Birthday, Deathday

by Hugh Pentecost

  “He’s clearly not Drury,” Chambrun said. “The age is genuine.”

  “He was pretty curious about Li Sung. If he is eyes and ears he could have been pumping you,” I said.

  “I wish I had answers for him,” Chambrun said.

  Jerry Dodd waylaid us on the way to the elevator to report—nothing. “The lady’s gone, like smoke,” he said. “Up the chimney. We’ve checked the cab stands. No driver on either side of the hotel remembers picking her up.”

  “Elevators?” Chambrun asked him.

  Jerry made a wry face. “It was about the change over time to self-service, except on the Trapeze side. There were at least a half dozen cars without an operator that could have been used. You think she could have come back into the hotel without our seeing her? The whole place was alerted, boss.”

  “If she walked around the corner and came straight back in,” Chambrun said. “Mike was only just starting to look for her and not too worried at that point.”

  “And gone where?” Jerry asked.

  “If Drury did get a message to her—God knows where,” Chambrun said. “We’re checking out the four question marks, but Drury could have friends in the hotel.”

  Jerry looked at Peter’s expressionless face. “How about that, Mr. Williams?”

  “Of course there could be someone staying here who is a friend of Neil’s,” he said. “If you went over the guest list with me—”

  “A thousand names!” Jerry said.

  “Hollywood people, theater people,” Peter said. “You could narrow it that much for a start. David Tolliver, Neil’s agent, might be more useful than I—and quicker.” He gestured toward the black goggles.

  “An idea,” Chambrun said. “Get hold of Tolliver, Jerry. Get him over here no matter how he bleats about the time of night. Have a guest list ready for him. Meanwhile we have our own special Hollywood character to see.”

  Sam Schwartz, our Hollywood phony, had a room on the fourth floor, one of our least expensive setups in spite of his “roll that would choke a horse.”

  “Listen carefully to this one,” Chambrun said to Peter on the way up. “This one is reported to be the right height, the right weight, with a scar on his face that could be the result of bungled surgery, or could be clever makeup. This one could be Drury, Peter.”

  I saw a nerve twitch on Peter’s cheek.

  We left the elevator and went down the hall to 419. Chambrun rang the door buzzer. The door was ripped open so quickly it seemed Schwartz had been waiting for us. He faced us, a lithe, well-muscled, dark man, naked except for a pair of shorts. The ugly scar on his left cheek kept one corner of his mouth lifted in a perpetual sneer. God knows he was nothing like the pictures I’d seen of Drury in Tolliver’s office.

  “What the hell do you want?” he asked.

  “I’m Pierre Chambrun. I’m the hotel—”

  “I know who you are,” Schwartz said. He glared at me and at Peter. “Who are your chums?”

  Chambrun introduced us.

  “So what’s the gag?” Schwartz said. “You know what time of night it is? Waking up a guy at one-thirty in the morning!”

  “Quite obviously you weren’t asleep, Mr. Schwartz,” Chambrun said. “You opened the door much too quickly. Were you expecting us?”

  “How the hell could I be expecting you?”

  “I wish I knew,” Chambrun said.

  “So speak your piece and get the hell out of here,” Schwartz said, totally unembarrassed by his nakedness.

  “I want to have a look in your room,” Chambrun said.

  “You got a search warrant?”

  “I don’t need one, Mr. Schwartz. I’m the final authority in the Beaumont. You are my guest. The fact is, there’s been a bomb threat, and we’re checking all the—”

  “You think I’ve got some chick in here?” Schwartz shouted.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll look,” Chambrun said, and moved forward. I thought Schwartz was going to pop him, but he didn’t. He backed into the room with us following him.

  I did my phony search routine. Schwartz’s closet was filled with mod sports clothes. There was nothing of any significance in the bathroom. No booze anywhere. There was a half empty pack of cigarettes on the bedside table, with a butt burning in the ashtray. Schwartz stood with his back to the bureau, as if to protect the key ring, the loose change, and the wad of bills that lay there.

  “Well, Peter?” Chambrun asked.

  Peter shook his head. “No, not this one,” he said.

  “Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Schwartz,” Chambrun said.

  “You may be a lot sorrier in the morning,” Schwartz said. “I’m gonna find out from my lawyer just what your rights are.”

  He slammed the door behind us as we went out into the hall. “He may not be Drury,” Chambrun said, as we headed for the elevator, “but that was quite a performance. Just as sure as God he knew we were coming. Which makes him interesting.”

  We went back to the lobby and located Jerry once more. Chambrun picked up one of the house phones before he spoke to Jerry and talked to Mrs. Kiley, the night supervisor on the switchboard.

  “Room four nineteen, Mrs. Kiley. I want his phone monitored.”

  “Jerry’s had me on that room since earlier today,” Mrs. Kiley said. I could hear her, standing next to Chambrun. “He’s on the phone now.”

  “Inside call?”

  “Outside, Mr. Chambrun. Murray Hill number.” She rattled it off.

  “You’ve got a girl on it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll hang on until she can report to us,” Chambrun said. “Has he had any in-calls?”

  “Just a minute. … Yes, sir. At one seventeen. … Call came from outside. Caller didn’t identify himself. A man. He said: ‘Schwartz? It’s hit the fan!’ … Schwartz said ‘Thank you,’ and that was that.”

  “Thanks. I’ll wait for word on this out-call,” Chambrun said. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “You had Schwartz’s phone covered, Jerry?”

  “Right. And the three other guys we couldn’t check out.”

  “Good man.”

  “The only call to or from any of the rooms was this one about twenty minutes ago. I figure Schwartz for a gambler, maybe horses. Somebody was telling him something went wrong.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m what hit the fan,” Chambrun said. He took his hand from the mouthpiece. “Yes, Mrs. Kiley?”

  “We have a tape of the call for you, Mr. Chambrun. I can give you the gist of it, if you like.”

  “Please.”

  “Four nineteen seems to have been talking to his lawyer, sir. He kept saying, ‘You’re my lawyer, aren’t you?’ He was trying to find out whether you had the right to search his room in the middle of the night, Mr. Chambrun.”

  “Only that?”

  “That’s it—couched in four letter words, sir.”

  Chambrun’s smile was thin. “The lawyer’s opinion?”

  “A suit would cost him too much to make it worthwhile, the lawyer said. The lawyer said you could probably stall him for two or three years before it got to trial.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Kiley.”

  Chambrun put down the phone, frowning.

  “Sounds as though he was really mad,” I said.

  “Or as if he knew his phone was monitored and he had to do something to make us forget the slip he made.”

  “What slip?”

  “For God sake, Mark, he was waiting for us! ‘It’s hit the fan!’ Someone warned him we were coming.” He turned to Jerry. “I want Schwartz covered; his goings, his comings, his phone calls. The slightest thing out of order, shout.”

  “Right,” Jerry said.

  “I’ve got one more to cover; our friend with emphysema,” Chambrun said. “After that I’ll be in my office.”

  James Gregory had a two-room suite on the seventh floor—722. We were in for a surprise when we got there. The door was opened, after a decent interva
l of waiting, by a man who looked as far from being an invalid as anyone you could imagine. He was a tall, dark, athletically built fellow with a deep suntan. His eyes were brown, with little crow’s-feet at the corners that looked as if they’d been etched there by good humor, not worry.

  “Mr. Chambrun!” he said. “You probably don’t know me by sight, but I’ve been a long-time customer of yours.”

  “Dr. Coughlin?” Chambrun asked.

  So here was the plastic surgeon.

  “How nice of you to put two and two together correctly,” Coughlin said. “I suppose Dr. Partridge told you of me. I came into town to a medical dinner and party and thought I’d look in on my patient. Do come in.”

  We trooped in, and Chambrun made the introductions. Coughlin looked at Peter with a sort of professional interest. “Dr. Partridge gave me some information about your problem here, Mr. Chambrun,” he said. “He explained to me why you were interested in Jim—Jim Gregory, my patient. I must say I was surprised to find out how closely you check on your guests. I’d love to see what your file is on me—or would I?”

  “Blue card, top drawer,” Chambrun said. “Well, that’s comforting.”

  “We developed an interest in you, Doctor, because of your specialty.”

  “Plastic surgery? I can understand that since you’re looking for a guy who has apparently had the full treatment. But sit down, gentlemen. Jim doesn’t keep any liquor here. He doesn’t drink. But I can make you some instant coffee in the kitchenette.”

  “No time, thank you, Doctor,” Chambrun said. But he sat down and I guided Peter to a chair. “However, since we’re here, Doctor, perhaps you can give us a little education on your specialty. Could you tell, just looking at a man who was sitting next to you, like me, whether he’d had a job done on his face?”

  “Not if it was a good job,” Coughlin said. “We’re talking about some time after it was done, of course. There’s a difference, though, between plastic surgery done to cover some physical damage, like the results of an accident or a wartime wound, and what we call cosmetic surgery. Where there’s been damage to a face you have to work with what’s there; you may have to restructure difficult skin grafts. Surgery can be noticeable under those conditions, but it’s better than having no nose, or no jaw. But you’re really interested in your man Drury. He’d had no accident as far as you know?”

  “No accident,” Peter said.

  “Well, under those conditions cosmetic surgery is quite another story,” Coughlin said. “I could change your Mr. Drury’s face so that you wouldn’t know him, his wife wouldn’t know him, and another doctor wouldn’t know he’d been worked on, unless he made a close physical examination.”

  “You could be Neil Drury and his girl wouldn’t recognize him?” Chambrun asked.

  Coughlin laughed. “Could be, if I fit other specifications; height, weight, other intimate details. She might know I was a fraud in bed.” He turned serious. “It’s much easier to say who isn’t your Mr. Drury; not tall enough, too old, wrong voice. But, given similar vital statistics, I could fool his mother when I got through with him.”

  “With just small alterations?” Chambrun asked.

  “That’s what most cosmetic surgery is,” the doctor said. “Straightening a nose, flattening out ears, removing some sort of blemish or birthmark. But I could change a patient totally if that’s what’s required; I could make him look like someone else.”

  “But you didn’t,” Chambrun said, casually.

  “Drury?” Coughlin laughed again. “I read about him some years back when his family was exterminated. I suppose I may have seen him in a film. But I never met him; never heard the rumor he’d had his face changed till Dr. Partridge told me. The fact that the FBI, the CIA, his girl, his best friends, and General Chang’s own agents haven’t been able to spot him is a damned good advertisement for some unknown surgeon.”

  “He’d better keep it to himself until this is resolved,” Chambrun said, “or General Chang might burn holes in his feet to get him to tell what Drury looks like now.”

  “It’s a strange world,” Coughlin said, frowning. “We shout our heads off about law and order, and at the same time we go all out to protect General Chang, a murderer.”

  “Rules of the game.”

  Coughlin nodded, slowly. “My job as a doctor is to keep people alive; as a plastic surgeon to make that life more bearable. I suppose if Chang had a bullet in his chest I’d remove it and fight for his recovery. Not very different rules, really.”

  “Your hand could slip and nobody would know.”

  “I’d know,” Coughlin said. “I’d have to live with it.”

  The phone rang on a side table. Coughlin went over to it. “Dr. Coughlin here. … Yes, he is. … Yes, I’ll tell him.” He turned back to us. “Message for you, Mr. Chambrun,” he said. “There’s a Miss Malone waiting to see you in your office.”

  I felt my heart jam against my rib cage. I was on my feet and so were Chambrun and Peter.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Chambrun said. “This is rather urgent.”

  We almost ran for the elevators, Peter hanging tight to my arm. We got off at the second floor and hurried down the hall to Chambrun’s office. Miss Ruysdale was sitting at her desk in the outer office.

  “She inside?” Chambrun asked, not waiting for an answer.

  We barged into his private office.

  It was empty.

  “Where is she, Ruysdale,” Chambrun shouted.

  Miss Ruysdale had followed us, looking puzzled. “Where is who?” she asked.

  “We just had a call saying Laura Malone was here.”

  “She hasn’t been here, Mr. Chambrun. They found her?” Chambrun, his face turned to stone, picked up the phone on his desk. He pressed a button so that his conversation came through the squawk box. We could all hear it.

  “Mrs. Kiley? Chambrun here.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You put a call through for me in seven twenty-two a few minutes ago?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You monitored it?”

  “Yes, sir. If you’ll wait just a second.” Chambrun waited, drumming with the fingers of his left hand on the desk. Mrs. Kiley came back. “Outside phone, sir. Asked for seven twenty-two. We started the tape rolling. You care to hear it?”

  “Please.”

  We could hear the tape start to run and then Coughlin’s voice.

  “Dr. Coughlin here.”

  A man’s voice, strange to me. “Is Mr. Chambrun there?”

  Coughlin: “Yes, he is.”

  Man: “Will you tell him that Miss Malone is waiting for him in his office?”

  Coughlin: “Yes, I’ll tell him.”

  Then came the click of a disconnect

  “That’s it, sir,” Mrs. Kiley said.

  “And it was an outside call?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you recognize the voice, Mrs. Kiley?”

  “No, sir.”

  Chambrun switched off the squawk box and stood there, looking at us.

  “Outside call means what?” Peter asked.

  “ ‘Outside’ means that it was not from one of the rooms or the house phones connected with the switchboard,” I told him.

  “Outside the hotel?”

  “Not necessarily. There are dozens of pay phones in the lobby, the shops, the bars and restaurants. The call can have been made from any one of dozens of places inside the hotel. ‘Outside’ to Mrs. Kiley means a call she can’t check through the switchboard.”

  “But why this false message to you, Mr. Chambrun?” Miss Ruysdale asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “The answer seems clear enough,” Chambrun said. “We were wanted out of seven twenty-two, or off the seventh floor.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s see if we can find out,” Chambrun said.

  CHAPTER 3

  WE WENT DOWN TO the lobby where we added Jerry Dodd to our party. On the way up to seven C
hambrun filled him in.

  “The girl’s room is seven-o-seven,” Jerry reminded us. “Same floor, different corridor.”

  “It was searched,” Chambrun said. “Maggio had the housekeeper search it.”

  “That was an hour ago,” Jerry said. “Maybe somebody wanted to get her back in her room and couldn’t risk it while you were on the floor.”

  It was an idea, but it didn’t check out. Laura’s room was empty. The bed was neatly turned down, as it would have been by the floor maid early in the evening. In the closet were four street dresses, an evening gown, and an evening wrap. There was a faint scent of perfume that made her seem very real to me.

  Her suitcase had been unpacked and rested on a rack to the right of the bureau. The bureau revealed handkerchiefs, some underthings. On the top of it, under the dressing mirror, were some jars; skin cream, makeup of some sort, an eyebrow pencil. There was a little spray thing of perfume, a comb and brush. She had come to stay, unpacked, arranged her things. There was no sign that she’d been back here since she’d joined us in the early evening and then begun patrolling the hotel.

  Around the corner we rang the bell of 722. Dr. Coughlin answered. He looked surprised.

  “Sorry to bother you again, Doctor,” Chambrun said. “But that telephone message you got for me was a phony. There was no one waiting in my office for me.”

  “Oh?”

  “This is Mr. Dodd, my security officer,” Chambrun said, introducing Jerry.

  The doctor nodded. “Come in. I don’t know what I can do to help you, Mr. Chambrun—but come in.”

  The room was just as we’d left it twenty-odd minutes ago.

  “You didn’t by any chance recognize the voice on the telephone, did you, Doctor?” Chambrun asked.

  “A man,” Coughlin said. “Nothing familiar about him. I supposed he was one of your staff. He obviously knew you were here.”

  “There’s only one possible reason for that fake call,” Chambrun said. “Somebody wanted to get me out of this room or off this floor.”

  “Why?”

  “One thought occurs to me,” Chambrun said. “Someone wanted to get to you or to your patient. Has anyone come here since we left? A maid, a waiter, a bellboy—anyone?”

  “Not a soul.”