Sam West paused in the middle of his dressing to regard Brokay critically. “If you’ve got any shabby clothes,” he said, “you’d better put ’em on. Hiding with you wasn’t so hot. If we can get out of here ahead of the police, you’re going to hide with me. The cops won’t think of looking for a burglar prowling around with a society guy, and they sure as hell won’t think of looking for a society guy prowling around with a burglar. Let’s get started.”
“The monkey?” asked Brokay as they started to leave the place.
“Ditch him,” said West.
“Oh no you don’t,” Brokay told him. “The monkey has got to come with us. He’s our clue. What’s more, we don’t dare to let the police find it here.”
Sam West made a gesture of irritation. “What a boob I was,” he said, “when I picked this house for a burglary. And what a bigger boob I was, when I didn’t let you turn me over to the police. Why the devil did I have to get bats in my belfry and take on a dude apprentice?”
Brokay held out his arms to the monkey. The little animal, chattering delightedly, leapt to Brokay’s shoulder. “Come on, crook,” said Brokay grinning. “Let’s go out and find some more excitement.”
The burglar groaned.
Sam West swept his arm about in an inclusive gesture, indicating the room with its twin beds, the grimy window, the cheap pictures on the wall. “O. K.,” he said. “This is home.”
“Are we safe here?” Brokay asked.
“Safe as we can be.”
“But, I don’t get the sketch,” Brokay said.
“It’s a rooming house that’s run by crooks. Did you notice the girl at the desk? That’s Thelma Grebe. She’s a moll. Whenever anyone wants to hole up, they simply tell Thelma that they’re on the lam. Thelma gives them a room and if any smart dicks come around and ask any questions, Thelma gives them a runaround.”
“What did you tell her about me?” Brokay asked.
“I told her you were on the lam from Chi. You’re supposed to be a red-hot. You can keep in the room as much as you want to.”
Brokay opened the wicker basket in which he had carried the monkey. “Come on out, Jocko,” he said.
The monkey, curled up inside the basket in a neat little nest of rags, climbed up to Brokay’s shoulder, made little patting gestures of affection with his paws on Brokay’s cheeks and hair.
“That little devil sure likes you,” West said, “but you want to keep him out of sight. We’d better fix a place for him in the closet.”
“What I want to do,” said Brokay, “is to find out something about this murder. I want to get more information about it.”
“I’ve got most of the dope on that,” Sam West said. “When I was talking with Thelma, she gave me the low-down on the thing. The job was pulled by a girl named Rhoda Koline. Anyway, that’s what the police figure.”
“Who’s Rhoda Koline?” Brokay asked.
“She was employed as a social secretary by John Ordway. She kept his household accounts and handled his social engagements. You see, the police figure that Gladys Ordway was undressed at the time she was stuck with the knife. Now, she wouldn’t have undressed in front of a man unless it was somebody she was playing around with and she was a nice kid. The police figure that it was a question of some woman being in the room with her and sticking her with the knife after she’d got her clothes off. They started in on the maid, but didn’t get anywhere because the maid had an alibi. Then they started looking around for Rhoda, and when Rhoda found out about it, she took it on the lam.”
“They don’t know where she is now?”
“No.”
“Then,” said Brokay, “they’re not going to suspect us?”
“Only as being mixed up in it with Rhode somehow,” Sam West told him. “If we keep under cover, the thing may straighten out all right.”
“How many other people are in this rooming house?” Brokay inquired.
“You can’t ever tell,” West told him. “Thelma Grebe keeps her own confidences. That’s why she’s on the job. If it wasn’t for that, she’d be found in an alley some night with her throat slit.”
“You didn’t get a paper, did you?” Brokay asked.
“Not the late edition.”
“I want to get one.”
“O. K., but be careful how much prowling around you do. You’re safe as long as you’re here in the house. There’s a room in the front of the house — Number Ten. It’s used as a kind of lobby and sitting room. They keep newspapers in there. There’s also some magazines, and if any of the folks here get to feeling lonesome they go in and sit around for a chat. You can talk to anyone you see there, and you won’t need to introduce yourself. Monikers are considered nobody’s business, except to the guys that own them. Don’t ask anybody’s moniker and nobody’s going to ask yours.”
Brokay put the monkey in the closet, left the room, found the door with the number “10” over it, and pushed the door open.
There was a table in the center of the room. Sunshine streamed through windows on the south. The rumble of traffic came up through windows on the west. There were half a dozen chairs in the room; the table was littered with magazines and newspapers.
A young woman of perhaps twenty-five years of age was standing at the table reading one of the newspapers. She caught Brokay’s eye as he came in the room, and half turned away, as though trying to hide her interest in the newspaper, then she caught her breath, turned back to Brokay and smiled.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” Brokay told her. “You staying here?”
“Yes,” she said smiling, “temporarily. And you?”
“Temporarily also,” he told her.
They both smiled. Brokay started looking through the newspapers on the table.
“I’ve got the latest edition here,” she said.
“Take your time,” Brokay told her.
“You might,” she said smiling, “like to look over my shoulder.”
“Thanks,” Brokay told her, “if I may.” He moved so that he could see over her shoulder.
“I don’t know just what you’re interested in,” said the girl, “but I’m interested in this.” Her forefinger swept across the front page of the paper.
Brokay, following her forefinger, saw that she was indicating the account of the Ordway murder. “You interested in that?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Are you?”
“Just as a matter of news,” he told her.
She laughed lightly. There was something almost of mockery in her laugh, and yet there was an undertone of nervousness; a certain throaty catch of the voice.
Brokay stared at her curiously, catching a part of her profile, the curve of her cheek, the long sweep of her eyelashes. It was impossible for him to place her as a crook. He would, ordinarily, have unhesitatingly branded her as a young woman of beauty and refinement. To find her in this crook’s hide-out came as a distinct shock and surprise.
She evidently felt his eyes upon her, for she suddenly turned to face him. “I thought,” she said, “you were interested in the newspaper.” This time there could be no mistaking the mockery in her voice. “As a matter of casual news, of course,” she said.
Brokay devoted his attention to the newspaper account.
There was nothing in the paper which represented any startling developments in the case. For the most part, it merely elaborated what Brokay had already learned from the burglar.
As Brokay finished reading, the girl suddenly turned toward him and gave him a searching glance. “Do you think,” she said, “that the two men with the monkey had anything to do with it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Brokay said, “I try not to think about matters which don’t concern me. I have enough that does.”