I’ll give her credit. There was no scream, no gasp, just a calm «What is your room number, please?»
«Room 1511,» I said.
«One moment,» she said. It really was a moment, too. She must have sent out a signal that precluded fooling around.
A male voice in my ear said, «Jonathan Turbeville, Assistant Manager, here. What is the problem, please?»
I said, «This is Room 1511 and the problem is that there is a dead man in the bathroom.»
The name of the person registered to that room must have been passed to him by then, for he said, «Is this Giles Devore speaking?»
«No, sir,» I said. «Giles Devore will never speak again. He’s the dead man.»
He didn’t ask any more questions. He said, «Please stay right where you are, sir. There’ll be a man with you in less than five minutes.»
I hung up and waited. I was back to thinking hard.
8 MICHAEL STRONG 1:40 P.M.
It was indeed less than five minutes before someone answered. It was less than twenty seconds.
When there came a knock on the door, I didn’t for one moment believe it had any connection with my call. I assumed it was someone for Giles. If a voice other than that of Giles, my own voice, had called out for identification through a closed door, the owner of that knock might have departed.
I wanted to see who it was, so I just threw the door open as quickly as I could get to it.
A man stepped through and said in accents of purest astonishment, «Mr. Just!»
I stared at him, nonplussed, and then remembered. It was the guard at the door of the exhibitors’ room. We had talked yesterday afternoon and I remembered his name, Michael Strong. I even remembered his middle initial was P.
I said ungraciously, «How did you get here so quickly?» I didn’t bother identifying myself. He knew me and I was still wearing my badge.
«Walkie-talkie,» he said, indicating something suspended from his belt. «I was closest. You say there’s a dead man here?»
«In the bathroom,» I said, and followed him.
Strong might have been a member of Hotel Security, but that did not mean he was used to bodies. Petty pilfering by the maids and guests who had locked themselves out of their rooms were much more his speed, no doubt.
He staggered a bit when he opened the bathroom door and looked inside. I was rather glad. I was conscious of the fact that I had not handled myself too well on seeing the body and I didn’t want him to shame me by doing better. He didn’t. Considering that he had been warned there was a dead body in the bathroom, he did poorly indeed.
He came out, pale, his face contorted, and said, «He’s still a little warm, but he’s dead all right.» He swallowed with an audible noise. «I guess he won’t write—» And he ran down.
I remembered. He was a fan of Giles’s; he had been planning for his autograph. Perhaps he had obtained it. I removed some of the self-serving scorn I had pumped up for him. If I had remembered, I would have broken the news to him.
Strong cleared his throat and tried to regain his professional aplomb. He said, «It looks to me like he finished his shower, then he slipped and fell. He grabbed the curtain, tore it down, hit his head against the faucets, and was killed. Right?»
I shrugged. I didn’t for a minute believe that had happened, but I just said, «I wasn’t here.»
«You mean you came after he was dead?»
«That’s right.»
Strong looked at me in puzzlement. «How did you get in, then? Did he leave the door open while he was taking a shower?»
«I had a key,» I said. «There it is.» And I pointed to it on the bureau.
«How did you get a key?»
«Mr. Devore gave it to me. We’re friends. After all, you told me yourself he was my protege.» I pronounced it correctly without thinking and hoped, too late, that he would understand.
I suppose he did, but he went off on a new tangent. He said, «How do you mean, friends?»
My lips twitched and I tried to hold down the anger.
I suppose it was a legitimate thought. «Friends,» I said, «in the dictionary definition. I’m heterosexual.»
«What?»
«I’m straight,» I said, raising my voice. «I like girls. Understand?»
«Yes. But how come you got a key?»
«I had to get something for him and I just brought it up. It’s there on the bureau next to the key.»
There was another knock at this point, a good loud one. I started for the door, but Strong motioned me away. He opened the door a bit, looked through, and said, «Hello, Mr. Marsogliani,» as he opened it wide.
9 ANTHONY MARSOGLIANI 1:50 P.M.
A large, stout man entered. He was a little taller than Strong and a little wider. He had a considerable paunch, a large nose, and a dark stubble against his red face. He carried a half-gone cigar which wasn’t lit but which smelled very bad anyway.
He said, in a rolling bass-baritone, «Where’s the body, Strong?»
Strong jerked his thumb over his shoulder. «In the bathroom, boss.»
Marsogliani (I eventually got to know how his name was spelled) vanished into the bathroom, emerged after half a minute, and said to me, «You the guy who reported the body?»
«I’m the guy,» I said.
He looked about the room with what seemed to me to be a practiced eye. His glance fell on the armchair with the clothes on it and it seemed to me he was going to walk in that direction.
«Don’t touch anything,» I said hastily.
He turned his head slowly and put his cold eye on me.
«I’m not going to touch anything. I’m going to call the police.» Having taken the cigar out of his mouth to say that, he now put it back.
I said, «Good. Call the police. Tell them there’s a murdered man here.»
I’d been thinking murder from the minute I had found the body and I had wondered if I could bring myself to say the word. Now I had said it, and without any trouble.
«Murdered?» Marsogliani, who had edged toward the phone, stopped, turned, and looked at me dispassionately.
His appearance, his undistinguished brown suit, complete with vest, his dead cigar, had all served to give rise in my mind to the stereotype of the «dumb lawman.» His eyes didn’t fit the stereotype.
He said, unperturbed, «You killed him?»
«No. I found him exactly the way you see him now. But he didn’t die in the tub. He died with his clothes on. It’s a frame.»
Strong looked as though he were going to jump out of his skin in surprise when I said that, but his boss never turned a hair. «How do you figure that out?»
I said, «I knew the murdered man, Giles Devore, well. I roomed with him for a period of time. I’ve been in the rooms when he was taking a shower or getting undressed maybe fifty times. He folds his clothes. He hangs them up. He blows into his socks and flattens them out. He never throws them around like this. When I came in and saw this I thought I was in the wrong room.»
«But the clothes are messed up. How do you account for it?»
«He was killed. I don’t know why. The murderer stripped him, then threw the clothes around, thinking that would make it look as though Giles were taking a shower—»
«The murderer wasn’t somebody who knew the man’s habits, then?»
«No, he wasn’t,» I said. «Then he dragged him into the bathroom—»
Marsogliani took up the reconstruction: «—draped him carefully with his head against the faucets, soaped him a bit, rinsed him off, pulled down the curtain, and left.»
«Yes,» I said.
«And all because his clothes are scattered.»