He took the gun from his waistband and the silencer from his pocket, fitted the silencer to the muzzle, and went softly and quickly up the steep stairs. Outside the door of 101 he released the safety of the Colt.
He turned slightly to the right so that the hand with the gun would be away from the door. Then he raised his left hand and rapped, not loudly, not softly, on the worn much-painted panel.
There was the slightest pause, as if the occupant of the room were puzzled.
Then the door opened.
And there stood Kurt Gresham, wide open to eternity.
Dr. Harrison Brown raised his right hand.
The little red mouth in the big round pink face made a little red hole as the colorless eyes went from Harry’s face to the gun with the silencer in Harry’s gloved right hand.
Then Kurt Gresham slowly fell back, and Harry followed, pushing the door gently to behind him with his left hand; the door clicked, and they stood there, eye to eye, in a dreadful silence.
Harry raised the revolver, elbow loose, grip firm.
He saw the jowls shake suddenly. He saw the little bit of pink tongue flick out and back from the dry lips. He saw the colorless eyes take on a jelly-like look.
And he told his trigger finger to squeeze.
And it would not squeeze.
It would not.
It would not.
Kurt Gresham took the gun from him and, grabbing his lapels with one surprisingly strong hand, swung him about and pushed him. He fell back into an overstuffed chair.
Gresham was saying, “Idiot. Fall guy. Sucker. Weak sister,” over and over in a soft vicious voice. And all of a sudden somebody’s fist crashed on the door panel outside and the knob began to turn. As it began to turn, the millionaire darted to the bed and shoved the gun under the pillow and was halfway back to the door when it burst open.
A giant of a man with a broken nose was in the doorway pointing a big black automatic pistol.
Twenty-Two
Through Dr. Harry Brown’s vacant head ran the clear, cold, futile thought, He’s surprised. Whoever the man is, he expected anything but the hotel guest on his feet with an inquiring look and a visitor sitting in an armchair.
“Mr. Curtis,” the giant said. He had a bass voice, rusty-sounding as if from disuse. “Everything all right?”
“All right?” repeated Kurt Gresham. “Why, certainly, Mr. O’Brien. Come in.”
The giant stepped further into the room and the millionaire reached around him and shut the door.
“Why the pistol, Mr. O’Brien?” Gresham said. “Would you mind putting it away? I have a weak heart.”
The giant looked foolish. Harry thought, He’s a wrestler, or an old-time fighter. The broken nose, the impossible spread of shoulder, the stupid little pig-eyes under the lumpy ridges of bone, the gorilla’s jaw...
“Oh, Doctor,” said Kurt Gresham. “This is Mr. O’Brien, the Starhurst’s house detective. My doctor, Dr. Brown.”
“Your doctor?” O’Brien said. He breathed noisily through the broken nose. “Well, how do, Doc.”
Harry nodded.
“What happened, Mr. O’Brien?” the millionaire asked, frowning.
“I dunno,” the house detective growled. “Somebody’s idea of a joke, I guess, Mr. Curtis. I got a call in my office. Some dame talking fast and hysterical-like, said she heard shooting in Suite 101. She hung up before I could ask her who she was or what room she was calling from. I had no time to check.”
“What time did she call?” murmured Gresham.
“Five minutes to seven on the nose — you know, Mr. Curtis, I got that wall clock right facing my desk in my office? — and I guess I made it up here in ninety seconds flat — took me only a few seconds to arrange to stop the elevators and seal off the exits.”
“That was quick work,” the millionaire said. “It makes me feel a lot safer, knowing there’s a man like you on duty around here. I’ll see you won’t regret it, even though it was a hoax of some sort. Let’s say a Christmas present?”
“Thanks, Mr. Curtis,” said the giant bashfully. “It’s a fact that if this’d been a real shooting, the guy would be sewed up tighter than a drum. I’d have got him hands down... Well, excuse the interruption, gents. I got to go get the elevators started again and the boys off the doors.”
There was a rap on the door just as the house detective put his enormous hand on the knob. O’Brien glanced at Gresham, and the millionaire nodded.
“I’m expecting somebody, Mr. O’Brien. It’s all right.”
O’Brien opened the door. A tall conservatively dressed man stood outside. He was carrying a brief case. The man’s eyes flickered at sight of O’Brien.
Harry automatically glanced at his wristwatch. He stared and stared at it. It wasn’t possible. The hands stood precisely at seven o’clock. Only five minutes had passed since he had come through the revolving door downstairs.
“If it’s inconvenient for you, Mr. Curtis...” the man with the brief case said. He had a neutral sort of voice, a voice to forget.
“No, no, come in. Mr. O’Brien is just leaving.” Kurt Gresham waved warmly to the house detective as the giant stepped out of the room, simultaneously giving the tall man a curt nod.
The man stepped in, shutting the door. He held onto the brief case. He glanced without expression at Harry. He said nothing more.
Gresham took the brief case from him and laid it on the bed. He went into the bathroom, came out with a brief case that was the identical twin of the one on the bed, handed it to the tall man.
“That’s all for today, Monte,” the millionaire said in his ordinary precise voice. “We’ll defer the accounting to another time. By the way, this place is finished as of tonight. I’ll let you know the new place and schedule over the weekend.” Gresham opened the door, and smiled. “Pleasant trip.”
The tall man went out without a word.
Twenty-Three
Kurt Gresham locked and latched the door and when he turned around he was still smiling. “Alone at last,” he said.
Harry Brown said nothing.
Gresham heaved off the bed, refilled their glasses looking down at him and Harry did not even look up. Dimly he heard the prissy voice say, “Would you care to wash, Doctor, as we well-bred people like to put it? I don’t have to tell my personal physician what an experience like this does to a man’s bladder. No? Well, mine isn’t as young and vigorous as yours. Excuse me.”
The fat old man went into the bathroom and shut the door.
Harry Brown heard the toilet flush after a while. Then he heard the sound of tap water running. Then the sounds of sloshing and of hearty gargling. This went on for some time.
He heard the sounds and they filled his head to the brim, leaving no space for anything else. Thoughts simply were not there. Vaguely, through the sounds, he knew that a great deal, of great significance, had happened in the past few minutes, but just what it was, what it signified, what position it left him in, he was unable to grasp and retain. It was as if he had been stricken with paralysis — mental and physical. He could not have pulled himself up from the overstuffed chair and gone over to the bed to reclaim the revolver under the pillow and unlock the door and walk out of the room if his life had depended on this simple series of actions. And for all he knew, his life did depend on it.