“Interesting but not vital — so far. You’ve got to get out of here, Ngat T’oy. Meet me at nine o’clock at the Dragon Tooth night club. I simply can’t afford to have you taking these chances.”
“Nonsense. I can take them if you can,” she said.
“In just about ten seconds, as soon as I reach the bottom of this trunk,” I told her, “I’m going to take a look out at the hallway. If it’s clear, out you go.”
I found several yards of Oriental silk, a Japanese pigeon-blood cloisonné vase, the usual assortment of feminine wearing apparel, and down near the bottom of the trunk, a nineteen-forty-three diary.
The diary had been kept in a neat feminine handwriting in an expensive leather-backed book just the size to fit the side pocket of a man’s coat.
I put the diary in my pocket.
I said to Ngat T’oy, “You’ve got to get out of here — in fact, we both have.”
“You go first,” she told me, “for your way is the more dangerous. I have but to cross the hall and be in my room.”
I shook my head. “You first. I’ll have to make certain the corridor is clear. I’ll do that, then come back.”
From the way she twisted her eyebrows, I saw she didn’t understand what I meant.
I pointed toward the door. “The way the hinges are hung, the door opens outward. Once you open that door, you’ve got to step all the way out into the corridor. You don’t dare to just poke your head around the door and then step back in, in case there’s someone in the corridor. We don’t know what the girl in here has done. If she wants to clear herself of responsibility, she’ll go out and telephone the desk, telling them she’s forgotten to turn off the water or something and ask to have a bellboy sent to the room. Get me?”
Ngat T’oy nodded.
As we stood there, I heard the first faint splashings of overflowing water from the bathtub.
“All right,” I told her. “I’m going out now and explore the hallway. If there’s anyone in the hall, I’ll say something to him — even if it’s nothing but a good morning. When I get to the elevator, if the corridor is clear, I’ll cough twice. You keep the door partially open, wait and listen. When you hear my cough, slip out and go to your room — fast. All ready now?”
She nodded.
I approached the door.
“Open it gently, Ed,” she whispered.
I laughed at her. “That’s the worst way on earth to leave a hotel room. It looks furtive. Jerk the door open, march boldly out in the corridor as though you owned the joint. And if you meet someone, give him a casual glance. Listen for my signal at the elevator,” I told her.
I unlocked the door, jerked it open, stepped out into the corridor, turned boldly toward the elevator — and found myself face to face with the house detective.
He was walking toward the room I had just left, carrying a slip of paper in his hand. And I didn’t need to be a mind reader to tell either that he was the house detective, or that the number on the slip of paper he was carrying was the number of the room I had just vacated so boldly.
I had approximately half a second to size him up and decide what could be done about it while he was getting ready to approach me in just the right manner.
I beat him to the punch. “You’re the house detective here, aren’t you?”
I saw that he was a bit taken back. These chaps like to kid themselves into believing no-one can ever spot them. They are usually just a bit past middle age, inclined to an oily firmness, a certain fastidiousness of dress, usually with a bald spot over which hair has been carefully trained to cover just as much of the dome as is physically possible. Most of them are inclined to be paunchy, but all of them have a certain self-effacing manner that is a synthetic mask they throw up to hide an underlying firmness. Don’t ask me why they should run to type this way. I only know they do.
He cleared his throat. “May I have your name, please?”
I grabbed him by the arm. “I’m with the Motor Vehicle Department. I’ve just taken up a driver’s license.”
I slipped my fingers down into my inside pocket and jerked out the driver’s license that I had neglected to give back to the girl.
“Betty Crofath,” I said. “Three-oh-nine. I was going to look you up when I got downstairs. Let’s go talk with the manager.”
He har-r-r-umphed and said, “I was on my way to see Miss Crofath. And I sized you up as a State man as soon as I saw you.”
“The devil!”
He nodded.
I let admiration come in my eyes. “Say, there’s not much gets past you birds, is there?”
He smiled. “You might like to go in the room with me.”
“Not me,” I told him. “I just came out, and once is enough.” I lowered my voice, “You’d better talk with me, however, before you go in.” I glanced back over my shoulder at the door, took his arm and led him gently toward the elevator.
“We can talk right here,” he said.
“No,” I said firmly, “what I have to say is not alone for your ears, but for those of the manager as well.”
He didn’t argue any more after that. We went down in the elevator and he piloted me into the office.
The manager was a disillusioned individual with tired gray eyes, pouches under them, and a general air of misanthropic skepticism.
The house detective did the talking. “I met this man up on the third floor just coming to the elevators,” he said sapiently. “I spotted him just as soon as I saw him — figured he was from one of the State departments. I asked him, and he said it was Motor Vehicle.”
“How’d you spot him?” the manager asked warily.
“Just the manner — the way he was walking. I don’t know exactly how,” the house detective said with a certain synthetic modesty as though trying to belittle something which was a very smart piece of detective work indeed.
The manager looked at him, started to say something, then turned to me.
I said, “I’ve been up taking Betty Crofath’s license. She’d been in trouble before and made a lot of false statements. I thought you ought to know.”
“I didn’t know you had the right to go up to any person and take his license,” the manager said.
I showed surprise. “You didn’t know that?” I asked.
“No.”
“You’d better keep up with changes in the motor-vehicle law. We’re adding to it all the time, trying to make conditions better for drivers.”
“They’re passing laws so fast these days,” he said, “you can hear them whiz by, but you don’t have time to read them. That’s a hell of a law.”
“On the contrary,” I told him, “it’s the only sensible law. That places the authority in the hands of the people who have the responsibility — the Motor Vehicle Department.”
“I’d hate to have some guy just come walking up to me, flash a badge, say he was from the Motor Vehicle Department and demand a surrender of my license without a hearing.”
I looked authoritative. “Don’t violate the vehicle law and you won’t have any trouble. Now, in case this young woman gets into a car, I want to know it. If you see her getting into a car, get the license number, pass the word to your bellboys and whatever clerk comes on duty. Just telephone the Motor Vehicle Department and leave a message for the field representative, Mr. E. L. Dickers. By the way, she tells me she had a reservation here. How did she make it, by letter or wire?”