She pulled one hand free, loosening the band so that the other hand slipped out easily. She twisted and tugged frantically, her lungs stifling for lack of oxygen. She felt herself rolling off the bed. She landed on the floor with a dull thud, staggered to her feet, and pulled the blanket upward inch by inch until her head was free. Drawing in a deep breath of air she sank down on the edge of the bed and looked around.
She was alone. The light was still on and the door closed. The band, that held her a prisoner in the blanket, was a wide red patent-leather belt with a large silver buckle. She unbuckled it with trembling hands, dropped it to the floor, and tossed the blanket over the foot of the bed.
Still trembling from shock and gasping for breath, she got up and started toward a wide chest of drawers above which a mirror hung. Her knees were weak, and she moved slowly. The top of the chest held only toilet articles. She started to open the top drawer when a key turning in the door startled her.
Lucy whirled and looked about wildly for a place to hide, but, before she could move, the door opened and a woman looked at her with wide, startled eyes. Behind her stood a young policeman, a head taller than the woman, who stared at her with wonder and curiosity.
Lucy Hamilton summoned all the presence of mind and knowledge gained as Michael Shayne’s secretary, and used one of his favorite tactics of leaping to the attack, instead of waiting to be attacked.
“Who are you?” she demanded, “and what are you doing in my room? Officer! Go after the man who just attacked me here in my room. Don’t stand there gawking.”
“A man?” Nora Carrol gasped. “In my room? I don’t see any man.” She shrank back against the officer. “What does she mean? This is my room. What is she doing here?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out,” he said. He caught Nora Carrol’s elbows, moved her aside, stepped forward, and confronted Lucy. “What’s this about a man attacking you?”
“Just what I said,” she answered vehemently. “I’d just come into my room — about three minutes ago — and turned on the light when a man leaped at me from behind the door and threw a blanket over my head. See it there on the bed all rumpled up? Then he threw me down and buckled that red belt around my arms. I had a terrible time freeing myself. You must have met him in the hallway!”
The patrolman looked at Lucy’s tousled hair, at the belt, and the blanket.
“Don’t listen to her, officer. This is my room.” Nora Carrol’s voice was an outraged wail. “What’s the matter with everybody in this city? Are they crazy?”
Lucy made a pretense of looking wonderingly around the room, noting the smart suitcase standing open on the stand at the foot of the bed, and articles strewn on the floor.
“There evidently is some mistake, officer,” she said in a tone of dismay. “These aren’t my things.” She looked down at the key to the room which had fallen to the floor in the struggle. “But the clerk gave me that key when I stopped for mine on the way up. I’d forgotten my number and assumed he’d given me the right key. Then, when I was attacked as soon as I opened the door—” She laughed lightly and with embarrassment. “I was so frightened I didn’t notice anything different. I just this minute got free, and was going to comb my hair before calling the police.”
She looked at Nora again, as though really seeing her for the first time, and her face brightened. “Why, we’re dressed almost exactly alike,” she exclaimed. “That must have confused the desk clerk and he mistook me for you and gave me your key. Whoever attacked me probably made the same mistake.” She took a couple of steps forward, saying, “You’d know more about your room companion’s idea of a joke than I. I’ll just go down to the desk and get my own key.”
The young officer blocked her way. “Wait a minute now. There’s something funny here. She is dressed like you, Mrs. Carrol, about the same size and all. But what about this man she claims threw a blanket over her head and tied her up?”
“I don’t believe one word of it,” Nora cried indignantly. “There couldn’t have been any man in here. And I don’t believe that night clerk made a mistake, either. I just checked in yesterday, and I don’t remember ever seeing him before. Besides, if he had given her my key, thinking it was me, he would have said something about it just now when we came in.”
“That’s right. Seems like he would.” The young policeman was completely nonplused, aware of the authority of his uniform and the responsibility that went with it.
“Maybe it is like you say,” he told Lucy. “But I’ll go down to the desk with you to check.”
“Very well,” she said with what dignity she could muster, while in her mind she rapidly figured her chances of getting out of the room, and the hotel, without being chased by the officer.
As though divining her thoughts, he closed the door and said, “You wait right here, miss,” then added to Nora Carrol, “and if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got orders from the chief to take a look around before I leave.” Nora hesitated, biting her underlip. “If you must, but please hurry, and get out and leave me alone.” She spoke wearily, took out a small handkerchief, and pressed it to her eyes; then collapsed on the bed, her shoulders shaking with sobs.
Lucy watched the officer make a superficial search of the room. It gave her a feeling of satisfaction when he didn’t find anything.
He stopped beside the bed after finishing. “We’ll be going along now,” he said awkwardly to the sobbing widow. “Lock your door on the inside, and you’ll be safe enough.” She nodded her head vigorously but didn’t reply.
He stepped over to Lucy, took her arm officiously, and led her out, saying, “I hope it was just a mistake like you said, miss, but when it’s murder, a man in my position can’t afford to take anything for granted.”
Lucy caught her breath inaudibly. “Murder?”
“That lady’s husband. She was all broke up about it when she had to make identification of his body.”
“How awful!” Lucy exclaimed instinctively.
It was murder, and Michael was somehow involved in it. If only he had told her something of what it was all about! But he didn’t, and it was up to her to play it by ear and make up the melody as she went along.
She had no idea of the consequences that might result if the police learned her reason for being in Mrs. Carrol’s room. They would know, of course, that Michael had sent her there.
She was in a desperate quandary as the elevator descended. Once she faced the clerk at the desk, and he told his story, she knew that the policeman, who had her by the arm, would insist upon taking her before Will Gentry to explain her presence in the room, and this might be extremely bad for Michael.
There was no way in the world she could avoid arrest. But if she could remain unidentified, for a time, at least, while she was locked up on some charge that had nothing at all to do with murder, it might give Mike a break. When the elevator reached the ground floor, and they stepped out, she grasped the officer’s sleeve, drew him aside, and said plaintively, “All right, then. I’ll tell you the truth. I tried to bluff you, but you were too smart to fall for it.”
The young officer seemed pleased with the compliment. He looked again at Lucy’s disheveled hair and admitted, “At first I did think you’d been attacked like you said. But all that about the clerk mistaking you for Mrs. Carrol just because you were dressed something like her and look a little like her, well, it didn’t sound like the truth to me. After you’ve been on the force a while you get a kind of feeling about things like that. What were you doing up there?” he demanded, his voice suddenly gruff and authoritative.