She didn’t move. Her face was held so that the lighting did not change by so much as a hair line of a shadow. It was as though she had been facing a battery of lights for a close-up.
“Yes,” she said, “I was here. I didn’t want to talk with you unless I had to. I’m afraid Ben Trask didn’t handle the situation very diplomatically.”
“He didn’t,” Selby said. “How about your nerves?”
“I really am very nervous.”
“And,” Selby said, “I suppose the idea was to send Ben Trask over to bluff me. If he’d reported success then you’d have actually gone into hiding.”
“I didn’t want to take any chances,” she told him. “Can’t you understand? Think what it means to me. Think of my position, my public, my earning capacity. Gossip is a fatal thing to a picture star. I couldn’t afford to have it known I was questioned in connection with the case.
“Ben is a very strong man. He’s always been able to dominate any situation he’s tackled. He makes my contracts for me and it’s an open secret they’re the best contracts in Hollywood. Then he met you — and failed.”
She waited for the full dramatic value of that statement to manifest itself. Then, with the slow, supple grace of a dancer, she straightened her leg, swung it slowly forward, came to the floor as lightly as thistle down and walked toward him to give him her hand.
“It’s delightful, Mr. Selby,” she said, “to find you so human.”
His fingers barely touched hers. “It depends,” he told her, “on what you mean by being human.”
“I’m certain you’ll listen to reason.”
“I’ll listen to the truth,” he said, “if that’s what you mean.”
“After all, aren’t they the same thing?”
“That depends,” Selby said. “Sit down, I want to talk with you.”
She smiled and said, “I know I’m in your city, Mr. Selby, under your jurisdiction, as it were, but please permit me to be the hostess and ask you to be seated.”
She swept her hand in a gracious gesture of invitation toward the overstuffed chair beneath the floor lamp.
“No,” Selby said, “thank you, I’ll stand.”
A slight frown of annoyance crossed her face, as though her plans were going astray.
Selby stood spread-legged, his overcoat unbuttoned and thrown back, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets, his eyes showing just a trace of sardonic humor beneath a grim determination.
“After all,” he said, “I’m doing the questioning. So if anyone is going to sit in that chair beneath the illumination of that light, it’s going to be you. You’re the one who’s being questioned.”
She said defiantly, “Meaning, I suppose, that you think I’m afraid to let you study my facial expressions.”
He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’m not wasting time thinking about it. Your facial expressions are going to be studied whether you like it or not.”
“Very well,” she said, and dropped into the overstuffed chair, carefully adjusting the light so that it beat down upon her face. Her smile was the smile of one who bravely faces injustice, nor was there any narrowing of the eyelids as her lips parted. “Go ahead, Mr. District Attorney,” she invited.
Selby stood staring at her steadily. “It happens,” he said, “that I saw that same expression in Love Life. It was, I believe, the way you looked at your prospective father-in-law when he came to give you money never to see his boy again.”
She lost her fixed smile. For a moment there was blazing defiance in her eyes. Then her face became as a wooden mask.
“After all,” she said, “it’s the same face. And it would naturally hold the same expressions that you’ve seen in pictures.”
“Well,” he told her, “I’m not interested in your facial expressions. I’m interested in your answers to certain questions.”
“Go ahead and ask the questions.”
“You were here in the hotel Monday morning, were you not?”
“I was.”
“In this room?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you come here?”
“On a matter of business.”
“What was the business?”
“I decline to answer that question. It’s a confidential matter.”
“With whom was your business to be transacted?”
“I also decline to answer that question.”
“Have you seen photographs of the man who was found dead in room three twenty-one?”
“No.”
Selby pulled a photograph from his pocket, strode toward her and thrust it out in front of him.
“Look at it,” he said.
It was a moment before she lowered her eyes, as though schooling her face against showing any expression, then she glanced at the photograph, raised her eyes to his and nodded a slow, solemn nod.
“Know him?” Selby asked.
“I saw him.”
“Where?”
“In the hotel.”
“What part of the hotel?”
“In this room.”
Selby sighed and said, “Now that’s a lot better. When did you see him?”
“It was some time in the morning, shortly before ten o’clock, I think.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was talking with me.”
“What name did he give you? Was it the name under which he registered, Charles Brower?”
She shook her head and said, “No, that wasn’t the name.”
“What name was it?”
She frowned thoughtfully for a moment or two and then said slowly, “No, I’m afraid I can’t remember what the name was, but I know it wasn’t Brower. It was something that sounded like Larry, or something of that sort. I think it had a ‘Larry’ in it.”
“In the last name?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t the first name?”
“No, it was the last name. I don’t think he told me his first name.”
“Why did he happen to come into the room here?”
“He knocked on the door. I went to the door to see who it was.”
“Had you ever seen him before?”
She hesitated once more for a moment, then very decisively shook her head and said, “No, I had never seen him before.”
“But you let him in?”
“Yes.”
“Are you accustomed to admitting strangers to your room?”
“I want you to understand my position, Mr. Selby. You’re an educated man. You’re different from the rabble. You can appreciate the position of an actress. I’m really not my own boss. I’m owned by my public. One must, of course, use discretion, but, if you could have seen this man when he was alive, you’d have realized how harmless he was. And yet, harmless isn’t exactly the word I want. He was inoffensive, but it wasn’t merely a passive futility, if you understand what I mean, it was... well, he seemed to be at peace with the world and to be non-combative.”
“And so you let him in?”
“Yes.”
“What reason did he give for knocking on the door?”
“He said that he’d seen me come in, that despite my attempt to avoid recognition he had realized who I was. He’d seen me get out of the automobile in front of the hotel and followed me to the freight elevator. In some way he’d discovered that I was in this room.”
“How long was it after you’d taken the room that he knocked on the door?”
“Less than half an hour. Perhaps fifteen minutes.”
“If he’d seen you in the elevator, why didn’t he knock immediately?”
“He told me that he realized it was an intrusion upon my privacy. He’d been trying to make up his mind to do it for several minutes. He said he’d stood outside the door for several minutes before he knocked.”
“What time was this?”
“As nearly as I can place it, about a quarter to ten.”