The room was an office, furnished with an antique roll-top desk, a hardly less antique typewriter, and a bank of unmatched filing cabinets. Nude color-calendar photos were pinned up on much of the wall space, interspersed with glossy monochromes of similar esthetic subjects. The desk was littered with a hodgepodge of correspondence, bills, prints, and negatives, and about half the filing drawers were open to varying extents, many of them with folders partly raised out of them. Nevertheless, the general impression, strengthened by the film of dust that could be observed on many surfaces, was not so much that of a recent ransacking as of an ancient and incurable disorder.
But why should there have been any ransacking? With his rolled-up sleeves and his coat over the back of the chair, Vere Balton hadn’t surprised any intruder — he had been surprised. And with a gun in his chest, he would have been glad to produce whatever the intruder wanted in exchange for his life, hoping he would not be cheated...
All this went through the Saint’s mind in a consecutive rush, like a cascade through a sieve. But before it had finished draining through, one scrap of flotsam was caught: Mr Otis Q Fennick was entangled, consciously or not, with something bigger than a candid shot of himself in the hay with a buxom brunette whose name was not on his marriage license.
Simon backed out of the office on tiptoe, and retraced his steps even more circumspectly between the obstacles and over the coiling cables of the studio lights, being careful to leave no clumsy traces of his visit. But in the anteroom in front he stopped by the desk on which he had seen the telephone. That was the logical place to look for one item of information that he had come for, and he found it in the first drawer he opened with a handkerchief wrapped around his fingers. There was an address book, precisely where one would expect it to be kept, and he turned the pages with the same precaution against leaving fingerprints, scanning each one swiftly but completely.
He had to go nearly all the way through the book before he came to a Norma, and not much farther to be positive that there were no others. He turned back and memorized the entry with a second glance:
Norma Uplitz
5 De Boer Lane — Apt. 2
AG 2-9044
Not the most likely name for the sexily constructed siren that Mr Fennick had indicated, but a lot of Hollywood queens had started life even less glamorously baptized.
He had not touched either of the entrance doors with his hands when he came in, he recalled, and he went out without touching them. He did pull the front door almost shut, before he put his handkerchief away, leaving it as nearly as possible in the same position as he had found it. Let the police have the benefit of any clues that might be latent in the set-up; the Saint’s only concern was not to interpolate any new ones which might point misleadingly to himself.
The greatest risk seemed to be that someone might remember seeing him going in or coming out. That was a hazard which he shared with the real killer. But the ultimate danger to himself was much less, for if that hypothetical witness took any note of the time, it would prove that the Saint had been there several hours after the autopsy would show that Vere Balton had died. So he took his departure boldly and unhurriedly, making no special effort to avoid being observed — which was perhaps the best of all guarantees against being noticed.
He walked back to the Mercurio and took the elevator directly to the sixth floor, without wasting any time on the house phone. He did not have to hesitate over the route to Room 607, for the number told him that it must be next door to the same relative location as his own room.
There was no “Do Not Disturb” card hung on the door knob, but it would not have moderated his peremptory knock if there had been.
The door opened almost instantly, and for one of the few times in his life Simon Templar felt that only the sangfroid of a sphinx saved him from falling over backwards.
It was not Otis Q Fennick who opened the door. It was a blonde. And no part of her configuration remotely resembled that of the creator of Crackpops.
It was, however, strikingly reminiscent of the general impression that Mr Fennick had haltingly conveyed of his unauthorized cot companion. But one specification that Simon was unshakably clear about was that Mr Fennick’s surprise package had been distinctly described as a brunette.
This blonde had not been manufactured in the past few hours. She might have owed something to tints and rinses, but the foundation was genetic. The Saint could tell. And as other minutiae gradually registered on him, they declined unanimously to fit into the reconstruction of a frill who hustled photos in a joint like the Rowdy Room and would blow more than a flash bulb for a fast bill. This one’s dress had the unmistakable cachet of expensive exclusiveness, and any one of the small ornaments she wore would have out-valued Norma Uplitz’s whole treasure chest of jewels. This one might be available too, for the right proposition, but the price tag would be liable to sift the boys by their tax brackets.
“I beg your pardon,” said the Saint, with a sensation of laboriously cranking his chin up off his necktie, “I was looking for Mr Fennick.”
“He isn’t here.”
“But this is his room?”
“Yes. He just happens to be out.”
“Oh.”
“It’s perfectly respectable,” said the blonde. “I’m his wife.”
“His...”
“Wife. You must have heard the expression. Are you feeling all right? You look rather glassy-eyed.”
Simon strove valiantly to unglaze. It required an abnormal effort, but the multiplication of shocks was proceeding a trifle rapidly even for him. And the day had scarcely begun.
“I was a bit startled,” he admitted. “I understood you were in New York.”
“I was — yesterday. But these new jets are so sudden. Do you have some business with him, or are you a friend?”
“To tell you the truth, I only met him last night. But we became quite chummy.”
“I can imagine it. Do you sell candy, or is it soda pop?”
“Neither. We just happened to be at the same hotel, and we bumped into each other. One of those things.”
“I thought you looked different from most of his business buddies. Come in.”
Simon had intended to from the moment he saw her.
The room was virtually a facsimile of his own, and the blonde looked as out of place in it as a piece of Cartier hardware in a junk yard. But the observation he wanted to make was that Mr Fennick really wasn’t there. The closet was open, and he was able to check under the bed by clumsily dropping the pack of cigarettes he slipped out of his pocket.
“As a matter of fact, you might be able to help me to catch up with him,” said the blonde. “I only arrived late last night myself — it was all on the spur of the moment, and I didn’t even try to call him till this morning. I know what these conventions are like. I spent the night with an old girlfriend who lives here.”
“I was wondering how you got in. That’s why I looked so dazed when I saw you.”
“They gave me a key at the desk, of course, as soon as I proved I was Mrs Fennick. Why shouldn’t they?”
“I called him less than an hour ago,” said the Saint, “and his phone was still shut off.”
“It was shut off when I called from downstairs ten minutes ago. So I came on up anyhow. Exercising a marital privilege. I didn’t see why I should have to sit in the lobby till he condescended to regain consciousness. But no Otis.”
“He must have gone out and forgotten to clear the line.”
“Do you solve crossword puzzles, too?” Simon had been opening his cigarette package, which was a fresh one, with unhurried neatness. He offered her the first of its contents, which she accepted.
“I can’t solve any puzzle about where he may have gone,” he said, striking a match. “He didn’t tell me anything about his plans for the day.”