I told him I didn’t. He took an airmail letter from his pocket and asked if I’d drop it in the box for him—
Paula Stafford!
I sat up in bed so suddenly I dropped my cigarette and had to retrieve it from the floor. That’s where I’d heard the name. Or had seen it, rather. When I was mailing the letter I’d noticed idly that it was addressed to somebody at a hotel in New York. I wasn’t prying; it was merely that the New York address had struck me, since he was from San Francisco, and I’d glanced at the name. Stanford? Sanford? Stafford? That was it; I was positive of it.
God, what a dope! I’d forgotten all about her call. She was probably over at the Warwick Hotel right now, and could clear up the whole mystery in five minutes. I grabbed the telephone.
I waited impatiently while the operator dialed. “Good morning,” a musical voice said. “Hotel Warwick.”
“Do you have a Paula Stafford registered?” I asked.
“One moment, please. . . . Yes, sir. . . .”
“Would you ring her, please?”
“I’m sorry, sir. Her line is busy.”
Probably trying to get me at the boatyard, I thought. I sprang up and began throwing on my clothes. It was only three blocks to the Warwick. The traffic lights were blinking amber, and the streets were empty except for a late bus or two and a Sanitation Department truck. I made it to the Warwick in three minutes. The big ornate lobby was at the bottom of its day’s cycle; all the shops were closed, and some of the lights were turned off around the outlying areas with only the desk and switchboard and one elevator still functioning, like the nerve centers of some complex animal asleep. I headed for the house phones, over to the right of the desk.
She answered almost immediately, as if she had been standing beside the instrument. “Yes?”
“Miss Stafford?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said eagerly. “Who is it?”
“Stuart Rogers. I’m down in the lobby—”
“Oh, thank Heavens!” She sounded slightly hysterical. “I’ve been trying to get you at that shipyard, but the man said you were gone, he didn’t know where. But never mind. Where are you?”
“Down in the lobby,” I repeated.
“Come on up! Room 1508.”
It was to the right, the boy said. I stepped out of the elevator and went along a hushed and deep-carpeted corridor. When I knocked, she opened the door immediately. The first thing that struck me about her were her eyes. They were large and deeply blue, with long dark lashes, but they were smudged with sleeplessness and jittery with some intense emotion too long sustained.
“Come in, Mr. Rogers!” She stepped back, gave me a nervous but friendly smile that was gone almost before it landed, and shook a pill out of the bottle she was holding in her left hand. She was about thirty-five, I thought. She had dark hair that was a little mussed, as if she’d been running her hands through it, and was wearing a blue dressing gown, belted tightly about her waist. Paula Stafford was a very attractive woman, aside from an impression that if you dropped something or made a sudden move she might jump into the overhead light fixture.
I came on into the room and closed the door while she grabbed up a tumbler of water from the table on her left and swallowed the pill. Also on the table was a burning cigarette in a long holder, balanced precariously on the edge, another bottle of pills of a different color, and an unopened pint bottle of Jack Daniel’s. To my left was the partly opened door of the bathroom. Beyond her was a large double bed with a persimmon-colored spread. The far wall was almost all window, covered with a drawn Venetian blind and persimmon drapes. Light came from the bathroom door and from the floor lamp beside the dresser, which was beyond the foot of the bed, to my left. A dress, apparently the one she’d been wearing, was thrown across the bed, along with a half slip, her handbag, and a pair of sun glasses, while her suitcase was open and spilling lingerie and stockings on the luggage stand at the foot of it. It was hard to tell whether she’d taken up residence in the room or had been lobbed into it just before she went off.
“Tell me about him!” she demanded. “Do you think he’s all right?” Then, before I could open my mouth, she broke off with another nervous smile and indicated the armchair near the foot of the bed, at the same time grabbing up the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and starting to fumble with the seal. “Forgive me. Won’t you sit down? And let me pour you a drink.”
I lifted the bottle of whisky out of her hands before she could drop it, and placed it on the table. “Thanks, I don’t want a drink. But I would like some information.”
She didn’t even hear me, apparently, or notice that I’d taken the whisky away. She went right on talking. “. . . half out of my mind, even though I know there must be some perfectly good reason he hasn’t got in touch with me yet.”
“Who?” I asked.
This got through to her. She stopped, looked at me in surprise, and said, “Why, Brian—I mean, Wendell Baxter.”
It was my turn this time. It seemed incredible she didn’t know. I felt rotten about having to break it to her this way. “I’m sorry, Miss Stafford, but I took it for granted you’d read about it in the papers. Wendell Baxter is dead.”
She smiled. “Oh, of course! How stupid of me.” She turned away, and began to rummage through her handbag on the bed. “I must say he made no mistake in trusting you, Mr. Rogers.”
I stared blankly at the back of her head, and took out a cigarette and lighted it. There was a vague impression somewhere in my mind that her conversation—if that was what it was—would make sense if only you had the key to it.
“Oh, here it is,” she said, and turned back with a blue airmail envelope in her hand. I felt a little thrill as I saw the Canal Zone postmark; it was the one I’d mailed for him. At last I might find out something. “This should clear up your doubts as to who I am. Go ahead and read it.”
I slid out the letter.
Cristobal, C.Z.
June 1st
Dearest Paula:
There is time for just the briefest of notes. Slidell is here in the Zone and has seen me. He has the airport covered, but I have found a way to slip out.
I am writing this aboard the ketch Topaz, which is sailing shortly for Southport, Texas. I have engaged to go along as deckhand, using the name of Wendell Baxter. They may find out, of course, but I might not be aboard when she arrives. As soon as we are safely at sea I am going to approach Captain Rogers about putting me ashore somewhere farther up the Central American coast. Of course it is possible he won’t do it, but I hope to convince him. The price may be high, but fortunately I still have something over $23,000 in cash with me. I shall write again the moment I am ashore, either in Southport or somewhere in Central America. Until then, remember I am safe, no matter what you might hear, and that I love you.
Brian
Twenty-three thousand dollars ... I stood there dumbly while she took the letter from my fingers, folded it, and slid it back into the envelope.
She looked up at me. “Now,” she cried out eagerly, “where is he, Mr. Rogers?”
I had to say something. She was waiting for an answer. “He’s dead. He died of a heart attack—”
She cut me short with a gesture of exasperation, tinged with contempt. “Aren’t you being a little ridiculous? You’ve read the letter; you know who I am. Where did you put him ashore? Where was he going?”
I think that was the moment I began to lose my head. It was the utter futility of it. I caught her arms. “Listen! Was Baxter insane?”
“Insane? What are you talking about?”