She hesitated, then closed the door and walked over to the armchair. She sat down, pulled her skirt over her knees and looked up at me. “I really only wanted you to open my bag,” she said.
“Don’t worry about your bag.” I returned, sitting down again. “I’ll do that after we’ve had a drink. I’ve only been in this town three hours and I’m lonely already.”
“Are you?” She seemed surprised. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d ever be lonely.”
“Only in this town,” I said. “There’s something about it that I don’t like. It isn’t friendly. Haven’t you noticed it?”
She shook her head. “I’ve only just arrived. Shall we introduce ourselves, or would you rather we didn’t?”
“Spewack’s the name,” leaning back and enjoying everything about her. “Marc Spewack. I’m a sleuth.”
“You don’t have to kid me,” she said seriously. “I’ve been around too long for that. Are you selling something?”
I shook my head. “Only my brains,” I said. “They’re fetching high prices in Cranville.”‘ I gave her one of my cards.
She studied it and gave it back. “So you are a sleuth.” She looked at me curiously. It’s funny how dames always look at me like that when they hear what I am. I was getting quite used to it. “I’m Marian French,” she went on. “I sell a snappy line in lingerie.” She made a little face. “The trouble is a town like this thinks snappy lingerie isn’t very nice. I’ll have a lot of opposition.” She touched her hair with long fingers. “But I’m used to opposition by now.”
The negro porter came in with the Scotch and Whiterock. He looked at me and then at Marian French; then he rolled his eyes. I gave him some loose change and got rid of him.
“I haven’t seen anyone in this town so far who looks like a proposition for snappy lingerie,” I said, stripping the tissue paper off the Scotch bottle. “Apart from you,” I added on second thoughts. “How do you like your poison?”
She shook her head. “My mother told me not to drink hard liquor with strangers. I’ll have the Whiterock straight.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
I gave her a half-glass of Whiterock, poured myself a stiff whisky and sat down again.
“Here’s to a lot of luck with your silk glamour,” I said, and put half the whisky away. It tasted good, and it was only after it had hit my belly that I realized how badly I needed it.
“Are you working here or on vacation?” she asked, stretching out her long legs and relaxing in the chair.
“Working,” I told her, thinking it would be nice to have a girl around more often. Only she’d have to be a nice girl like Marian French. I didn’t want the kind of floozy who is easy to get into a bedroom. “Haven’t you heard? Three blondes disappeared from Cranville during the past four weeks. I’ve been hired to find them.”
“That’s easy,” she said. “Why don’t you tell the police? They’ll do all the work and you’ll get the money. I wish I had someone to sell my specialities for me. But I have to do all my own work.”
I finished my drink. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “It’s an idea at that.”
“I’m full of ideas,” she said, a little wearily. “But they don’t get me anywhere. Two years ago I had an idea that I’d get married and raise some children.” She closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the chair. “But it didn’t work out.”
I wondered if she wanted sympathy; then looking at her profile and the firm line of her mouth I decided she didn’t. She was taking the opportunity of letting off a little steam to a guy she had decided she could trust. That was all right with me.
“Never mind,” I said lightly. “You’re not a withered old maid yet. You’ll catch someone.”
She smiled. “I’ve got to unpack,” she said, drawing in her legs and standing up. “This is a record. You’re the first friendly, nice man I’ve met in two years.”
“You haven’t been trying,” I said, getting up too. “Come on, show me your bag. I want to see if I’ve lost my old cunning.”
She wasn’t listening. Her eyes were fixed on the floor by the door with the kind of expression a girl will have when she thinks she’s seen a mouse.
I followed her gaze. A white square envelope was being pushed gently under the door. As I looked at it, it stopped coming further into the room. I took a step towards the door, collided with her, pushed her gently aside and jerked open the door. I looked up and down the long passage, but there was no one around. I picked up the envelope and put it in my pocket.
“Now you see what kind of a hotel this is,” I said carelessly. “They hand you your check before you’ve been here an hour.”
“Are you sure it’s a check?” she asked, a puzzled, curious expression in her eyes.
“Maybe the nigger likes me and wants me to go out with him.” I took her by her elbow and pushed her gently from the room, across the passage and into her room. “You’d be surprised how coy some of these niggers are.”
I opened her bag with a hairpin she lent me. It didn’t take me a minute. “Do you see?” I said, smiling at her. “I’m not called Picklock Harry by my friends for nothing.”
“I thought your name was Marc?” she said.
“So it is, but I don’t tell everyone that.” I went over to the door and opened it. “Suppose you and me get acquainted? How about having dinner with me tonight?”
She looked at me thoughtfully. I could see what was going in her mind.
“Don’t go mixing me up with the local masher,” I said gently. “I don’t have any strings hanging to my invitations.”
She blushed faintly and laughed. “Sorry,” she said quickly, “but I’ve had too many experiences. A girl in my position develops a lot of arm muscles pushing off gentlemen with high blood pressure. I’m feeling a little tired tonight, so I didn’t want anything like that.”
“There’s nothing up my sleeve,” I said. “But skip it if you’d rather.”
“I’d love to,” she returned. “Give me time for a bath. Eight o’clock?”
“Eight o’clock,” I said, and left her.
I went back to my room, took out the envelope from my pocket and opened it. The note inside was typewritten:
You have twelve hours to get out of town. We won’t tell you again. You won’t even know what hit you. It’s not because we don’t like you, we do, but there isn’t enough air in Cranville for us all. So be a wise guy and dust. We’ll fix the funeral if you don’t.
I poured myself out another drink and sat down. The guy who had slipped this under my door must be in one of the rooms either side of mine. He couldn’t have run down the passage and out of sight in the time it had taken me to reach the door.
I stared at the wall opposite me and then at the wall behind me. I wondered which room he was in and whether he was sitting there wondering what I was going to do. The idea gave me a spooky feeling.
I put the letter carefully away, thought for a moment, then went over to the table to write my report to Colonel Forsberg. I had an hour and a half before I saw Marian French again. In that time I had to write to Forsberg, take a bath and decide whether I was going to leave town tomorrow morning or not.
I sat at the table thinking, then I reached for my bag, opened it and took out a black Police .38. I let it lie in my hand while I stared out of the window at the traffic. Then I shoved it down the waistband of my trousers and adjusted my vest points over the butt.
II
“I think,” Marian French said calmly, “we are being followed.”
We had finished dinner and were on our way back to the hotel. A large, sullen-looking moon hung in the cloudless sky and floodlit the street. The night air was stifling and I carried my coat on my arm.