The Peloine entrance was on a corner of the building, wide double doors standing invitingly open at the top of stone steps. A small foyer was lighted by a naked bulb in the ceiling. He found Margo Macon’s name over the mailbox numbered 303, and pressed the button. He waited a moment, wiping sweat from his face, then held the button down with a knobby forefinger for a long interval.
After another short wait, he deliberately pressed the button of apartment 301, under the name of Madame Le-grand, and started up the stairs, pounding his heels loudly on the worn carpeting.
A middle-aged woman confronted him in an open doorway as he reached the third floor. Her untidy black hair was shot with strands of white and she wore an exotic negligee which was grossly inept on her hard, thin body and accentuated her sharp features with snapping black eyes. She looked at Shayne with anger and suspicion and demanded, “What reason have you for ringing my bell at this time of the night?” She spoke with a pronounced accent and a nasal twang.
Shayne grinned. “I wasn’t ringing your bell.”
“You certainly—”
“I’ve been trying to get an answer from Miss Macon in three-oh-three. I have a date with her. I’m a little late and thought she might have fallen asleep,” Shayne explained.
“There has been enough bell ringing to wake up the dead,” the woman snapped. “It’s quite evident she doesn’t want to see you. If you are forcing yourself upon her—” She left an unfinished threat hanging in the air.
“She said she’d wait up for me,” Shayne persisted. “She knew I couldn’t get here until quite late.”
“I think you lie,” she said flatly. “Miss Macon had two girls for dinner, and she has already had one date since they left. This is a respectable house, young man, and I intend to report—”
“You say she has had a caller since her dinner guests left?” Shayne interrupted angrily. “A man?”
Her black eyes shifted away from his hard gaze. She wriggled her pointed nose. “It isn’t for me to say,” she began weakly, and started to back away.
Shayne caught her bony arms and said harshly, “You’ve intimated that Miss Macon hasn’t been acting in accordance with the rules of a respectable house. What are you hinting at?”
She lifted her chin and answered in a spiteful tone, “I am a respectable woman who works hard all day and need my sleep at night. Such things that go on — men coming and going the back way. With my apartment next door I can’t help seeing what happens.”
Shayne held her arm, pulling her with him to Barbara Little’s door. He knocked loudly, and while he waited, asked, “The back way, you say! On the third floor? What are you hinting at?”
“It isn’t a hint. With my own eyes I saw the man leap from her balcony to the hotel balcony opposite. And now you come—”
“And wake you up ringing her bell,” Shayne interrupted. He let go of her arm and rattled the knob, calling, “Margo! Wake up. It’s Mike.”
“See,” said the woman. “She pretends to be out to avoid you. If you are a gentleman you’ll go away.”
“You don’t understand,” Shayne told her wearily. “It’s important that I see—” He was rattling the knob again. It turned and the door opened. He shoved it wide, saying, “There’s something strange here. She was expecting me.” He reached inside and found a wall switch, flooded the room with light and exclaimed, “My God!”
The woman pushed past him, screamed, and swayed back, crying wildly, “Mon Dieu! It is she! The blood — murdered! La pauvre enfant!”
Shayne said grimly, “It’s murder, all right.” He went directly to the telephone and called police headquarters. He reported, “There’s a dead woman at number three-oh-three Peloine Apartments.”
The woman was jabbering hysterically, “Mon Dieu — de penser que je dormais so pres d’elle pendent qu’on la tuait!” She waved her arms wildly, sank into a chair, and buried her face in her hands.
“What are you saying?” Shayne demanded. “What do you know about this?”
“Forgive me,” she said meekly, “I was only saying that it is oh! so horrible that I slept next door while it happened. If only I had called the police when I saw the man—” She shuddered violently.
“The man who jumped from her balcony to the hotel?”
“Yes. I saw him clearly. Mon Dieu! Forgive me for the bad thoughts I had about Miss Macon. But how could I guess? In these days one does not know what to think or do.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Half an hour — an hour ago.” She shook her head despairingly. “If I had but known,” she moaned. She pulled herself up from the chair and straightened her shoulders as though shock and grief had suddenly been whipped from her. She moved resolutely to the table and started to stack the dinner dishes.
“Don’t touch anything,” Shayne said sharply. “The police will want everything left as it was — for fingerprints and such.”
“But these dishes,” she protested, “can have nothing to tell the police. It is my duty to clear the table. They are from dinner which I cooked and served with my own hands.”
“You’ll have to wait until the police have come and gone. You say you served the dinner here tonight?”
“Yes. It is my living — catering with my most excellent French cuisine. Miss Macon, poor child, was not good with cooking.”
Shayne said, “Come sit down. Who did you serve here? Tell me what happened this evening.”
She sat stiffly upright in a chair and Shayne sat opposite her. She said, “I know nothing. The dinner was very informal, as you see. Three girls only. Miss Macon dismissed me after the serving. In my room I heard her guests leave and I came to inquire whether I might clear away the dishes. She said, no, that she expected another visitor soon. So I retired and was wakened by some sound. I got up and looked to see a man going from her balcony to the hotel. I thought it a clandestine assignation and made no report. I was on the verge of sleep again when your ringing wakened me,” she ended in a resentful tone.
“The girls — Miss Macon’s guests — do you know them? Know where they live?” Shayne persisted.
“I do not think I should answer more questions from you. To the police I will tell everything. I will be in my room when they come.” Madame Legrand started to get up from the chair.
Shayne said, “No. You must stay until the police come. They will want you to verify my story. It won’t be very long now.”
As he stopped speaking the scream of a siren swelled and faded to a low moan in Dumaine Street. Shayne lit a cigarette and stepped back unobtrusively into a corner as feet pounded up the stairs and Captain Denton bustled in through the open door.
Chapter six
The precinct captain was followed by Sergeant Parks and a burly officer whom Shayne had not seen before. None of the three men noticed Shayne in his corner. Denton walked to the murdered girl and stood over her. He grunted, “She’s plenty dead. Call Doc Matteson, Parks — and tell Homicide to get on the job.” Captain Denton turned to the Frenchwoman as Parks went to the telephone. “Who are you? Did you phone in the report? What do you know about it?”
“I am Madame Legrand,” she answered, “and I know nothing. He called the police.” She nodded toward Shayne.
Denton turned slowly. He reached into his breast pocket for a cigar, bit off the end, and savagely spat a fragment of tobacco on the floor.
He said, “I might have known you’d be mixed up in this.”
Shayne shrugged and said, “I always like to get in on the ground floor.”
“Why did you bop her?” snarled Denton. “That the only way you can handle a dame in the Quarter?”