I signed the letter with the initials “L. N. M.” and placed it in the side pocket of a sports coat I packed in the trunk.
After I’d closed the trunk, I packed a suitcase and a handbag, taking everything I’d need to keep me going for a week. Then I drove back to the Breeze-Mount Apartments and lugged the suitcase and handbag into the elevator.
Elsie had gone through the wastebasket and had a few crumpled papers smoothed out on the desk.
“Find anything?” I asked.
“There are some telephone numbers on these pieces of paper,” she said. “One of them, I think, is a San Francisco number.”
“That’s fine,” I said.
I copied the numbers into my notebook. “Anything else?”
“Rancid cosmetics, ends of lipsticks, various and sundry articles of female litter,” she said, “and that’s about it.”
“Okay,” I said. “The landlady’s trying to get hold of the maid so you can have the place cleaned up. Call a taxicab. When the cab comes, go to your apartment, pack up a suitcase with whatever you’ll need for two days and hurry back.”
She started to say something, then changed her mind, went to the closet and put on her coat.
“Give me the key,” I said. “You can close the door when you go out.”
“What will I do when I come back?”
“If I’m not here the key will be at the desk,” I told her.
I hurried down to the car, drove it into the driveway, unlocked the new padlock on the garage and took the trunk which was in the center of the floor and moved it far back into the shadows. Then I backed my car halfway into the garage, opened the back, rustled out my trunk and left it right in the middle of the floor where the other trunk had been. Then I drove the car out of the garage, locked the garage with the new padlock, parked my car near the curb and went back up to the apartment.
“Okay, Elsie,” I said, “you can leave as soon as the cab comes.”
“I’ll have to stop by a supermarket and grab some groceries,” she said.
“Sure thing,” I told her. “Get some coffee, cream, sugar, eggs, salt, bread, bacon — stuff of that sort — and get the place provisioned up. The manager may start checking. Get the taxi driver to carry your stuff to the elevator. If I’m here I’ll come and carry it in the rest of the way. Otherwise, you’ll have to rustle it in by yourself.”
“If you’re not here, will you get in touch with me and let me know where you are?”
I took down the number of the telephone and said, “Sure. I’ll be in touch with you. Now, you go ahead and get your stuff.”
The manager phoned to say the cab had arrived.
“Well,” Elsie said, putting on her coat, “as a dutiful wife, I’ll follow instructions. I hadn’t imagined being married to you would be like this, Donald. I’ll be back as fast as I can make it.”
After Elsie had left I sat there hoping the phone wouldn’t ring. I knew that if it did ring I’d have to let it ring. If a man’s voice answered, it would frighten away the quarry. On the other hand, if no one answered the phone, the call would be repeated later. But the manager of the apartment knew I was in. According to my plans she had to know I was there.
I pulled up a chair by the window, propped my feet on another chair and went over the sequence of events in my mind.
The telephone started to ring. I let it ring. It seemed an interminable time before the bell ceased making noise.
I got up and began pacing the floor, impatient with myself for letting Elsie go, yet realizing there was nothing else I could have done under the circumstances.
After fifteen or twenty minutes the telephone rang again and this time it continued to ring and ring and ring. I finally walked over, picked up the phone and said, “What number are you calling, please?”
“For heaven sakes, where have you been?” Mrs. Charlotte said. “I knew you were up there. I—”
“I couldn’t come to the phone right away,” I said. “What’s the trouble?”
“A man is here who wants to get into the garage,” she said. “He is instructed to pick up a trunk.”
“He got a letter to that effect?” I asked.
“He has the key to the garage; that is, the key to the old lock. Evelyn Ellis gave it to him. He tried to get in and found that the lock had been changed. You told me you were going to change it but you didn’t tell me you had changed it. I don’t have a key.”
I said, “I’ll be right down and let him in. I’m sorry.”
“I can come up and get the key. I just wanted to be sure—”
“No,” I said, “I’ll come down and open it for him. What does he want to take out?”
“It seems that Miss Ellis, the former tenant, left a trunk there and she sent him to pick up the trunk. That’s all he wants.”
“Oh, well,” I said, “if that’s the case, come up in the elevator and I’ll give you your key and then you can let him in.”
I walked down to the elevator and waited until Mrs. Charlotte came up.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have left you the key when I changed the padlocks.”
“You should have,” she snapped. “This is rather inconvenient all around.”
“I’m sorry.”
I handed her the key to the padlock.
She went down in the elevator.
I hurried down the stairs and stood where I could see the desk.
The man who was standing, talking with her, was the man whose photograph Hazel Downer had given me. He seemed exceedingly nervous.
Mrs. Charlotte walked out to the garage with him to unlock the padlock.
I slipped into the lobby, tossed the key to the apartment on her desk, then sprinted out to the agency car, started the motor and waited.
Mrs. Charlotte escorted the guy across to the garage and opened the door. He thanked her, stepped inside, looked around, walked back to the street, got into a big sedan and backed the sedan in the driveway until the rear of the car was just inside the garage. Then he got out and opened the trunk of the car and put my trunk, which I had left standing invitingly in the center of the floor, into the car. The lid of the car trunk wouldn’t go all the way down but he tied it with rope so it wouldn’t fly up. Then he drove out of the driveway and I swung in behind him long enough to get a good look at his license number. It was NYB 241.
After that, I dropped quite a ways behind and didn’t crowd him until we got into traffic heavy enough so that he wouldn’t notice I was following.
He drove to the Union Depot, parked the car long enough to get a porter to unload the trunk, then drove on to a parking space. I parked my car, drove back and saw him buy a ticket on the Lark to San Francisco. He came out, picked up the porter, went to the baggage room and checked the trunk.
I drove back to the apartment house, opened the garage padlock with my key, backed the agency car in and picked up the trunk I had moved back into the dark corner of the garage. I made time down to the Union Station, bought a ticket on the Lark to San Francisco and checked the trunk. Then I parked my car in the depot garage and called the apartment.
Elsie answered. Her voice sounded thin and a little frightened.
“What’s new?” I asked.
“Oh, Donald,” she said. “I’m so glad you called. I’m scared.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Some man called. He didn’t ask who I was or anything. He simply said, ‘Tell Standley he has until tomorrow morning to get me that ten grand. Otherwise, it’s just too bad.’
“I tried to ask who was talking but the party at the other end of the line just hung up.”
I said, “Now look, Elsie, don’t get frightened. You’re all right. Sit tight. Answer the telephone. Don’t tell anybody that you’re Evelyn Ellis. Simply say that you will try to get a message to Miss Ellis. If anyone starts pinning you down, tell them that you are the party that moved into the apartment after Evelyn Ellis moved out, but that you have reason to believe she’s coming back to pick up messages. If they ask what your name is, act as if they’re trying to flirt and tell them that that isn’t important. Don’t tell anyone any more that you’re a friend of Evelyn Ellis or that you know her. Get what information you can, but if it comes to a showdown, simply say that you’re the new tenant. And if anybody gets rough, tell them that they’d better talk with Mrs. Charlotte, the manager.”