people in that lobby at the time, and moving around a lot. Also, precinct’s got a man standing by. Cleared that with the cap—I mean inspector. Just to be sure. So I thought we might—”
“Yes,” Shapiro said. “I’ll meet you there, Tony. In the lobby…. Oh, half an hour or so. Turn up anything else after we split, Tony? Miss Farmer help?”
He listened.
Jason Abel? Sure he’d heard of him; who hadn’t? A million settlement, at a guess? Nice for Martha as a divorced wife. He agreed it would leave her free to pick and choose among clients, and also, of course, make the need of valuable clients less pressing. Sure, they’d bear it in mind.
“And speaking of ex-wives,” Tony said, “there’s one of Clive Branson’s in the cast of Summer Solstice. Helen Barnes, her name is. Plays the mother. Seems like a hell of a note.”
Shapiro agreed it was a hell of a note. Sure, domestic relationships, even past ones, did tend to louse things up. One more item to bear in mind … and yes, just now the rain was lousing things up. If Inspector Weigand approved, a squad car from precinct would be most welcome. Even if it wasn’t all that urgent. O.K., he’d see Tony at the Algonquin in half an hour or so.
Dr. Rose Shapiro also had office hours to keep, at a high school in Greenwich Village. But Rose, who cannot be transported in a police car, has a tame taxi driver, tame even on rainy mornings, so both of them could get to work without getting too wet. Cleo watched them go. She was not happy about it. She never is. After they had left, she went to her favorite chair, which is forbidden her.
The Algonquin lobby is not active at eight thirty in the mornings. It is usually deserted. It was this morning when Shapiro went into it. A couple, probably Middle Westerners, were checking out. Bellmen hovered over their considerable collection of luggage. The restaurant was almost as empty as the lobby. Algonquin guests commonly breakfast in their rooms, and seldom as early as eight thirty. The morning desk clerk was not a man Tony Cook knew.
No, Mr. Price could not be rung in his suite at this hour. Never before ten. Mr. Price was most explicit about that. Certainly never before room service had supplied his breakfast. Yes, he understood that that was usually at a few minutes after ten. Whenever Mr. Price called down for it, of course. No, he could not see that an exception had to be made for police officers. Yes, he was reasonably certain Mr. Price had not left his suite. Or the hotel. He never did at this hour. Well, he supposed he could check with the housekeeper, although the maid was instructed not to disturb Mr. Price early. Certainly not at this—all right, if the lieutenant insisted. The desk clerk used the telephone. Mrs. Grady? Had there by any chance been a change in the morning routine as regarded Mr. Price? Yes, Suite Five-oh-one … Maria Perotti? Yes, he would like to see her, if she could be sent down. Sorry to be a nuisance.
“Seems Mr. Price did leave early this morning,” the clerk told Shapiro and Cook. It was most unusual. He had been in the hall when the maid, a Maria Perotti, came out of a room across the corridor which she had just done up. He had asked her to do his rooms early.
Maria Perotti was young and reasonably pretty. She was neatly uniformed. She said, “Sir?” to the desk clerk. Of course, sir, she would answer any questions the gentlemen wished to ask, if she could, about Mr. Price in Suite Five-oh-one—she called it “suit”—not that she knew anything about Mr. Price. This morning was the first time she had ever seen him. About half an hour ago. Well, he had come out of the suite.
“He said good morning, and was I the one who took care of his room? I said I was, and was everything all right? About the rooms, I meant. He said everything was fine and that he hoped the time he insisted on didn’t break up my schedule.”
“The time, Miss Perotti?”
“Never do the suit before eleven in the morning. And have it done by noon, if that was all right. I told him it worked out just fine. As it does, Lieutenant, sir. Five-thirteen usually goes downstairs for breakfast, you know, around half-past, so I can do that one and get to Five-ninety-one at a few minutes after eleven. Five-oh-one’s always out by then. And there’s never any trouble about his rooms, no mess or anything. Not like some, I can tell you. Just do up the beds and put out the towels and run the vac. Maybe fifteen minutes, all told. Very nice gentleman, Mr. Price is. And a dollar every other day, regular as clockwork. Ever since he moved in last summer, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, Miss Perotti. This morning was different, you say. Tell us about this morning.”
“I had a couple of checkouts and I’d just finished with them. I was just about to knock at Five-oh-two—it’s across the hall from Five-oh-one—and Mr. Price came out of Five-oh-one and said good morning and was I the one who did his rooms, and if I was I could do them anytime because he was going out early.”
“He was dressed for going out?” Tony asked.
Price had been dressed for going out. In suit and necktie. “He had a raincoat over his arm.”
“Carrying anything else?”
“Not that I noticed, sir. Only I thought—think now, anyway—he might have had something under the raincoat, something—oh, brown, sort of.”
“Like a briefcase, Miss Perotti?”
“It could have been that, I guess. Something brown and well, flat. Under the raincoat.”
“Yes, Miss Perotti. And then?”
“Then?”
“What happened then?”
“Oh. He went down the corridor toward the elevators, and I went in and did the suit. If you can call it that. All it needed was fresh towels.”
“And made up the bed, I suppose?”
“Not fresh—that is, it wasn’t the day to change the sheets. Not in Five-oh-one. We—”
“With resident guests we change the bed linen every other day, Lieutenant,” the desk clerk said, “unless the guest requests otherwise.”
Shapiro said he saw. So the maid had merely made up Mr. Price’s bed without changing anything?
“Not even that, sir—both beds were made up already. It was like he—like he hadn’t slept in his room last night. Unless, of course, he made up the bed himself, but, why should he? He never did. And anyway, it looked just like it did when I finished with it yesterday.”
So. A change in Price’s routine. To avoid inquiries by the police? Rather obvious about it, in that case. As if he was calling attention to something. Have a look at Price’s suite to see if their attention had been called to something? Probably not worth the trouble, or the time.
“While we’re here, Tony,” Shapiro said, “we might check on Askew, find out how he’s feeling. Unless it’s against the rules to disturb him this early?”
The desk clerk answered that. Mr. Askew never stipulated a time before which he should not be called. In general, of course, they tried not to have guests awakened at inconvenient hours. And there were not many early risers among the Algonquin’s clientele. Still—the house phones were at the end of t
he desk.
“I wonder,” Tony Cook said, “whether we might have a look through Mr. Price’s suite? Just—well, to see if he perhaps left a message. And—well, to make sure he didn’t take his clothes with him this morning.”
The clerk made sounds of indignation. Mr. Price was a longtime and highly respected guest. He also made noises about a search warrant.
“Oh,” Tony said, “nothing formal like that. Just a quick look around, with Miss Perotti or someone along if you like.”
The desk clerk was not pleased. Probably he ought to consult the manager. But at this hour? Well, he supposed there would be no real harm in it. Miss Perotti could let them in; go in with them, he supposed.
“Go along, Tony,” Shapiro said. “I’ll give Mr. Askew a buzz. See how he’s feeling this morning.”
Shapiro went to the house phones. The operator would ring Mr. Askew, sir. In Suite 601. One moment, please.
She rang three times without an answer. She was afraid—she rang a fourth time.
“I’m afraid Mr. Askew isn’t in, sir.” No, there hadn’t been any calls for him that morning. Not since she came on. She came on at eight. From him? No. Oh, except to room service. At about a quarter after eight, she thought it was. Yes, Mr. Askew usually had breakfast sent up to his suite. Well, usually not quite this early. But before nine, almost every morning. “Thank you, sir.”
Nathan went to one of the telephone booths and consulted the Manhattan directory. He found the two listings Tony had undoubtedly found last night and dialed the number for “Abel Martha res.”
“Mrs. Abel’s residence.” Mrs. Abel was in the shower the voice said. Could she take a message? Lieutenant Shapiro? Of the police? Well …
“Good morning, Lieutenant…. Yes, it is—dripping wet at the moment…. Yes, of course he’s a client and, yes, a friend. He lives at the Algonquin—oh, you’re there and he isn’t? … Well, anywhere, for all I know.” Yes, he had stopped by her place last night—for a drink. Had left—oh, a little after midnight, at a guess. She hadn’t the foggiest where he had gone then—back to the Algonquin, she supposed. “Yes, it is early for him to be up and about. After all, he’s an actor, and they’re not precisely—oh, wait a minute, Lieutenant. Wait a minute. What time is it?”
It was around nine thirty.
“Then he’s at the theater, or on his way there. Early rehearsal, for the reopening tonight. They’re trying to get the critics back, you know. Mr. Simon’s idea, I guess. Final smoothing out. The poor guys will be walking in their sleep tonight. But it’s his play, isn’t it?” That, Shapiro supposed, did not require an answer. He thanked Mrs. Abel, who said, “Is there something important you want to see him about?”
“Just routine,” Shapiro told her, and thanked her again for her help and went out of the booth. Tony Cook was waiting for him at the desk. They went a few steps away from it, toward the hotel’s entrance.
“No atropine in the medicine cabinet,” Tony said. “Didn’t suppose there would be, did we? Bufferin. Nembutal, fifty mg, one or two capsules at bedtime as needed for sleep. Doctor: A. T. Perrine. Bottle of eye drops. Prescription; both eyes, three times daily, every four hours. Not the same doctor. Carl Jenkins, M.D., this one is, address on Park.”
“And no atropine sulfate, Tony? Could be it’s dispensed under a trade name, of course. The way Nembutal’s a trade name for one of the barbiturates.”
“Just Bufferin, Nembutal and these eye drops,” Tony told him.
“Wouldn’t leave the stuff around in plain sight if he’s been feeding it to Askew,” Shapiro said.
They went out onto Forty-fourth Street and walked toward the Rolf Simon Theater.
12
The lobby of the Rolf Simon Theater was almost deserted. Four women and two men formed a small cluster near the box office, which was unoccupied. A sign explained why: OPEN 10 A.M.
It still lacked ten minutes of that hour.
Shapiro and Cook found the doors leading into the auditorium locked against them. But as Tony tried one of them for the second time, it clicked at him and opened. Now there was a man in the box office and the ticket window was open. The box-office man smiled and nodded at them in—Nathan assumed—welcome. At any rate, he had evidently pressed a button which released a lock.
They went into the theater. The stage was lighted, and Price and Arlene Collins were on it, both dressed for tennis. And both, in tennis shorts, very good-looking. Price was definitely the older, but not, in appearance, too much the older. Forty to the girl’s early twenties—about right, from what Nathan had read of the play. The clothes Price wore so well, the movements he now made so smoothly, might have been difficult for a man in his sixties. For, say, Clive Branson.
“At love, my dear,” Price said to the pretty young woman who was his wife in Summer Solstice. “On court—”
“Now you’ve got it, Ken,” Robert Kirby, the director, said from his aisle seat. “Obvious, and he knows it’s obvious. That’s got to show in the reading. The way you want it, Bret?”
“He’s got it,” Bret Askew said from the seat beside Kirby.
“Only he’ll have to pitch it up a bit,” Rolf Simon said from a seat in the last row of the orchestra. “Blurry from here.”
“All right from up here, R.S.” The voice was young and female and came, evidently, from the balcony. “You in that dead spot?”
“Yes, I guess so. Thing is, there’ll be customers in it. Tonight, we hope. All right. Take a break. Then we’ll do Act Three from the top. We’ve got visitors at the moment. Those guardians of the law again.” Rolf Simon stood up, tall and burly, and came across toward the men from Homicide. When he was a little way from them, he said, “Seeing quite a good deal of you two, aren’t we?” His tone was flat. There was no pleasure in his heavy voice.
“Sorry, Mr. Simon,” Shapiro said. “Happens to be our job.”
“And ours is getting a play ready for tonight. For eight fifteen tonight, so McClay from the Chronicle can make an edition. If he decides to come at all. The Sentinel dame says she can’t make it. She’ll try to drop in in a day or two. So—what’re you after, Lieutenant?”
“Just a few words with Mr. Price. And with you too, Mr. Simon. During the break.”
“O.K.” Again there was no pleasure in Rolf Simon’s voice. He raised it. “Stretch the break out,” he said. “Make it for coffee. And, Price, the cops want to talk to you.” Then, to Shapiro and Cook, “I’ll go upstairs for my coffee. Come up when you’re through with Price. And I hope to God you don’t upset him; he’s jittery enough as it is. But doing O.K., I’ll say that for him. See you.” With that he went out into the lobby.
Kenneth Price came down from the stage. On his way up the aisle, he stopped by the fourth-row seat in which Bret Askew was sitting next to the director, leaned down, and said something to Askew.
Cook and Shapiro could not hear what he said, but they could hear Askew’s answer: “Sure.” He got up, and the two came up the aisle together.
Askew said, “Morning, Lieutenant. Look, I was going to try to get you on the phone.”
Shapiro said, “Yes?”
“Thing is,” Askew said, “I guess I made a fool of myself last night. With Detective Cook here. About—well, somebody trying to poison me. Putting this alkaloid in my drink. Probably wasn’t anything in the drink. Except—all right—alcohol. What I’m trying to say is, maybe I had one or two too many. If you see what I mean. O.K.?”
“If you say so, Mr. Askew. Tony?”
“This doctor the hotel sent up,” Tony said. “He agreed the symptoms were those of mild poisoning by one of the belladonna group. Atropine sulfate, he thought.”
“Afraid I sold him a bill of goods,” Askew said, “not meaning to, actually. Thing is, I was—call it fantasizing. Part of my trade, you could say. Few years back, I looked up the alkaloids; thought of using atropine poisoning in a play. I never did, actually. But the notion sort of stuck in my mind, I suppose. And—well, I acted it o
ut. Make sense to you, Shapiro?”
It didn’t, particularly. Shapiro’s “Mmm” was noncommittal.
“Tempest in a teacup, really,” Askew said. “Or a cocktail glass. And I’m damn sorry. Got a little spiffed and—well, fed you and Cook here herring. Damn childish thing to do, I’ll admit that. O.K.?”
For a moment nobody said anything. The silence was Tony Cook’s cue. “Well,” Tony said, “you sure fooled me, Mr. Askew. Fooled the doctor, too. And—it was all just a game? Only—well, how’d you get your pupils to dilate? The pupils of your eyes, that is.”
Price had sat down in an aisle seat, his attitude that of a mildly interested bystander. Now he spoke. “Wouldn’t alcohol account for that, Mr. Cook?”
“I don’t really know,” Tony said. “Have to ask a doctor about that, wouldn’t we? But—we did last night, didn’t we, Mr. Askew? And he thought mild alkaloid poisoning. Just because you suggested it, you think? Only he did want you to go to a hospital for tests, didn’t he? Make himself look pretty silly, wouldn’t he, if he’d sent a mildly drunk man to be tested for alkaloid poisoning?”
“There’s that,” Shapiro said. “There is that, Mr. Askew. You’re pretty sure, now, that you were just mildly intoxicated?”
Askew merely nodded. Shapiro said, “Yes, Mr. Price?” Kenneth Price merely looked at him. “Sorry,” Shapiro said. “I thought you were about to say something.”
“Just,” Price said, “that we only had a couple of drinks each. Not doubles or anything like that.”
“Could be,” Askew said, “I had a couple while I was waiting for you.”
“O.K., Bret,” Price said. “Though you seemed sober enough to me when we were talking about my readings. But have it your way.”
“Sure,” Askew said. “I thought I was—sober enough, that is. Sort of crept up on me, maybe. Up so tight about the play these days. When I relaxed, I relaxed too much, maybe. Plays are hell.”
The Old Die Young Page 10