“Yes.”
“What did you see?”
I shook my head.
She got mad then. “Listen,” she said, “you’re either the damnedest fool I’ve ever seen, or the coolest. How did you know I wouldn’t call the cops when you didn’t slip me that two hundred under the table?”
“I didn’t.”
“You’d better get along with me. Do you know what’d happen if I took down that telephone receiver and called the cops? For God’s sake, be your age and snap out of it.”
I tried to blow a smoke ring.
She got to her feet and started toward the telephone. Her lips were clamped tightly, and her eyes were full of fire.
“Go ahead and call them,” I said. “I was getting ready to call them myself.”
“Yes, you were.”
I said, “Of course, I was. Don’t you get the idea?”
“What do you mean?”
“I was sitting in that adjoining room with my eye glued to the hole in the door,” I said. “The murderer had picked the lock about half an hour before I went in. He’d pried the molding loose, fixed the lock, gone back into the room, put the moulding back into place, waited for a propitious moment, then unlocked the door, stepped into the little alcove, and went into the bathroom.”
“That’s what you say.”
“You forget one thing, sister.”
“What’s that?”
“I saw the murderer. I’m the only one who did. I know who it was — Ringold had a talk with the girl. He gave her some papers. She gave him a check. He put it in his right-hand coat pocket. After she went out, he started for the bathroom. I didn’t know this other person was in the bathroom, but I’d found the communicating door was unlocked on my side, and I’d locked it when I bored the hole. The murderer knew Ringold was going to come to the bathroom, and tried to slip back into four-twenty-one. The door was locked. I was in there. The person on the other side of the door was trapped.”
“What did you do?” she asked, barely breathing.
“I was a damned fool,” I said. “I should have taken up the telephone, called the lobby, and told them to block the exit, and telephone for the cops. I was rattled. I didn’t think of it. I twisted the bolt on the communicating door and jerked it open. I followed the murderer out as far as the corridor. I stood in the doorway and looked up and down the corridor. Then I went over to the elevator and got off at the second floor. When the squawk started, I went out.”
“A sweet story,” she said, and then after a moment’s thought added, “By God, it is a sweet story — but you’ll never make the cops believe it.”
I smiled patronisingly at her. “You forget,” I said, “that I saw the murderer.”
Her reaction was as fast as though someone had shot an electric current into the seat of the chair. “Who was it?” she asked.
I laughed at her and blew another smoke ring. Or tried to.
She crossed the room and sat down. She crossed her knees, held the left knee in interlaced fingers. The thing didn’t make sense to her, and she didn’t know what to do about it. She’d look at me, then down at the toe of her shoe. The skirt of her evening gown got in her way. She started to pull it up, then got up, walked into the bedroom, and took it off. She didn’t close the bedroom door. After a minute or two she came out wearing a black velveteen housecoat. She came over again and sat down beside me. “Well,” she said. “I don’t know as it changes the situation a hell of a lot. I need someone to handle the Ashbury angle. You look like a good guy. I don’t know what there is about you that makes me trust you — sight unseen, so to speak. Who are you, anyway? What’s your name?”
I shook my head.
“Listen, you, you’re not going to get out of here until you give me your name, and I mean your name. I’m going to see your driving licence, your identification cards, take your finger-prints — or I’m going over to your apartment, find out where you live, and all about you. So get that straight.”
I pointed to the door. “When I get damn good and ready, I’m going to walk right out of that door.”
“I’ll rat on you.”
“And where will that leave you with your swell shake down with Alta Ashurst?”
“Ashbury,” she said.
“All right, have it your own way.”
She said, “What’s your real moniker?”
“John Smith.”
“You’re a liar.”
I laughed.
She tried a little wheedling. “All right, John.” She twisted around, drew up her knees, and slid over across my lap so she was lying on one elbow, looking alluringly up into my face.
“Listen, John, you’ve got sense. You and I could team up and make something out of this.”
I didn’t look at her eyes. The colour of her hair kept fascinating me.
“Are you in or not?”
“If it’s blackmail, I’m out. That’s out of my line.”
“Phooey,” she said. “I’m going to let you in on the ground floor. Then you and I are going to make some dough.”
“Just what have you got on Alta Ashbury?”
When she opened her mouth, I suddenly put my hand over it. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
She stared at me. “What’s eating you?”
“I’m on the other side of the fence,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Listen, sweetheart, I can’t do it. I’m not that much of a heel. You’re not kidding me a damn bit. You were in on the whole play. Jed Ringold got those checks from Alta Ashbury. He turned them over to you to take up here to the Atlee Amusement Corporation. You gave the boys here a slice, had a little stick to your fingers, turned the rest of it back to Ringold, and Ringold passed it on to the higher ups — or the lower downs whichever you want to call them.
“Now, I’m going to tell you something. You’re done, finished, all washed up. Make a move against Alta Ashbury, and you’ll be on the inside looking out.”
She straightened up and sat looking at me. “Well, of all the damn nuts,” she said.
“All right, sister, I’ve told you.”
“You sure as hell have — you big boob.”
I said, “I’ll have another one of your cigarettes if you don’t mind.”
She gave me the cigarette case and said, “Well, strike me down. If that ain’t something — I guess I’m going nuts. I see you go into a hotel, the cops start looking for you, I run into you, I ditch a date, bring you up here, and spill my guts to you without finding out who the hell you are or anything about it... I suppose you’re a private dick working for Alta Ashbury — no, you’d be more apt to be hired by the old man.”
I lit the cigarette.
“But what’s the idea of being such a dope? Why didn’t you let me go ahead turning myself inside out, pretend you were going to work with me, pump me for information, and then throw the hooks into me?”
I looked at her and said, “Kid, I’ll be damned if I know,” and it was the truth.
She said, “You could still be the one who bumped Jed Ringold.”
“I could be.”
“I could put you in a spot on that.”
“Think so?”
“I know so.”
I said, “There’s the telephone.”
Her eyes narrowed. She said, “And then you could drag me into it, show perhaps that my motives weren’t so pure, and — oh, hell, what’s the use?”
“What do we do next?” I asked.
“We have a damn good stiff drink. When I think of what you could have done to me and didn’t— Dammit, I just can’t figure you. You aren’t dumb. You’re smarter than greased chain lightning. You figured the play and called the signals, and then when I was rushing into the trap, you turned me back. Well, we live and learn. What do you want in your Scotch? Soda or water?”