When I got down to the second floor and my apartment to change out of the dinner clothes I'd been wearing for nearly twelve hours, I found a uniformed cop standing guard out in the hall.
''We're through in there, Mr. Haskell," he told me. "Bit of a mess until whoever cleans for you can get to it. I've been waiting here to tell you the lieutenant wants you up in the victim's room on the tenth floor as soon as you can make it."
"As soon as I get out of my ball gown," I said. I thought that was funny, but I'm not sure the cop did.
Believe it or not, I'd never been in the room Hilda had occupied on ten. It was like a hundred other single rooms in the hotel. My place had been more comfortable for our purposes. Hardy was in 1006 with Officer Moncrief, the stenotype operator, and a slim, dark, ferret-faced man who turned out to be Max Rosen, Hilda and Billy Chard's agent.
"I guess none of us had had a day like this before," Rosen said to me when he was introduced. He looked pretty well shaken up.
"Mr. Rosen has been telling me some things about Hilda Harding," the lieutenant said. "You say you never talked about anything but making love, Mark, but surely there must have been some chitchat about other things."
"So help me," I said, "the weather—maybe something about the news we heard on the radio when I was getting up in the morning."
"She ever talk to you about her brother?"
"I didn't know she had a brother," I said. "No, she never mentioned him."
'*Stanislaus Wolenski," Rosen said. **Big wheel in Poland when the Solidarity people there were riding high. When the military took over, Stan disappeared, like a lot of other Solidarity leaders. Hilda's been trying for two years to find some trace of him."
''Butnoluck?"
Rosen shook his head. "It had an effect on her career," he said. *'She insisted I get her bookings in foreign capitals in Europe, later in Washington." His narrow httle mouth moved in a bitter downtwist. ''She thought she had a way to charm people in high places to tell her something that would help her find her brother."
''In other words, she went to bed with the right people," Hardy said. He sounded as if he'd tasted something he didn't like.
"That's how it was, I think," Rosen said.
Hardy looked at me. "I don't imagine you have any pull with the Polish authorities, do you, Mark? Mr. Rosen wondered."
"I only know one or two Polish jokes," I said.
"But there are people in this hotel, people at the United Nations, people from Washington. She ever ask you about any of them, try to get you to introduce her to any of them?"
"No. I guess I flattered myself into thinking she was just interested in me as a man."
Hardy gave me a faint smile. "It could be, I suppose. A man who could send flowers like that! Must
have cost you a week's wages." He motioned toward the dressing table at the far end of the room. For the first time I noticed a tall vase of beautiful long-stemmed American-beauty roses.
''What makes you think I sent her those flowers," I said. "I didn't, as a matter of fact."
Hardy frowned. "Says so on the card," he said. He crossed over and picked up a card that was propped against the vase. He handed it to me.
The card was from the Beaumont florists, located in the lobby. The message was typed on it, indicating that the order had come over the phone, someone in the shop typing on the words someone had given them. "A token of my eternal gratitude, M."
"I knew you'd stood her up for lunch. I thought you'd decided to buy forgiveness. M for Mark."
''Not me," I said. I glanced at Rosen. "M for Max," I suggested.
"Is the florist open now, ten after nine?" Hardy asked.
"Should be."
"Get them on the phone and ask them who ordered the flowers," he said.
I know the people in the florist shop. I buy flowers there from time to time, order them for other guests of the hotel. The clerk who answered the phone is one Jean Potts, a not unattractive girl.
''It's Mark Haskell, Jean," I said. '*I want to inquire about some flowers that were sent to Hilda Harding in 1006, sometime yesterday."
'*Oh, my, Mark, we've just been hearing. How awful."
"The message with the flowers was typed, which means the order was phoned in, doesn't it?"
"Yes, I don't remember the order. It must have come late in the day. I'm off at five o'clock. Let me check the records." She was gone for a minute or two and when she came back she sounded strange. "The flowers were ordered about eight in the evening, Mark. The message was 'A token of my eternal gratitude. M."
"Who ordered them?"
"Why—why you did, Mark. They've been charged to your account."
"Now wait a minute—who took the order?"
"Laura Collins—she's relatively new on the night shift."
"How do we reach her?"
"Hold on, there's a home phone for her here." She gave me a number.
A few minutes later I had Laura Collins on the phone. I told her who I was and that I was interested in an order of flowers for Hilda Harding.
"Oh, dear, Mr. Haskell, I hope nothing went wrong with them."
*'Oh, they were delivered," I said. ''You been listening to your radio?"
*'No. I haven't."
"Well, when we get through turn it on. You'll understand then why I'm concerned. I didn't order those flowers, Laura."
*'But you called! A dozen American beauties to be delivered to Miss Harding's room, not her dressing room in the Blue Lagoon. You gave me the message to go with them!"
"You're talking to me now, Laura. Did the voice on the phone sound Hke me?"
"Oh, gee, Mr. Haskell, I—I just took it for granted it was you. You said. Tut it on my special account.'"
"It wasn't me, luv," I said. "So, turn on your radio and brace yourself."
I reported the conversation to Hardy.
"Can anyone just call in and give a name, no credit card, or anything like that?"
"I can," I said. "I order flowers all the time, for special parties, for guests to whom we want to give a special welcome, for stars appearing in the Blue Lagoon, Uke Hilda. My special account is for flowers I order for which the hotel will pick up the tab."
"So this 'M' knew how to send some flowers to the lady for free," Hardy said.
"If he said 'special account' to Laura Collins on the phone, she had no reason to doubt it was me," I said. "You could call those 'code words.' I don't remem-
ber ever talking to her on the phone. Usually I go into the shop to see what I'm buying. She wouldn't necessarily be sure of my voice. I don't stanmier or say *ain't/ or anything distinctive like that."
'*She must have had another lover in the hotel," Max Rosen said.
**That would have made her schedule pretty damn crowded," I said. I meant it to be funny, but as I said it I felt a little twinge of pain. Whatever Hilda's history might be, as told by Billy Chard and this Rosen character, I knew the time she'd spent with me had been just exactly what it seemed to be. She'd never asked me a question about anyone, never tried to get any kind of special favor from me, never even shown any interest in my background, my family, my schooling, any other women in my past, my yesterdays. That had been one of the special things about her. She was only interested in now, in the exact mo-m^it she was living; in our case the number of volts of electricity we could generate together. I've got to say the needle on the face of the dial must have quivered when we got going. She had been so spectacular. The anger I'd felt some hours ago when I'd first seen Hilda lying on my bed, her lovely face turned into a grotesque mask, began cooking again. If I could get my hand on the bastard who'd choked her life away, I'd— I'd..."
Hardy was thanking Rosen for coming in, telling him he could go. Rosen was assuming he'd have to
make the funeral arrangements when the medical examiner released the body.
''Cremation, of course," Rosen said. **She wouldn't want anyone to see her the way she is now/'
The same thought I'd h
ad when I'd covered her face with the towel after I'd found her.
**Memorial service somewhere," Rosen was saying. ''God, Madison Square Garden wouldn't hold half the fans who'll want to pay their respects."
I started to leave with Rosen, but Hardy asked me to stay with him. When Rosen had gone he told me what was on his mind.
"The lock on the door to your apartment wasn't picked, Mark," he said. "That limits the possibilities. Either you left it unlocked, she left it unlocked after she got there, or she took someone with her or let someone in after she got there. No one forced their way in."
"I didn't leave it unlocked. To begin with, you don't have to lock it; it has a Yale-type lock that works automatically when you close the door. It's as automatic with me as taking my next breath to close the door when I leave, and then test it to make sure. You ask me if I remember doing it and I have to tell you no, no more than I recall remembering to breathe. But I did it."
"There've been a lot of dames in your Hfe over your years here, Mark. Did any one of them ever take off with a key you'd let them have?"
'*No. That I'd remember."
*'So the only keys are the one you carry and the one you gave the Harding girl?"
*'And one in the key locker in the front office."
**The maid who cleans up for you?"
''Oh, she has a key."
''You see, keys multiply when you begin talking about them," Hardy said.
"No way to get the key from the key locker," I said. "The maid has been here longer than I have, totally trustworthy."
"We'll check out her routines," Hardy said. "Now, once more, who did the Harding girl know who lives in the hotel, or circulates here?"
"No one and everyone," I said. "She is—was—no different from any star performer. Everyone knows who she is, people speak to her, she answers. She had a table reserved in the Blue Lagoon for between-shows. She'd come out and sit—have a white wine on the rocks, maybe—and people would flock around her, for autographs, just for conversation, to be warmed by that marvelous smile of hers."
"No one in particular? No reporters?"
"Hell, yes, there were reporters! But not anyone I thought of as special. I—I thought I was the special person in her life just now."
Hardy, like a bull terrier, wouldn't let go. "Would she be likely to take some guy up to your apartment for fun and games?" he asked.
**rd say no, never. She had this room, her own room, for something like that," I said, and was certain of it.
**So she took someone to your apartment—or let someone in after she got there—someone she thought had a right to be there. A friend of yours? Your night bell captain, Maggio, knew she was up there—arranged to have the elevator let her out at two. I understand they call him 'the Italian stallion' around the hotel. Could he have been poaching on your territory? He knew he'd have time before you showed up."
"You're dreaming," I said. I felt impatient with him. ''Mike is one of the people here I'd trust to the limit. Chambrun feels that way about him, too."
'*M could stand for 'Mike,'" he said, glancing at the flowers.
"Those roses were ordered at eight o'clock," I said. "Mike didn't know Hilda was going up to my place till around two in the morning."
"Didn't he know that she was going up to your place every night? He goes up to your place, knocks on the door, tells her he has a message from you, and he's in."
"I won't buy that now, Hardy, or ever," I said.
"I'll do some checking," he said.
Methodical checking is Hardy's special gift as a detective. He will follow any lead—no matter how farfetched—right to the end of the line until it proves
out one way or another. Mike Maggio was in for a very close looking-at, I knew. In the end Hardy would clear him, because I would have bet my life on Mike's integrity. What I couldn't guess just then was that Mike would play a key part in the capture of a killer.
That capture seemed far away to me that morning. I wanted it so badly I could taste it. All the jive Fd heard about Hilda in the last hours didn't make her any less deserving of justice. But the key concern of the moment had to be Ruysdale and the cat-and-mouse games going on up on the Beaumont's roof. If one of the men Larry Welch was expecting today turned out to be a phony, then Chambrun and Jericho could hope they might find themselves in a position to deal.
I couldn't wait to get back up to the roof to see what happened when Welch's first visitor arrived. Down in the lobby I approached the roof car. Dick Berger was at his usual post, looking tight lipped and grim. Overnight his job on the roof car had become a high-risk assignment. Bob Ballard had wound up dead, stuffed into a trash can.
*'No callers for the roof so far this morning," he told me. ''Comings and goings: Jerry Dodd, you, Mrs. Kniffin—the head housekeeper—a couple of night elevator men from this south bank of cars. Busy but tranquil. I hope it stays that way. Chambrun playing detective, I guess, questioning people."
Dick took me up to the roof. The first thing I saw when I got up there was old Mrs. Haven sitting in her garden, wearing a wide-brimmed straw garden hat. Jericho was nearby, canvas on an easel, apparently beginning his painting.
Chambrun was still in his living room, pacing restlessly. Welch's first visitor, Armand Beaujon, would be coming very soon. I crossed to the French windows to look at the artist at work again.
"Why is she wearing that hat?" I asked. *'He can't see her face under that brim."
Chambrun managed a smile. '*It's the color of her hair," he said. *'There is no such color! Jericho can't reproduce it, so I guess he's suggested the hat."
*'It is a hot August morning," I said.
''Have it your way," Chambrun said. He'd lost interest.
*'Dick Berger says you've had Mrs. Kniffin and a couple of the night elevator men up here," I said.
"People who might have noticed anyone on the second floor who shouldn't have been there," Chambrun said.
"Anything?"
"This is not a day when anything is ready to go our way," Chambrun said. "Hardy used my office, cops back and forth; Hilda Harding, Prescott, who was using my phone to try to locate the real Martin Steams, Jerry Dodd. No one clocked anybody, ex-cq)t Mike Maggio, who had times for Hilda and you."
I told him about the flowers that had been charged to my expense account and Hardy's dreams about Mike. He listened, frowning.
*'I trust Maggio all the way," he said.
'^I told Hardy that.''
There were two short rings on the Httle phone that connected with the roof car. I was nearest it, and reached for it.
**Don't pick it up!" Chambrun said. His eyes were suddenly very bright. "I told Dick Berger to ring me twice when Welch had a visitor. I told him I wouldn't answer. I didn't want the visitor knowing that anyone but Welch had been contacted."
We went out onto the terrace and Chambrun gave Jericho some kind of prearranged signal. The big artist left his easel and went around to the side of Penthouse 2.
Welch came out of Penthouse 3 and stood facing the canapy over the elevator door. This was going to be something or nothing. My heart began to beat a tattoo in my chest.
The elevator door opened and a tall, dark-haired man emerged. He was wearing a dark blue tropical worsted suit and carrying a briefcase. He looked around, spotted Larry Welch, and walked quickly toward him. I could see Welch smiling. He waved at Jericho. This was obviously the real Armand Beau-jon.
We watched him go into Penthouse 3 with Larry.
**Do you know," I heard Chambrun say softly, "I almost wish he had been a fake. This means waiting till afternoon for the next one. I don't know if I can take it, Mark. What can they be doing to Ruysdale? Damn them! Damn, damn, damn!"
"We can just hope Beaujon agrees to play ball and wait for O'Brien to come," I said.
**He'll stay here, that I promise you!" Chambrun said.
The roof-car phone was ringing when we got back inside. This time Chambrun answered. Dick Berger was calling to s
ay that Mike Maggio wanted to come up and see the Man. He was given the all-clear.
**He's probably coming to tell me Hardy's off his rocker," Chambrun said. "I don't need to be reassured about Maggio."
Mike was off duty, of course, at ten in the morning, but Jerry Dodd had asked him to stay aboard in case extra help was needed. He could be used as a replacement for Bob Ballard on the roof car, 3:00 to 11:00 P.M.
Mike came off the elevator. He was whistling as he crossed the patio to Chambrun's place. Off duty, he was wearing his own style clothes, a short-sleeved plaid sports shirt, blue jeans, sneakers. He was a muscular, well-built young man who looked as if he'd spent a lot of his free time at the beaches. He was mahogany brown.
As I greeted him at the door of Chambrun's place he grinned at me, holding up his hands, palms out, in a gesture of surrender. '*You may search me," he said.
*'Search you?"
'Tor hidden weapons. Have you heard that Mr. C.'s crazy friend downstairs has got me near the top on his list of suspects?"
"Hardy?"
"Or maybe he's picking on me because he doesn't have any suspects, got to make himself look good with his top brass. But Fve got an alibi." Mike laughed. "The girl wasn't raped before she was killed. That clears me." He stopped dead in his track and the look on his face was almost comic. "Oh, Jesus, Mark, Fm sorry. How stupid can I be, saying something like that in front of you? I'm a Uttle sore at Hardy, and I guess I was just trying to laugh it off." He stuck his chin out. "Take a whack at it if you want, pal."
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