As they entered the hotel, Paul Drake said, “I’ve got a complete report on everything that went on here after two-twenty this morning, Perry. That’s when my man got on the job.”
“I’ll get it after a while,” Mason said. “Nothing startling about it, is there?”
“Nothing except that your man in room 511 seemed to be doing a land office business until after three o’clock in the morning. And you were all wet about the chap in 510 checking out.”
Mason, who had been striding across the lobby toward the elevator, abruptly stopped. “What’s that?”
“Five-ten. The party didn’t check out until more than an hour after you telephoned.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure.”
“Where was your man spotted?”
“Up in the corridor in a mop closet.”
“Did he have to square himself with the house dick?”
“Hell, yes. It cost him twenty bucks, and he had to plant himself in a mop closet. Then he finally got the chance to move into 510, after the other party moved out. The room clerk didn’t want to rent it to him because there wasn’t any maid service at that hour in the morning and the bed hadn’t been made up and all that, but he moved in there anyway.”
“And covered the corridor from that room?”
“That’s right.”
“Until when?”
“As far as I know, they’re still covering it,” Drake said. “I sent a relief down to help him about five o’clock.”
“Well, we’ll go to 511,” Mason said, “and stop in and talk with the boys in 510 afterwards. You got a shadow on that chap who was in my office?”
“Uh huh. The guy reported on the phone a few minutes ago. Your man went to a rooming house at 791 East Lagmore and holed up.”
Mason nodded thoughtfully. “Keep your man on the job, Paul. Okay, let’s go see Callender.”
Mason signaled the elevator operator. They rode in silence up to the fifth floor, walked down the strip of carpet along the corridor, and paused in front of room 511.
A cardboard sign dangled from the doorknob bearing the words, DO NOT DISTURB.
Mason glanced at his watch. “Ten thirty-five,” he said.
“He isn’t going to like it if we wake him up,” Drake said, in a low voice. “Remember, Perry, he was up until around three o’clock this morning seeing people.”
“He isn’t going to like it anyway,” Mason said, and knocked on the door.
There was no answer. Mason’s knuckles pounded again, this time more authoritatively. When there was still no answer, Mason rattled the knob of the door.
“Take it easy, Perry,” Drake warned. “You’ll have the house detective... Oh, oh!”
The knob which Mason had been rattling clicked back. The door swung open an inch or two.
“Take it easy, Perry,” Drake warned again.
Mason cautiously pushed the door open.
The room was in a weird half-light, as though some of the darkness of the preceding evening had been trapped in the room with the closing of the door and the pulling of the drapes. The odor of stale tobacco smoke and cigarette ends assailed their nostrils.
Drake, peering past Mason’s shoulder, suddenly turned, made a panic stricken rush for the door of 510.
Mason, standing in the door of 511, said, “Hold it, Paul. Keep an eye on the corridor.”
“Come on out of there, Perry. Please! I can’t tip you off in time in case someone should...”
Mason gestured for silence with a finger on his lips, stepped into the room, gently closed the door behind him, and clicked on the light switch.
The body of John Callender lay sprawled on the floor.
The man was fully dressed, lying on his back, the right eye all but closed, the left half-opened, leering drunkenly at the overhead light. There was no indication of a struggle.
A Japanese sword had been plunged into his chest. The handle and some seven inches of the blade stood straight up, protruding from the body.
That which made the scene the more gruesome was the fact that Callender had apparently, with his last conscious effort, grasped at the blade of the sword and tried to pull it out of his chest. His right hand, rigid in death, was clasped about the razor-keen blade, and that blade had bitten into the fingers, down as far as the bone.
Taking great care not to touch anything, Mason detoured the red stain on the carpet and looked about him.
The room in which the body was lying was the reception room of a suite. Back of it was a bedroom which Mason could see through the open door. The bed was made up and had not been slept in. Back of the bedroom was a bathroom. Lights were on in the bathroom. The door was partially open.
Using his handkerchief so that he would leave no fingerprints, Mason pushed the bathroom door all the way open so that he could see no one was in the room. Then he gently closed the door again until it was in its original position.
A closet at the far end of the bedroom caught Mason’s eye. Here the door was standing wide open. More than a dozen suits hanging on a central bar were visible, through this open door.
Mason moved over so that he could see the entire closet. It was well filled with clothes, clothes which ranged from rough tweeds to a tuxedo and a full dress suit. A shoe rack contained more than a dozen pairs of shoes of different types.
Once more using his handkerchief so that he would leave no fingerprints, Mason opened one of the drawers in the bureau. It was well filled with shirts and neatly folded underwear.
Mason pushed the drawer closed, walked back to the parlor of the suite, again detoured the body and opened the door a crack.
Paul Drake was standing in the doorway of 510.
Mason raised his eyebrows in a silent question, and Drake nodded.
Once more using his handkerchief to protect his hands from contact with the doorknob. Mason stepped out into the corridor, pulled the door shut behind him and darted across to the sanctuary of room 510.
Drake kicked the door shut.
A man who had evidently been asleep had thrown off a light blanket and was sitting up on the edge of the rumpled bed. His coat had been hung over the back of a chair, his shoes were on the floor, he was wearing shirt and trousers. Another man, standing near the washbowl, held a half-smoked cigarette in between the forked fingers of his right hand, the smoke eddying upward. He was regarding Paul Drake with hard, startled eyes.
Drake said, “Do you know these boys, Perry?”
Mason shook his head.
Paul Drake indicated the man on the bed. “Frank Faulkner,” he said, and then nodding toward the man standing up, said, “Harvey Julian.”
Both men nodded. There was no attempt made to mouth any acknowledgment of the introduction.
Drake turned to Mason, “I’m going to have to report this, Perry.”
Mason shook his head, waved his hand back and forth with the fingers open, a gesture of dismissal.
“I tell you, I’ve got to,” Drake said. “Hell’s bells, Perry, I’ve got a license at stake. The smart boys amended Section 7578 of the Business and Professions Code to provide that in addition to all of the other causes for revoking the license of a private detective, the Board could make a revocation for ‘any other cause which the Board deems sufficient.’ You know what that means. They’ve got you where it hurts. And they don’t like me.”
Mason said, “Just a minute, Paul. I want to find out something first.”
Drake shook his head. “Perry, I’m telling you I can’t take a chance with it. We don’t know what’s going to happen here, and if I don’t...”
He broke off as knuckles sounded on the door panel.
“Now what?” Mason asked.
“Oh, Lord,” Drake groaned. “We’re in for it now. We...”
“Wait a minute,” Mason said, as the knock was repeated. “Hold everything, Paul. It’s across the hall, on the door of 511.”