“Know what you’re going to talk about?” I asked.
“Yes. I know what he wants me to find out. Think they have the steepest stairs in the world in New Orleans — damned outrage!”
I said, “It’s the second one on the left.”
Bertha wheezed up the last few stairs, marched down the corridor, raised her knuckles to tap on the door, and stopped, holding her hand motionless for a half second as she noticed that the door was open about a half inch.
She said, “Evidently she wants us to walk right in,” and pushed the door open.
“Wait a minute,” I said, and grabbed her arm.
The door swung open under the impetus of the push Bertha had given it. I saw a man’s feet propped at a peculiar angle. The swinging door gradually brought the body into view, a body that was sprawled half on and half off a chair, the head down on the floor, one foot hooked up under the arm, the other leg bent around the arm support. A sinister red stream had flowed from a hole in his left breast down across the unbuttoned vest, down through the cloth of the coat, to spread out in a pool on the floor. A singed soft cushion showed how the shot had been muffled.
Bertha said under her breath, “Fry me for an oyster!” and took a quick step forward.
I still had hold of her arm. I used all my strength to pull her back.
“What’s the idea?” Bertha said.
I didn’t say anything, just kept pulling.
For a moment she was angry; then she caught a glimpse of the expression on my face and I saw her eyes widen.
I said, in a rather loud tone of voice, “Well, I guess there’s no one home, after all.” All the time I was tugging at her arm, dragging her toward the stairs.
Once she got the idea, she moved quickly enough. We moved silently along the carpeted corridor, and I all but pushed Bertha past the head of the stairs, where she wanted to stop and argue.
We pell-melled out onto the street, and I pulled Bertha back against the wall and started walking rapidly down St. Charles Avenue.
Bertha collected her thoughts sufficiently to start pulling back. “Say, what’s the idea?” she asked. “What in the world’s got into you? That man was murdered. We should have notified the police.”
“Notify the police if you want to,” I said, “but don’t be dumb enough to think you could have gone into that room and come out alive.”
She stopped walking to stand stock-still, her feet rooted with surprise, staring at me. “What on earth are you talking about?” she demanded.
“Don’t you get it?” I asked. “Someone pressed the buzzer for us to come on up. Then that someone left the door slightly ajar.”
“Who?” she asked.
I said, “You have two guesses. Either the police were in there waiting for someone to show up, which, under the circumstances, is rather unlikely, or the murderer was waiting patiently to claim his second victim.”
Her hard little eyes stared at me, fairly sparkling with the intensity of her thought. She said, “Pickle me for a peach! I believe you’re right, you little bastard.”
“I know I’m right.”
“But it’s hardly possible that we could have been the ones he was laying for.”
“We would have been,” I said, “once we entered that room.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’d have seen who he was then. We might not have been the ones he expected, but once we got in there, he couldn’t afford to let us get out-not after we’d seen his face.”
I saw Bertha’s color change as she realized the narrow escape she’d had. She said, “And that was why you were doing all that talking about no one being in?”
“Certainly. There’s a restaurant across the street. We’ll telephone the police from there and also keep a watch on the apartment so we can see anyone who comes out.”
“Who was that person?” Bertha asked. “Do you know him — the dead man?”
“I’ve seen him before.”
“Where?”
“He came to call on Roberta Fenn last night. I think his visit was unexpected and unwelcome — and I’d seen him once before that.”
“Where?”
“The other night. I couldn’t sleep. I walked out on the balcony. He was just coming out of a bar across the street. Two women were with him, and someone was waiting for them in an automobile.”
Sudden recollection of the night before stabbed at Bertha’s memory. She said, “Was it one of the horn-blowing brigade?”
“The instigator of the damnedest horn-blowing of the evening,” I told her.
She said simply, “I’m glad he’s dead.”
“Shut up! It’s dangerous to joke about such things.”
“Who in hell said I was joking? I mean every word of it. Don’t we have to notify the police?”
I said, “Yes. But we do it my way.”
“How’s that?”
I said, “Come on. I’ll show you.”
We went into the restaurant. I asked very loudly if I could get the proprietor to telephone for a taxicab, or should I telephone for one.
He motioned toward a phone booth, and gave me the number of the cab company. I went back and called the cab office. They assured me a cab would be there within two minutes. From the booth I could watch the door of Roberta Fenn’s apartment house.
I waited until I heard the horn of the cab outside the restaurant, then dialed police headquarters, and said very casually, “Got a pencil?”
“Yes.”
I said, “The Gulfpride Apartments on St. Charles Avenue.”
“What about them?”
“Apartment two-o-four,” I said.
“Well, what about it? Who is this talking? What do you want?”
“I want to report that a murder was committed in that apartment. If you’ll rush some radio cars down there, you may catch the murderer waiting for another victim.”
“Say, who is this talking?”
“Adolf.”
“Adolf who?”
“Hitler,” I said, “and don’t ask me anything else because I’ve got a mouthful of carpet.” I hung up the phone, and walked out.
Bertha had walked out to hold the taxicab. I came sauntering after her as though there was no particular hurry.
“Where to?” the cab driver asked.
Bertha started to give him the name of the hotel, but I beat her to it, and said, “Union Depot. No hurry. Take it easy.”
We settled back against the cushions. Bertha wanted to talk. I jabbed my elbow into her ribs every time she started to say anything. Finally she gave it up, and sat glowering at me in seething, impotent rage.
We paid off the cab at the depot. I piloted Bertha through one entrance, swung her around, and out another. “Monteleone Hotel,” I told the driver.
Once more I held Bertha to silence. I felt as though I were holding down the safety valve on a steam boiler. I didn’t know at what moment an explosion might occur.
We arrived at the Monteleone Hotel. I escorted Bertha over to a row of comfortable chairs, settled her in the deep cushions, sat down beside her, and said quite affably, “Go ahead and talk. Talk about anything in the world you want to — except anything that’s happened in the last hour.”
Bertha glared at me. “Who the hell are you to tell me what to talk about and what not—?”
I said, “Every move we’ve made up to this point will be traced. It’s what we do from here on that really counts.”
Bertha snapped, “If they trace us here, they’ll trace us the rest of the way.”
I waited until the clerk’s eye drifted our way; then I got up, walked over to the desk, smiled affably, and said, “I believe the bus comes here to pick up passengers for the plane north, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. It will be here in about thirty minutes.”
“It’s all right for us to wait here for it?” I managed to seem meek and uncertain of myself.