Sarah took the seat behind her desk, placing three feet of steel between us. She said, «I haven’t lied to you. He did make it clear that he was furious with you and there was unpleasantness at the session, and I had apologized to Asimov and had also found out who you were. I came to warn you of Mr. Devore’s fury and that was it.»
«I have no quarrel with that, but you didn’t tell me the whole truth, did you? You didn’t say you had been with him before the autographing session.» I paused a moment, then decided to say it. «Or, possibly, the whole previous night as well.»
I was prepared for a storm, but she only reddened a bit, and clasped her hands tightly together so that the knuckles whitened as they interlaced on her desk.
«If I had,» she said, «then it would be no business of yours, but, as it happens, I hadn’t. I was at home that night, in my own bed and alone. If you don’t believe that, there’s no need for you to sit here asking me any more questions.»
«But if there was nothing to hide, why not tell me you had been with Devore before the autographing session?»
«Why on earth should I tell you? I told you all I felt it was appropriate for you to know. I didn’t know the man was dead at the time and that you suspected murder later on. And if I had known, there was still no reason to tell you, since you aren’t the police. You still aren’t, right now, and I don’t have to tell you anything.»
I said, «No, I’m not the police. Still, if you’re worried over my getting into trouble over this matter of drugs, then don’t mislead me and let me run the chance of getting into trouble through ignorance or misapprehension.»
«The death of Devore can’t have anything to do with drugs.»
«I don’t accept that, but if there’s anything you can tell me that will show that you’re right, I will change my mind. So please tell me. Tell me everything that happened from the moment you saw him yesterday morning.»
She stirred uneasily in her chair. She said, «All right. This is how it went. About nine a.m. yesterday, not long after I got to work—»
«By the way,» I said, «how is it you were working Memorial Day?»
«I’ve told you, haven’t I? We’ve got a major advertising campaign coming up and the art department has flubbed it, so I’ve been here all weekend and so have they.»
«And the security chief, what’s-his-name—Marsogliani. He was here, too. Is he involved in the advertising campaign also?»
«No, he’s not,» she said, with just a touch of acid, «but he’s always here when there’s a major convention at the hotel. Why? Do you think we all got here on an off day to work out a conspiracy against your friend?»
I felt a little foolish under the lash of her contempt and said, «No, I’m just trying to ask all the questions I can think of.» I added, humbly, «I’m not very good at it.»
She was mollified. «All right. But don’t worry about us. We make up any off days we lose.»
«Well, then, what happened at nine A.M. not long after you got to work?»
«I got word from the desk that there were peculiar phone calls arriving from Room 1511.»
«Why did they report that to you? Why not to Marsogliani?»
«Marsogliani hadn’t arrived yet, and in any case minor troubles come to me occasionally. I have a perhaps exaggerated reputation in the hotel as a fix-it of miscellaneous mix-ups.»
«Well, what did you do?»
«I checked on the occupant of the room and it was Giles Devore. That concerned me because he was a VIP at this convention and if something was wrong with him, it might mean unpleasant publicity. I decided to go up to the fifteenth floor.»
«What were the phone calls about?» I asked, without the slightest doubt as to what they were about.
«The desk clerk who had received the calls wasn’t sure. He said they were garbled and incomprehensible and, at one point, it sounded as though he were weeping. The clerk suggested that I call a doctor.»
«Maybe you should have.»
«Not at all. If a resident at the hotel wants a doctor, that’s one thing. You can’t force a doctor on him, however, without his consent, unless you have reason to think he is in no position to give consent. I went up to check.
«He answered the door, fully dressed, but with his hair grotesquely uncombed and with an oddly feverish look in his eye. The room was in complete disarray. He said, ‘Are you the cloakroom woman?’ I told him who I was and he said, ‘Please come in and help me.’»
«I went in. I was upset at his obvious misery. I’ve read his book, you know, and I admired it; and here was the author—»
«Yes, yes,» I said. «What happened after you went in?»
She said, «He sat down on the bed with his face all twisted as though he were on the point of crying. He said, ‘I’ve looked all over. It isn’t here.’ I said, ‘What isn’t here?’ He said, ‘The package. It’s not here. It was supposed to be here last night but I forgot. I was busy.’»
I seized upon that. «He was busy. Did he say with what?»
Sarah shook her head. «I can’t repeat what he said exactly. It was all very confused and repetitious and it’s not as though I had a tape recorder there.»
«Tell me what you can.»
«I’ll give you the impression I gathered. He had come to his room fairly late the night before from some television taping session and he hadn’t been entirely well. There was a woman with him and he had needed help badly, but she was a bad woman—»
«A bad woman?»
«That’s what he said, over and over.»
«He didn’t name her?»
«No, he didn’t. And I didn’t ask.»
«No, of course not. Please go on.»
She said, «He had needed help, and she wouldn’t help, or not enough, even though he had begged and pleaded, and when I asked, in what I hope was a cool and businesslike voice, if he wanted a doctor, he said no, very emphatically. He then went on to explain, quite repetitiously, that he had needed help and she wouldn’t help him. He was very sorry for himself, almost disgustingly so. He was destroying my respect for him and I was embarrassed to be there.»
I said, «Was it your impression that he was under the influence of drugs?»
«The thought didn’t occur to me, but if it had, how could I have possibly been able to tell?» She hesitated for quite a while, and since it seemed to me she was trying to say something, I kept quiet and let her struggle.
Finally she said, «I shouldn’t tell you this, It’s confidential. The autopsy has been performed and Security received a copy a couple of hours ago. I saw it—and there are no signs that he had been taking drugs.»
I was glad to hear that. «Then that’s one thing we can eliminate.»
«As I told you, drugs had nothing to do with Mr. Devore’s death.»
«Yes, but you didn’t tell me why. At that, though, he didn’t have to be an addict. Drugs could have been involved in his death if he were a pusher.»
She grimaced. «Do you think he was a pusher, that poor, flabby little boy?»
«Little boy! He was a hulk!»
«What’s that got to do with it? Little boys come in all sizes. I could see him as an addict, but not as a pusher.»
«I can’t either, to be honest with you, but it’s got to be something, doesn’t it, to account for the murder?»
«Not at all. His death could be an accident. Everyone but yourself is sure it was.»
I shrugged. «Well, go on.»
She said, «He went on to say that he had felt so ill after this unsympathetic woman—he kept calling her ‘bad’—left that he just went right to sleep without ever thinking about the package.»
«Do you think he was telling the truth?»