Selby called Cushing at the Madison Hotel.
“Cushing,” he said, “I want you to ask all of the regular roomers on the third floor if they heard any typewriting in three twenty-one on Monday night or Tuesday morning. It’ll probably look better if you ask them.”
Cushing said, “This is giving the hotel an awful black eye, Doug. That publicity in The Blade was bad — very bad.”
“Perhaps if you’d kept your mouth shut,” Selby said, “the publicity wouldn’t be so bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some of the information must have come from you.”
“Impossible! I didn’t give out any information.”
“You talked to the chief of police,” Selby said. “You know where he stands with The Blade?”
“You mean the chief of police is double-crossing you?”
“I don’t mean anything except that some of the information in the newspaper didn’t come from the sheriff’s office, and didn’t come from mine. You can draw your own conclusions.”
“But, he has the right to question me,” Cushing said, “just the same as you have, Doug.”
“All right, then, he’s the one to complain to, not to me.”
“But in your position, can’t you hush the thing up?”
Selby laughed and said, “You can gather just how much chance I have of hushing things up by reading the editorial page in The Blade.”
“Yes,” Cushing said dubiously, “still...”
“Quit worrying about it,” Selby told him, “and get busy and question your guests on the third floor.”
“I don’t like to question the guests.”
“Perhaps,” Selby suggested, “you’d prefer to have the sheriff do it.”
“No, no, no, not that!”
“Then suppose you do it?”
Cushing sighed, said, “Very well,” in a tone which contained a complete lack of enthusiasm, and hung up the receiver.
Selby had hardly put the receiver back into place when the phone rang. He picked, it up, said, “Hello,” and heard a woman’s voice, a voice which was rich, throaty, and intimately cordial.
“Is this Mr. Douglas Selby, the district attorney?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Miss Myrtle Cummings, of Los Angeles, and I have some information which I think you should have. It’s something in relation to the murder case which has been described in the evening newspaper.”
“Can you give it to me over the telephone?” Selby asked.
“No.”
“Well, I’ll be here at my office until midnight,” he said.
There was something hauntingly familiar about the woman’s voice. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but it’s absolutely impossible for me to leave. For reasons which I’ll explain when I see you, I’m confined to my room, but if you could come and see me some time within the next half hour, I think it would be very advantageous for you to do so.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in room five fifteen at the Madison Hotel. Do you suppose you could come to my room without attracting any attention?”
“I think so,” he said slowly.
“Could you come right away?”
“I’m waiting for several rather important calls,” he said.
“But I’m sure this is most important,” she insisted.
“Very well,” Selby told her, “I’ll be over within ten minutes.”
He dropped the receiver back into place, put on his overcoat and hat. He closed and locked the office door but left the light on, so that Rex Brandon would know he expected to return, in case the sheriff should call at the office. He parked his car a couple of blocks from the Madison Hotel.
It was one of those clear, cold nights with a dry wind blowing in from the desert. The stars blazed down with steady brilliance. The northeast wind was surgingly insistent. Selby buttoned his coat, pushed his hands into the deep side pockets and walked with long, swinging strides.
Luck was with him when he entered the hotel. Cushing was not in the lobby. The night clerk was busy with a patron. The elevator operator apparently saw nothing unusual in Selby’s visit.
“Going up to campaign headquarters?” he asked.
Selby nodded.
“Gee, that sure was something, having a murder case right here in the hotel, wasn’t it?” the operator said, as he slid the door closed and started the elevator upward.
Again Selby nodded. “Know anything about it?”
“Just what I’ve heard around the hotel.”
“What did you hear?”
“Nothing, except this guy took the room and was found dead. Cushing says it couldn’t have been a murder. He says it was just a case of accidentally taking the wrong kind of dope and that The Blade is trying to make a big thing of it. The Blade’s had a reporter snooping around here.”
“Chap by the name of Carl Bittner?” Selby asked.
“That’s the one. He’s got the boss sore at him. Cushing thought he was one of your men... and there’s things about the dump that Cushing don’t want printed.”
“What things?” Selby asked.
“Oh, lots of things,” the boy said vaguely. “Take this guy, Trask, for one. Anyone would think he owned the joint. And there’s a room on the fifth floor they never rent. A dame comes and goes on the freight elevator.”
The elevator stopped at the fifth floor.
Selby handed the boy a half dollar. “Thanks for the information,” he said. “I don’t want to be interrupted. I came here because I wanted to get away from telephone calls and people who were trying to interview me. Do you suppose you could forget about taking me up here?”
“Sure,” the bellboy said, grinning. “I can forget anything for four bits.”
Selby nodded, waited until the cage had started downward before he made the turn in the corridor which took him toward the room at the end of the corridor which they had used as campaign headquarters. When he saw there was no one in the hallway, he tapped gently on the door of five fifteen.
“Come in,” a woman’s voice said.
Selby opened the door and stepped into the room.
He knew at once that Shirley Arden had arranged every detail of the meeting with the training which years as an actress had given her.
The door opened into a sitting room. Back of the sitting room was a bedroom. In the bedroom a rose-colored light shed a soft illumination which fell upon the actress’s face in such a way that it turned the dark depths of her eyes into mysterious pools of romance.
She was sitting attired in a tailored suit of pearl gray. Its simplicity was so severe that it served to center attention upon her face and figure. Had she been ten years older, she would have worn a gown so gorgeously designed that a woman looking at her would have said, “How wonderfully she’s dressed,” but with that pearl gray tailored outfit, men, looking at Shirley Arden, would only have said, “What a beautiful figure she has! How wonderful her eyes are!”
She was seated on the arm of an overstuffed chair, one gray-stockinged leg thrust out at such an angle that the curves caught the eye. Her lips were parted in a smile.
And yet, perhaps as a result of her Hollywood training, she overdid it.
Perfect actress that she was, she underestimated the intelligence of the man with whom she was dealing, so that the effect she strove for was lost. Had she remained seated on the arm of the chair just long enough to have given him a glimpse of her loveliness and then got to her feet to come toward him, he would have been impressed. But her very immobility warned him that the effect had been carefully and studiously planned.
“So,” Selby said, kicking the door shut behind him, “you were here all the time.”