“Why of course?”
“What else could she do? She runs the club. In fact, without her there wouldn’t be any club. If she went and got married...” Ruthie shuddered.
“Mr. Peel,” said the voice of Iowa Lee.
Peel looked up. Iowa Lee stood just inside the door, beckoning to him. “I’d like to see you for a moment, Mr. Peel.”
Peel got up. “Excuse me.”
“Hurry back,” cried Ruthie. “Don’t keep him too long, Iowa darling.”
Peel followed Iowa Lee into her private office. It was nicely furnished, in sharp contrast to the plain reception office. Iowa went behind her desk and picked up a file card.
“I’ve just been looking at your application card, Mr. Peel. The name sounded familiar, so...” She picked up a second card. “So I looked in the files. I find that you enrolled in our correspondence club only two weeks ago.”
Peel thought some dirty things about Otis Beagle. “That’s right, I did join, but I thought I’d like to come down and meet some of the girls in person.”
“Mmm,” said Iowa Lee, frowning lightly. “You just gave your address as the Hotel Shelby, but on your other card you gave it as the Monadnock Building.”
“I live at the Hotel Shelby, but my business is at the Monadnock Building.”
“Just what is your business, Mr. Peel?”
“Oh, it’s just a little business. Don’t amount to much.”
“It wouldn’t be the — detective business, would it?”
“Detective!” cried Joe Peel.
“Your signature on these cards — it isn’t the same. Naturally, I became suspicious. I phoned the Hotel Shelby and when they told me you were out, I asked where you could be reached. They told me at the Beagle Detective Agency in the Monadnock Building.”
“All right,” said Peel, “but a private eye gets lonesome, too.”
“And your handwriting is different every time you sign your name?”
“Otis Beagle filled out the first card.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Peel, I operate a legitimate social club here. The membership is restricted to compatible people and I do not feel that they would like it if they knew that a detective was present at their meetings.”
“Do I get the fifteen bucks back?”
Iowa Lee hesitated. “Just why are you here, Mr. Peel?”
“I told you. I’m lonesome.”
“I doubt it — with your line...”
Peel suddenly grinned. “You’re just about my size, baby.”
“But you’re not mine. Who... who employed you to investigate this club?”
“I’m not investigating the club. My evenings are my own.”
“All right, you’re not investigating the club. But what about the members. Are you investigating one of them?”
“I don’t know who your members are.”
“And you’re not going to know.” Iowa Lee looked at Peel steadily. “I think you’d better leave now.”
“The fifteen bucks...!”
Tossing her head in annoyance, Iowa Lee turned and stepped to an open safe. She took out a tin cashbox and from a thick stack of bills skimmed off a ten and a five. She tossed them to her desk. Peel picked them up.
“I still say you’re my size, honey,” he said. “If you get a lonesome evening...”
“I won’t.”
“The Hotel Shelby...”
He grinned at her and walked out into the reception room.
“Miss Anderson,” Peel said, “I live at the Hotel Shelby—”
“Good-bye, Mr. Peel,” Miss Anderson said coldly.
Peel sighed. “Ah, well!”
He walked out.
5
When Joe Peel entered the lobby of the Shelby Hotel, Otis Beagle got up from the big leather chair facing the door. “Where’ve you been, Joe?” he cried. “I’ve been waiting here for an hour.”
“I had a hot hand at my club,” Peel retorted. “You expect me to quit just because you were waiting here for me?”
Beagle waved a folded newspaper at Peel. “Let’s go to your room where we can talk.”
Peel stepped to the desk. “My key, please.”
The night manager got the key for Room 302 from the slot, but he kept it in his hand. “Your bill, Mr. Peel,” he said. “It’s two weeks overdue...”
“How much is it?”
“Twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents.”
Peel paid it while Beagle stood behind him, glowering. They entered the elevator, but Beagle did not say a word until Peel unlocked the door of Room 302. Then Beagle closed the door behind him and exploded.
“What was that act this afternoon, about having only a dollar and forty cents between you and starvation?”
“I got some money since then.”
“From who?”
“Whom, Otis.”
“Dammit,” cried Beagle, “don t bandy words with me. We’re in enough trouble now.” He whisked open the newspaper. “Have you seen this?”
“Yep”
“This is the Dave Corey you were talking about. He was killed at the Hillcrest Towers.”
“I told you that this afternoon. Your friend Pinky told you the call to the Hillcrest Towers was a false alarm.”
“It was. Corey was picked up on Mulholland Drive.”
“That’s what the police say. It might be a trap.”
Beagle didn’t like that. He went to the single chair in the room, a threadbare Morris chair, and seated his big body in it. He shook his head.
“Pinky wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Pinky only knows what Homicide tells him.”
“He told me he talked to Lieutenant Becker.”
“You know Becker’s a sharpie. He’d tell Pinky the first thing that came into his mind.”
“And take a chance on getting sent out to Canoga Park to walk a beat?”
“Pinky doesn’t rate that high with the cops.”
“Don’t fool yourself.” Beagle blew on his huge simulated diamond ring and polished the glass on the lapel of his coat.
“Becker’s grilled Linda Meadows by this time. If she talks you’re sunk.”
“Me?”
Beagle shrugged. “The agency. Same thing.”
“Pull yourself together, Otis,” Peel said. “If you think the agency’s in trouble, let me tell you what’s happened since you left the office this afternoon.”
Beagle groaned. “What else?”
“We got a client — Linda Meadows...”
Beagle sat up straight. “What?”
“And it wasn’t the Linda Meadows I saw at the Hillcrest Towers.”
“Make sense.”
Peel took the snapshot out of his pocket. “This is the girl I talked to at the Towers.”
Beagle took the picture and whistled. “Not bad. Maybe I should have gone there.”
“This one’s name is Susan Sawyer. She lives with the real Linda Meadows, the one who came down to the office and hired us, and I’ll tell you what, you take this one, I’ll take the one who came down to the office. Mmm, maybe I’d prefer Iowa Lee.”
“What’s Iowa Lee got to do with this?”
“In time. Linda Meadows hired the agency to find Susan Sawyer, the girl in the picture.”
“What’re you talking about? You just got through saying you saw her this afternoon.”
“That’s right, but Linda says she disappeared a week ago. Just went out and never came back.”
Beagle looked at Peel with narrowed eyes. “Say that again.”
“Linda Meadows hired the agency to find Susan Sawyer, the girl whose picture you’re holding. She’s been missing a week.” Peel held up his hand. “I know I talked to her in the apartment this afternoon.”
“But that’s crazy. If she was there, she isn’t missing. So why should this other girl hire us to look for her?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I phoned you at the club, Otis, remember. You’d just bid five spades and you said for me to drop dead.”