I turned the folder over between my fingers, remembering that Greaves, the hotel detective, had said that the Musketeer Club was the most exclusive, apart from being the most expensive club in town. How had Jack got hold of the folder? Had he gone to the club? Knowing him, I was sure he wouldn’t go to a de luxe night spot like that unless it was for business reasons. He was far too careful with his money to take any girl to a place that expensive.
Still holding the folder, I got to my feet, thought for a moment, then, leaving my room, I took the elevator down to the lobby.
I asked the reception clerk if Greaves was around.
“He’ll be in his office right now,” the clerk said, staring at my swollen eye. “Downstairs and to the right. Did you have an accident, Mr. Brandon?”
“This eye? Why, no. I ordered some sandwiches to be sent up and the waiter threw them at me. Think nothing of it. I go for that kind of service.”
I left him with his mouth hanging open and his second chin quivering and went down the stairs to Greaves’s office.
It was more of a cupboard than a room. I found him sitting at a small table, laying out a hand of patience. He looked up as I came to rest in the open doorway.
“Someone take a dislike to your face?” he asked, without much show of interest.
“Yeah,” I said and, leaning forward, I dropped the match folder on the table.
He looked at it, frowned, looked up at me and raised his eyebrows.
“How come?”
“I found it in Sheppey’s suit-case.”
“I’m willing to bet a buck he never went there. He hadn’t the class, the money nor the influence to get past the bouncers.”
“No chance?”
“Not a chance in ten million.”
“Maybe someone took him in. That possible?”
Greaves nodded.
“Maybe. A member can take in who he likes, but if the other snobs don’t like who he brings in, he could lose his membership. That’s how it works.”
“He could have picked it up somewhere.”
Greaves shrugged.
“First one I’ve seen. The guys and dolls who go to the Musketeer Club wouldn’t soil their lily white fingers touching a thing like that. They’d be afraid it’d give them a germ. I’d say someone took him in and he brought this away with him to prove he had been there. It’s something to brag about if you’re the bragging kind.”
“Know where I can get hold of a members’ list?”
He smiled sourly, got up, edged around his table and went to a cupboard. After rummaging around for a few moments, he offered me a small book, bound in faded red water-silk with the same gold lettering on it as the match folder.
“I found it in one of the rooms at the Ritz-Plaza and thought it might come in useful one day. It’s two years out of date.”
“I’ll let you have it back,” I said, retrieving the match folder from the table and putting it and the members’ book in my pocket. “Thanks.”
“Who gave you the shiner?”
“Nobody you’d want to know,” I said, and went out and up to the lounge. I found an armchair away from the old ladies and gentlemen and read through the names in the book. There were about five hundred names to wade through. Four hundred and ninety-seven of them meant nothing to me: the other three did: Mrs. Bridgette Creedy, Mr. Jacques Thrisby and Miss Margot Creedy.
I closed the book and slapped it gently against my hand.
I sat for some minutes thinking. Then out of the blue came an idea. I considered it, decided after a moment or so that it wasn’t perhaps a brilliant idea, but at least it wasn’t a bad one, and I got to my feet.
I went over to the hall porter and asked him where Franklyn Avenue was.
He told me to take the second on the right, then the first on the left by the traffic lights.
I thanked him and went down the steps to where I had left the Buick.
Chapter V
I
The Franklyn Arms turned out to be one of those snooty, high-toned apartment blocks reserved only for those in the upper social register, and who have more than a six-figure income.
There were, at a guess, not more than thirty apartments in the block. The building was three stories high, and sat with the dignity of a dowager duchess in an elaborately cultivated acre of land with lawns, a fountain in which stood a reproduction of Donatello’s Boy with a Dolphin, flood-lit to underline the architect’s good taste, and set beds with silver centaurea and sky blue petunias.
I steered the Buick into a vacant space between a Silver Wraith and a Silver Dawn Rolls-Royce, got out and walked past a Continental Bentley, a sixty-two coupe Cadillac, and a Packard Clipper. There was enough money rolled up in all that hardware to keep me happy for ten years.
I pushed my way through the revolving doors into an oak-panelled lobby decorated with carnations growing in chromium-plated boxes set against the walls, and a small fountain with half a dozen well-fed, contented-looking goldfish swimming in the lighted water.
Over in the far corner was the reception desk behind which stood a tall blond man in an immaculate tuxedo, who wore a bored, disdainful expression on his handsome, effeminate face.
I went over to him and gave him one of my friendly smiles. This was probably a mistake, for he reared back as if I had hung a decayed fish under his aristocratic nose.
“Miss Creedy please,” I said.
He fingered his immaculate tie while his brown eyes travelled over me. He would know to the exact cent what my suit, tie, shirt and hat cost. The valuation didn’t seem to impress him.
“Is Miss Creedy expecting you?”
“No. Will you call her and tell her I have just been talking to her father and would now appreciate a word with her. The name is Lew Brandon.”
He tapped his beautifully manicured finger-nails on the top of the polished counter while he thought. From the strained expression in his eyes, I could tell this was a process that would never come naturally to him.
“Perhaps you had better write first,” he said at length. He lifted his arm and consulted a solid gold Omega. “It is a little late for a call.”
“Look, buster,” I said, making my voice suddenly tough, “you may be a thing of beauty, but don’t kid yourself you’re a joy for ever. Just call Miss Creedy and let her make her own decisions.”
He stared at me for a brief moment, surprise and alarm in his eyes, then he went into a room behind the counter and shut the door.
I took a cigarette from my pack and pasted it on my lower lip. I wondered if he were going to call the law. I’d look pretty sick if some ambitious cop rushed me down to headquarters on a charge of annoying the elite of St. Raphael City. But a couple of minutes later, he came out looking as if he had swallowed a bee. He indicated an automatic elevator across the way and said curtly, “Second floor. Apartment seven.” Then, tossing his blond curls, he turned his back on me.
I found apartment seven after walking down a long oak-panelled corridor. As I paused outside the front door, I could hear a radio playing something from Mozart. I pushed the bell button, and after a moment or so the door was opened by an elderly, pleasant-looking woman in a black silk dress and a frilled white apron.
“Mr. Brandon?”
“Yes.”
I surrendered my hat as I walked into a small hall which was furnished with an oval-shaped table on which stood a silver bowl of orchids.
The maid opened a door, said, “Mr. Brandon,” and stood aside for me to enter.
I walked into a big lounge, decorated in white and apricot. The walls and drapes and the leather lounging chairs were in apricot; the carpet and Miss Creedy were in white.