“And it happened that way?”
“That was the way it finally worked out. Five-ten checked out around 3:02. The house dick got up here around 3:04 and I went down to the desk and got there just as the man in five-ten was going out through the lobby door, followed by the elevator boy lugging his suitcase. I pretended to the clerk that I’d been waiting around in the lobby all evening for a room and that I’d been promised the first check-out. The clerk didn’t want to give me the room because he said they didn’t have any maid service at that hour of the night. The last maid went off duty at two in the morning and she was only on duty for emergency calls. I finally convinced him I didn’t care anything about that, so he let me have the room with the understanding that I’d take sheets and towels, make up the bed myself and put in fresh towels.”
“Did you?” Mason asked.
Faulkner grinned and indicated the rumpled bed. “I didn’t get in the bed. I just got on it. I put on clean pillow slips, that’s all.”
“Then you and the house dick must be buddies.”
“We got along all right.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sam Meeker.”
Mason said, “This is important. What time does he come on duty, do you know?”
“Sure. He comes on at eight at night and goes off at eight in the morning.”
“Anyone on during the day?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. A lot of these hotels only use the house dick at night.”
“All right,” Mason said, “he’s off now. That’s going to help. Now then, let’s have a note of what happened in room 511.”
“Well, just about the time I got established in the closet the guy who had 510 here came darting out of 511. He shot across the corridor, jerked open this door and went in.”
“Do you know what room he came out of?”
“I think he came out 511.”
“You don’t know?”
“Not absolutely. It all happened too fast.”
“All right then, you don’t know what room he came out of.”
“I think I know.”
“It’s your neck,” Mason said. “Stick it out as far as you like, or keep it in. Which side of the corridor was the mop closet on?”
“On the other side from 511.”
“On the same side as 510?”
“That’s right.”
“Then, looking down along the corridor, when the man went back into the room you say you think was 510, you didn’t have any depth of perspective. In other words, you were looking right along a solid line of doors. How could you tell exactly which door the man entered?”
Faulkner said, “He went in 510. In the first place, the door looked like that of 510, but in the second place, when he opened the door, the oblong of light streamed out into the corridor and fell right on the door of 511. That shows the door was exactly opposite, and then when I went down to the lobby and he was checking out, I saw the way the man was dressed. He had on exactly the same clothes that the man had worn who came out of 511; a distinctive checkered suit.”
“All right, what happened after that?”
“At about two twenty-two and a half,” Faulkner said, “the elevator stopped. I clocked it as 2:23, but if you want to get really technical about it, it was probably a few seconds before that. And you should have seen the dish that got out.”
“Give me the particulars.”
“She was class. She had on a tight-fitting little fine-patterned grayish sort of skirt that hit her right at the top of the knees and boy, oh boy, did she have legs and everything that went with ’em, and the way she used her feet when she walked! Seemed to just drift along over the floor.”
“Young?”
“Just a dish,” Faulkner said, “around twenty-two, or twenty-three, maybe.”
“Blonde or brunette?”
“Auburn haired.”
“Anything in her hands?”
“A violin case.”
“Go on,” Mason said.
“She went down to 511.”
“Then what?”
“She knocked, waited, evidently heard someone tell her to come in. She opened the door and went in.”
“You don’t know anyone called to her to come in?”
“No. I couldn’t hear. Just the way she opened the door is all.”
“Better save the mind-reading,” Mason warned. “This is going to be a murder case. You’ll be on the stand. What happened next?”
“She came out in just about ten minutes. I clocked her out at 2:32.”
“Still carrying the violin case?”
“Still carrying the violin case.”
“Then what?” Mason asked.
“Then at 2:44, a droop about twenty-six or-seven got out of the elevator. He walked down the corridor like he was going to a fire. He opened the door of 511 and popped in, and then he popped out and came down the corridor... Well, he acted as though he wanted to run but didn’t dare.”
“How long was he in there?”
“Ten seconds.”
“Describe him.”
“Droopy shoulders, thin, five seven or eight, a hundred and thirty maybe. He was wearing a brown overcoat, buttoned up.”
“An overcoat?”
“Yes, a light-weight gabardine.”
“Hat?”
“No. Brown curly hair — a dime-store sheik, an underfed wolf, fast on his feet, though. I put him as a half pimp or a tout. He had something to deliver, something he wanted to leave. I thought he’d phoned from downstairs and had a clearance, the way he popped into the room and then popped out. You know the way those squirts are. But, of course, he could have seen something that scared him — something on the floor.”
“Better let the police do the speculating. He didn’t come right out?”
“It depends on what you mean by that. It was ten seconds. I timed him.”
Mason grinned. “Then he wasn’t scared. Paul Drake beat that time by nine and four-fifths seconds. What else you got?”
“Then at 3:02 Sheldon came out and walked across to the door of 511. I thought he was going to knock for a minute, but he didn’t knock. He just stood there as though he was listening and then he started down the corridor toward the elevator. He was looking directly at the door of the mop closet so I eased the door shut before he got close to me. I waited until I heard him go down in the elevator and then I opened the door a crack. After a minute I heard the elevator coming up again. I ducked back into the mop closet but this time it was Sam Meeker, the house dick. He told me 510 was checking out and he’d stay on the job and watch the place and I could go on down and register and get the room.”
“You went on down?”
“Yes.”
“Take the elevator?”
“That’s right. Sam took the elevator up. The elevator boy was in the lobby lugging Sheldon’s bag, hoping for a tip. Sam stepped into the cage and took it up to the fifth, gave me the nod, and I stepped into the elevator and took her down. There’s only one elevator running at that hour. I don’t think anyone knew the cage had made a trip — either Sheldon, the clerk, or the operator. I left the elevator, moved over into a shadowy place in the lobby and as soon as Sheldon was out of the place went over and told the clerk I’d been waiting in the lobby with the promise of the first check-out. I told him the man who was on duty before him had made me the promise. The rest is what I’ve told you already.”
“All right, you got into this room and then what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“That’s right.”
“There’s a sign DO NOT DISTURB on the door across there. When was that put out?”