“I didn’t look at my watch.”
“All right, go on. What happened?”
“Well, I sat by the door listening for a while, but couldn’t hear anything. Then along about three-thirty I was in the bathroom. That was when I heard a peculiar sound which I thought was made by someone banging on my bedroom door.
“I was completely paralyzed with fright. It was as though someone had given my door a good, hard kick. I felt certain someone had discovered that I was spying on Rose Calvert across the hall, and I didn’t know what to do for a moment.
“So I went to the door of the suite, put on my most innocent expression and opened it. No one was there. I looked up and down the corridor. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I felt. Then just as I was closing the door, having it opened just a crack, I saw the door across the corridor start to open. So I glued my eye to the door and... and—”
“Go on,” Mason said, his voice showing his excitement. “What happened?”
“Gifford walked out.”
“Gifford Farrell, your husband?”
She nodded.
“Go on,” Mason said. “Then what?”
“I didn’t think anything of it at the time, because he’d been calling on her when she had rooms in the other hotels. I don’t think there was anything romantic about those calls. She had her portable typewriter with her, and I guess she was doing typing work, and they took all those precautions to keep anyone from knowing what was going on.”
“Go on,” Mason said. “What happened?”
“Well, I closed my door tight and waited awhile, then I opened it awhile and listened, but there were no more sounds coming from the room across the hall.
“And then suddenly I began to wonder if Rose might not have gone out while I was out. I went downstairs and out to the phone booth, called the Redfern Hotel and asked to be connected with Room 728.”
“What happened?”
“I could hear the noise the line makes when there’s a phone ringing and there is no answer. The operator told me my party was out and asked if I wanted her paged.”
“I said no, that I’d call later.”
“And then?” Mason asked.
“Then, I went back in a hurry, took the elevator up to the seventh floor, and tapped gently on 728. When there was no answer, I used my key and opened the door.”
“What did you find?”
“Rose Calvert was lying there dead on the bed. And then suddenly I realized what that noise had been. My husband had shot her and he’d shot her with my gun.”
“What do you mean, your gun?”
“My gun. It was lying there on the floor by the bed.”
“Your gun?”
“Mine,” she said. “I recognized it. It was one that the Texas Global had bought for the cashier to carry because the cashier lived out in the country. He was afraid to drive alone at night for fear someone would try to hold him up and get the combination of the safe. I guess he was getting a little nervous and neurotic. He died a few months afterward.
“Anyway, the company bought him the gun, and after he died, Gifford took the gun and gave it to me.”
“You recognized the gun?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I used to sleep with it under my pillow. I dropped it once, and there was a little nick out of the hard, rubber handle. Then once I’d got some fingernail enamel on it and there was just that little spot of red.
“Of course, I’d never have noticed it if I hadn’t seen Gifford leave the room. Knowing he’d shot her, I suddenly wondered about the weapon. And then I knew it was my weapon.”
“How long had he had it?”
“I moved out on him, and like a fool I didn’t take the gun with me. So it was there in the apartment...”
“I see,” Mason said. “What did you do?”
“Well, I decided to leave things just the way they were and quietly check out of the hotel, so I opened the door and started out into the corridor, and that was when I got trapped.”
“What do you mean?”
“The chambermaid was walking by just as I opened the door, and she looked at me, then suddenly did a double take and said, ‘Is that your room?’“
“What did you do?”
“I had to brazen it through. She evidently had been talking with Rose, and knew that that wasn’t my room.”
“Well,” Mason said, “what did you do?”
“I thought fast. I told her no, that it wasn’t my room, that it was my friend’s room, and that she’d given me her key and asked me to go and wait for her, but that I couldn’t wait any longer. I was going downstairs and leave a note for her.”
“Did you convince the chambermaid?”
“That’s the trouble. I didn’t. The chambermaid kept staring at me, and I know she thought I was a hotel thief. But she didn’t say anything. Probably she was afraid of getting into trouble. That trapped me. I knew that the minute the body of Rose Calvert was found in that room, I’d be connected with the crime. I was in a panic. I walked down the corridor to the elevator, waited until the chambermaid had gone into another room, and then I walked back to 729, let myself in and sat there in a complete blue funk. I didn’t know what the devil to do.”
“What did you do?”
“After a while I got the idea that I wanted. I couldn’t afford to let Rose Calvert’s body be found in 728, but if I could move the body over to 729 and then check out of 728 under the name of Ruth Culver, which was the name she had registered under, everything would be all right. If her body was found in 728, the chambermaid would have remembered all about my leaving the place, and given a description of me. Later on she’d have been able to recognize me. Of course, I knew police could trace the gun. But if I could have it appear that nothing unusual had happened in 728, but that the person who was murdered was the one who had checked in at 729, then I would be sending everybody off on a completely false trail.”
“Go on,” Mason said. “What did you do?”
“I did some fast thinking. I wanted to make it appear that the crime had taken place much later than had actually been the case. I waited until I was certain the corridor was clear, then I hurried across and started packing all the baggage in the room. Rose had been using her portable typewriter and there were a lot of fresh carbon papers dropped into the wastebasket. I picked those up, and that was when I realized I had a very complete list of the work she had been doing. She had been making a whole lot of copies, and had used fresh carbon paper. I took the sheets of used carbon paper with me.”
“Go on,” Mason said.
“Then I went back to Room 729, telephoned Room Service and asked them what they had for lunch.
“They said it was pretty late for lunch, and I told them I needed something to eat and asked them what they had. They said they could fix me a roast turkey plate, and I told them to bring it up.
“The waiter brought it up, and I paid him in cash, and gave him a good tip so he’d remember me. But I kept my face averted as much as possible.
“Then I ate the dinner and asked him to come up for the dishes.”
“And then?”
“And then, all of a sudden, I realized that Jerry Conway was going to start out to get that list.”
“Go on.”
“Originally, I’d intended to telephone him at the drugstore, and tell him to go and ask for a message which had been left for him at a certain hotel. So suddenly I realized that it might be possible to kill two birds with one stone, and really to pull something artistic.”
“So?” Mason asked.
“So,” she said, “after I called Room Service, I had the waiter come and take the dishes, and then I went down to the drugstore and bought a jar of this prepared black mud that women put on their faces for massages. It spreads smoothly over the face and then, when it dries, it pulls the skin. The general idea is that it smooths out wrinkles and eliminates impurities from the skin and all that. It has an astringent effect and pulls the facial muscles. I knew it would make my face completely unrecognizable.”