“Did she look at the back of the photograph?”
“No. I remember she held it for a minute, then passed it back.”
“Don’t you remember what she was doing when I showed her the photograph?”
“No, hanged if I do. Was it before or after we had the cocktail?”
Mason said, “She was fixing up her face.”
“I guess that is right — come to think of it — she was.”
Mason said, “Show him, Della.”
The lawyer held up the photograph in front of Drake. Della Street snapped open her compact. Drake looked puzzled for a moment, then, as Della Street tilted the mirror to one side and then the other, Drake gave a low whistle.
“So,” Mason said, “she may have been dumb enough to send all of her money to the man she loved, but she certainly made us look like a couple of amateurs. Reading the imprint on this photo in her minor, she had to transpose it in her mind, too. Yet she never so much as squinted.”
Drake said, “Well, we won’t take it lying down. We shall really give her something to think about this time.”
“She is smart,” Mason warned.
“She is clever all right. She never let on she had the slightest interest in that photograph — but she made up her mind she would check the back issues of Photoplay, read the ‘left to right,’ and then wouldn’t need to ask any questions.”
“Ready to go?” Mason asked.
“Uh-huh.”
Mason said to Della Street, “Get your things, Della. In dealing with this woman, we need you on the job.”
While Della Street was putting on her coat and hat, Mason said to Drake, “One other thing, Paul. Read up on Homan’s career in Hollywood. He didn’t skyrocket up that far and that fast without having somebody shoving him up the ladder.”
“Who?” Drake asked.
Mason grinned, “I am paying you money to find out things.”
“All ready whenever you are,” Della Street said.
“I will have to stop by my office to get my hat and coat,” Drake said. This is going to be a big relief. I won’t feel so darn sympathetic this time. I felt as though I was taking pennies out of the baby’s bank last night.”
“And all the time the baby was picking our pockets for heavy dough.”
“Your car or mine, Perry?”
“Taxicab. It will save time.”
“Okay, let us go.”
It took them less than ten minutes to get to the Gateview Hotel. Mason said, “Just to check up, Paul, let us see if there are any messages for you.”
“Wait a minute, Perry. I shall talk with my operative first. We will find out if she has been down to the desk.”
Drake moved off to one side. A man who had apparently been completely engrossed in a newspaper lowered the sheet, looked up at Drake, imperceptibly shook his head, changed his position, and went on with his reading.
Drake moved back to Mason. “She is in her room.”
Della Street said, “If you want my advice, you won’t give her a ring. She isn’t expecting you, is she?”
“No.”
“Why not take her by surprise?”
Mason looked over at Drake. “Let us go.”
“Got the room number?” Mason asked Drake.
“Six-twenty-eight.”
Mason looked at his watch. “She may not be dressed,” he said. “If she isn’t, Della, you will have to crash the gate and...”
“A girl who worked in a New Orleans cafeteria will be up by nine-thirty,” she said.
They rode up in the elevator, walked quietly down the carpeted corridor. Mason found the door, tapped on the panel. After a few moments, he knocked again, louder. “Looks like you lose,” he said to Della. “She is still asleep.”
Mason tried the knob of the door. It was locked. He knocked again, imperatively. There was not so much as a sound from the other side of the door.
Drake turned to Mason. “Gosh, Perry, you don’t suppose... we didn’t get her so frightened or despondent... you know, she wouldn’t be lying there...”
“Give me a leg up,” Mason said.
Drake stooped, caught Mason around the knees, lifted him up so he could catch the projection just below the transom. The lawyer pulled himself up and tried to peer through the opening. “Can’t make out anything, Paul, except I can see the electric light is on. Come on, let us get the manager.”
The manager was inclined to be somewhat distant, and Mason took prompt steps to counteract his suspicions. His sister-in-law, he explained, had come to the city. She was to have been at his office by eight o’clock, and he was to have taken her for an automobile ride. She hadn’t shown up. The woman had a heart affliction, and was all alone. There was probably not one chance in a hundred but what she had simply been detained. However, Mason wanted to make sure.
The assistant manager finally summoned the bellboy. “Go up and take a look in six-twenty-eight,” he said, and, as Mason started to follow, said with authority, “You folks might as well wait here.”
Drake stepped away from the desk, coughed twice. The man who had been reading the newspaper lowered it. Drake made a signal, motioning toward the bellboy who was waiting at the elevator. The man casually folded his newspaper, tapped ashes from the end of his cigar, stretched, yawned, and got to his feet just as the elevator door opened and the bellboy entered.
“Going up!” the man called, and then walked leisurely across the lobby.
Five minutes later, the bellboy was back with a report. “The door is locked from the outside. I used the passkey. There is no one in the room. The bed hasn’t been slept in. There is no baggage in the room. The towels haven’t been used. The curtains are drawn, and the lights are on.”
The assistant manager regarded Mason with cool appraisal. “I believe you said she was your sister-in-law. If there is any trouble about the hotel bill...?”
Mason said, “I will stop by the desk and settle the bill right now. Probably she has had a heart attack in a restaurant, and has been taken to a hospital.”
“Sometime during the night,” the assistant manager asked pointedly, “before she had gone to bed?”
Mason said easily, “Yes. She said she was going out to get a cup of tea. Poor girl, I hope she isn’t seriously ill. I will call the hospital. Della, would you mind stepping over to the desk and paying the bill?... If she should happen to return, tell her to get in touch with her brother-in-law at once. Will you tell her that, please?”
The assistant manager said, “I will be only too glad to. But just a moment, please.”
He picked up the telephone on his desk, said to the operator, “Get the records on six-twenty-eight. Find out what baggage, I shall hold the line.”
He sat with the receiver to his ear. His eyes surveyed his visitors in speculative appraisal while he waited. Then he said into the transmitter, “All right, let me have it... You are certain? Very well.”
He dropped the receiver into place and said to Mason, “She checked in with a suitcase and a hat box. They are not in the room now. Would she have taken them to the restaurant?”
Mason became indignant. “Are you insinuating that a relative of mine would leave the hotel to avoid paying her bill?”
The manager’s manner became somewhat uneasy. “It’s strange,” he said. “That’s all.”
Mason leaned toward him and said, “You’re right it is strange, and your manner and your insinuations are stranger still. Here is a woman, unsophisticated, inexperienced, staying in a hotel in a large city. She disappears mysteriously. In place of being of any assistance, you start making cracks about her hotel bill. Her bill has been paid. I am paying it, see? And I am good for anything she runs up.”
The manager said, “I didn’t mean it exactly that way. It is a suspicious circumstance, that’s all.”