The door banged shut and I heard the key turn.
I moved away from the wall and taking out my handkerchief I wiped my sweating face. Then I crossed the room and snapped off the radio. The sudden silence in the room was almost as violent as had been the strident jazz.
I was moving towards the door when I heard Dolores, out-side in the passage, suddenly scream out: ‘No! Keep away from me! No… don’t…’
I stood there, my heart beginning to thump. The note in her voice was loaded with terrified panic.
Then she gave a piercing scream that went into me like a knife-thrust. The sound was followed by a scuffling noise and then the sound of a heavy fall.
She screamed again: a scream I still hear from time to time in a nightmare.
Then there was silence.
I stood there, tense, my heart hammering, listening.
I heard the grille of the elevator slam shut and then the creaking noise of its cable told me the elevator was descending.
After a long, tense minute the creaking stopped, and then faintly, three floors below, I heard the grille slam back.
Somewhere on the street a car started up and drove away fast. I still stood there, feeling sweat on my face, listening to the silence that now cloaked the whole of the apartment block, then faintly, I heard a horrible gasping sigh that came from the other side of the door: a sound that turned my blood cold.
CHAPTER TEN
I
As I stood there, staring at the locked door, the telephone bell started into life. Its sudden violent ringing made me start convulsively.
I looked quickly across the room to where the telephone stood on the desk, then, while the bell continued to ring, I tried the handle of the door, but the door was firmly locked on the outside.
It was a solid door, I couldn’t hope to batter it down without making a lot of noise, and besides, it would take some time.
I ran over to the window, pulled aside the curtain and looked down at the street, three storeys below. There was no way out that way.
I went into the bedroom and looked out of the bedroom window: still no way out.
I came out of the bedroom and back into the living-room. The strident sound of the telephone bell, ringing continuously, jarred on my nerves.
Across the room was another door. I opened it and glanced into a kitchen-bathroom. The window, high up, was too small for anything larger than a cat to pass through.
The persistent ringing of the telephone was now more than I could stand, and I went back into the sitting-room and removed the receiver laying it gently on the desk.
As I turned back to the kitchen, I heard a man’s voice come faintly out of the receiver.
‘Dolly! Is that you, Dolly? This is Ed. The goddamn train is leaving in five minutes…’
I ran back into the kitchen and opened a cupboard, hunting for a tool strong enough to break open the door, but I couldn’t find one.
I went back to the locked door. Bending, I peered into the keyhole. The key was still in the lock. I could still hear the faint voice, like a ghost voice, coming from the receiver.
I looked around the room. There was a newspaper on one of the chairs, and I tore off a sheet and slid the sheet under the door. There was a fair-sized gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.
I ran back into the kitchen, my heart thumping with panic and started a frantic search through the drawers in a cabinet. In the fourth drawer I was lucky enough to find a pair of thin pliers. I snatched them up and returned to the living-room. With a little manipulation I managed to force the key out of the lock and I heard it drop on to the sheet of newspaper.
Very gently I began to pull the sheet back under the door and with it the key.
I snatched it up.
As I did so, I heard the telephone click and then the dialling tone start up. I went over to the desk and replaced the receiver, then returned to the door, thrust the key into the lock with a shaking hand and opened the door.
I stepped out into the dimly lit passage.
Dolores was lying face down by the elevator, her grey travelling coat rucked up: her long slim legs sprawled grotesquely in death.
No one could lie like that unless they were dead, and I turned cold at the sight of her.
For a full half-minute I stood in the doorway, looking at her, j then I reached into the sitting-room, turned off the light and closed the door.
Moving slowly, hearing my breath rasping in my throat, I went down the passage to where she lay.
I reached her and bent over her. Her face was turned away from me, but I could see now there was blood in her hair.
Although I knew she must be dead, I had to make sure.
I took hold of her shoulder and pulled her over on to her back.
Someone had hit her a crushing blow on her right temple, smashing her skull. It had been a terrible blow and must have killed her instantly. I shut my eyes while I struggled with my nausea. It took me several seconds to fight off the cold, horrible feeling of sickness and before I could nerve myself to look at her again.
I reached in her coat pocket, but of course the five hundred dollars had gone: gone too was her suitcase.
I straightened. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped my face and wrists, then I moved away from her, thinking, in a grip of panic, that if anyone found me here, they would jump to the conclusion that I had killed her.
With one thought to get out of the building, and get as far away as I could before she was found, I started down the stairs.
I was half-way down the second flight of stairs when I suddenly saw a girl turn the bend in the stairs and come up towards me.
For a split second I stopped, my mind screaming to me to turn around and bolt up the stairs, but somehow I managed to keep control of myself and I went on down.
The stairs were badly lit, but I could see enough of the girl to know her again, and I guess that would go for her too if she ever saw me again.
She was young and blonde with a tired, pale, uninteresting face and heavy smudges under her eyes. Under the black coat that hung open she wore a flowery evening dress you can see in any cheap dress shop on Arcade Street, and there was a limp, red carnation in her hair.
She looked at me as she passed, her eyes indifferent, and she went on up the stairs.
I kept on down.
If she went up to the third floor she would walk right on to Dolores’s body, I thought, and her screams would bring the police before I could get out of the district.
When I reached the turn in the stairs, I started down the rest of the flight at a run.
I reached the hall and crossed to the front door, then I paused to listen.
I heard a door slam somewhere upstairs, but there were no screams. Her apartment must have been on the second floor, I told myself, and I cautiously opened the front door and looked up and down the long, deserted street.
Then, shutting the front door behind me, I walked quickly down the steps and to where I had left the Buick some fifty yards farther down the street.
I got in and fumbled for the ignition key. I felt pretty bad. The shock of finding Dolores now hit me, and for several seconds I had to sit still, my eyes closed, while I fought against the sickness that nearly swamped me.
Then I heard a car coming down the street. The sound pulled me together, and feverishly, I got out the ignition key and sank it into the wheel-lock.
As I started the Buick engine, a taxi passed me, swerved to the kerb and pulled up outside the
Maddox Arms. A man got out, carrying a suitcase. He paid the driver, then ran up the steps and entered the lobby.
I hesitated, watching the taxi drive away.
Was this man Ed who had spoken on the telephone?
I pulled away from the kerb and drove fast down the road, but at the first turning, I braked and swung the car into the side street where there were a number of cars already parked. If this man was Ed, I would be a fool not to get a look at him, I told myself.
I parked the Buick, got out and ran back to the intersection, then I started down Maddox Avenue, walking slowly.
When I was within fifty yards or so of the entrance to the Maddox Arms I stopped, and stepping into the shadows, I waited.
Five or six minutes crawled by, then I saw the man with the suitcase come hurriedly from the apartment block.
I moved out of the shadows and started down the street towards him, walking briskly like a man returning from a late party and anxious to get home.
The man with the suitcase paused as he reached the sidewalk and looked towards me. I saw him give a violent start at the sight of me, then turning quickly, he set off fast down the street.
I kept on behind him, slightly increasing my stride so as not to lose sight of him, but not going so fast that he could think I was following him.
He reached the intersection, looked back at me, and then he turned left.
As soon as he was out of sight, I broke into a run, running on my toes, and I was just able to spot him as he crossed the main street and turned down a dark side street.
As soon as he was out of sight, I ran across the street, then paused at the corner to look cautiously around.
I spotted him heading for a taxi rank where three taxis were in line, and I saw him get into the first taxi that moved off.
I raced down the street, jerked open the door of the second taxi and scrambled in.
‘Follow that taxi,’ I said to the driver. ‘There’s five bucks in it for you if you can keep it in sight. Don’t get too close. I don’t want the fare to know we are following him.’
The driver had the taxi moving before I had shut the cab door.
‘Not much chance he won’t spot us, boss,’ he said. ‘There’s no traffic for us to hide behind. I heard him tell my pal to take him to the Washington Hotel.’
‘He may change his mind.’ said. ‘I don’t want to lose him.’
‘Alf will tell me where he goes,’ the driver said. ‘The best thing is for me to drive straight to the Washington Hotel, otherwise he’s certain to spot us.’
I decided he was probably right.
‘Okay. Get me to the Washington first then.’
‘That’s the boy,’ the driver said approvingly and swung off down a side street and increased his speed. ‘You a private dick?’
‘Yes,’ I said, knowing that if I said no I would have to explain why I wanted to follow the taxi. ‘If I lose this guy, I’ll lose my job.’
‘You won’t lose him, pal,’ the driver said as he flung the cab around a comer so the tyres screamed in protest. ‘You sit tight. I’ll get you there.’
It took us less than five minutes to reach the hotel. The driver stopped his taxi within fifty yards of the entrance and then turned and grinned at me.
‘Well, he hasn’t arrived yet, but he will. Want me to wait?’
‘Yes.’
I took out my cigarettes and offered him one. We both lit up.
I remained in the cab, peering through the windscreen at the hotel entrance.
The Washington was a fourth-rate hotel, used mainly by travelling salesmen visiting Palm City. Its only asset was that it was close to the railroad station.
We waited in silence for five or six minutes, then just as I was beginning to think I had lost my man, I saw the taxi come down the street and pull up outside the hotel.
The man with the suitcase got out, paid the driver and then walked quickly into the hotel.
‘There you are,’ my driver said, turning to grin at me. ‘What did I tell you?’
I gave him five dollars.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and talk to this joker.’
‘Want any help?’
‘That’s okay.’
I got out of the cab, waved to him and then walked to the entrance of the hotel. I climbed the steps and paused just outside the double glass doors leading into the lobby.
The man with the suitcase was talking to the night clerk, an elderly, bald-headed man who was listening to what he was saying with a look of bored indifference on his face.
They stood either side of the reception desk. There was an overhead light that fell directly on the man with the suitcase. I took a good look at him.
He wasn’t the type of man I would expect Dolores to make a journey with. He was short and thickset and nudging sixty. His fleshy face was covered with tiny, broken veins of a heavy drinker. Now I could get a good view of him in the light, I could see his clothes were shabby and looked as if he had had them for a long time. His blue suit was shiny at the elbows; his grey felt hat was dirty and greasy. The only thing new about his attire was his tie: a gaudy thing of pale blue with horses’ heads in yellow.
As he talked to the night clerk, he kept wiping his face with a soiled handkerchief, and even at the distance from where I was standing, I could see he was nervous and upset.
Finally he gave the night clerk some money and the night clerk pushed the register towards him. The man signed the book, took the room key the night clerk dropped on the counter, then, picking up his suitcase, he crossed the lobby and disappeared up a flight of dimly lit stairs.
I stood there hesitating, then I pushed open the double glass doors and walked into the lobby.
II
The night clerk watched me come, his old, jaded face expressionless.
I arrived at the counter and leaned on it. There could be only one way to handle a man like this, I told myself after I had a close-up of him. His threadbare suit and his frayed cuffs told of his poverty. ‘I want information about the man who’s just gone upstairs,’ I said briskly.
Taking out my wallet, I produced a ten-dollar bill, let him get a good look at it before I began to fold it into a neat spill. Then I put it between the first and second knuckles of my left hand so it stuck up like a flag and rested my hand on the counter within three feet of him.
The night clerk’s eyes shifted from me to the folded bill. He began to breathe heavily through his pinched nostrils and his face showed slight animation.
‘We don’t reckon to give information about our clients,’ he said, a hesitant note in his voice. ‘Who might you be, mister?’
‘A man who buys information with a ten-dollar bill,’ I said.
He hunched his shoulders and closed his eyes while he appeared to think. Like that, he reminded me of a scraggy, broody hen. Then he opened his eyes and looked once more at the bill.
‘You’re not a cop,’ he said as if speaking to himself. ‘And you’re not a private dick.’
His jaded eyes shifted from the bill to my face and he searched earnestly for a clue, but it didn’t get him anywhere.
‘Never mind who I am,’ I said. ‘What’s his name?’
His hand that looked as if he had forgotten to wash it for several days, moved timidly towards the bill. I let him get to within a few inches of it, then I moved it out of his reach.
‘What’s his name?’ I repeated.
He sighed.
‘I don’t know. I bet it isn’t what he has written in the book,’ and he pushed the register towards me.
I read: John Turner, San Francisco. The name was written in a tiny, badly formed handwriting.
‘Turner,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘If I had a dollar for every John Turner in this book, I’d be rich enough to quit this lousy job.’
‘Did he say why he was this late and how long he was staying?’
The night clerk hunched his shoulders again.
‘If I held the money, mister, it would help my memory. When you reach my age, you’ll be surprised how bad your memory gets.’
I dropped the bill on the counter.
‘Let it lie there,’ I said. ‘You keep an eye on it.’
He leaned over the bill and breathed gently on it, then he looked up and asked, ‘What was that you wanted to know, mister?’
I repeated the question.
‘He said he had lost the last train out and was catching the first one in the
morning. He has a call in for seven o’clock.’
‘A train to where?’
He shook his head regretfully.
‘He didn’t say. It wouldn’t be Frisco. There isn’t a train to Frisco tomorrow at half past seven. Could be San Diego. The last train to San Diego left at half past two this morning, and the first one out leaves at half past seven.’
I thought for a moment, then asked: ‘What’s his room number?’
The night clerk put his finger on the bill and very slowly, very gently, began to draw it towards him.
‘Room 28,’ he said, ‘but don’t get any wild ideas. No one goes upstairs without they hire a room first.’
‘Room 27 or 29 vacant?’
He looked over his shoulder at the line of keys hanging on the keyboard, then without taking his finger off the bill, he reached out his left hand and took the key of room 29 off its hook.
He laid it down before me, and then with a movement as fast as a lizard nailing a fly, he whipped the ten-dollar bill out of sight.
‘Two bucks for the night,’ he said. ‘It’s not a bad room: anyway, it’s better than his.’
I shelled out the two bucks, then I picked up the key.
‘Just in case I oversleep,’ I said, ‘give me a call at half past six.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Up the stairs, first floor, turn left at the head of the stairs.’
I thanked him, crossed the lobby and climbed the stairs to the first floor.
The passage lights were dim. The carpet I walked on felt paper thin; the doors I passed were shabby and the paint faded. A faint smell of cabbage water, bad plumbing and unwashed bodies hung over the passage. The Washington was obviously not one of the class hotels of Palm City.
As I approached room 27, I stepped lightly and paused outside room 28 to listen. I didn’t hear anything, so I moved on to room 29, slid the key into the lock, turned it gently and eased open the door. I groped for the light switch, found it and turned on the light.
I entered a rabbit hutch of a room, careful to tread softly. I shut the door and then looked around.
There was a bed, a toilet basin, a strip of carpet and two upright chairs. On the wall, over the bed, was an engraving of a woman with wings and a wisp of tulle across her fat behind. She was hammering with clenched fists on an iron-studded door. She probably represented love locked out and if love was anything like her, it was a good thing the door looked so impregnable.
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