Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

“Don’t fret about him, Ed.” Pedley wasn’t impressed. “Plenty of others aren’t getting to the hospital, either.”

“Yeah. Name’s Lester Harris. Here four years. Okay record.” The deputy went out, closed the door behind him.

“You phoned the alarm, Harris?”

The patrolman nodded glumly. “I’m up on the ninth, see? I smell this smoke. So I beat it for the hand extinguisher down the end of the hall. When I get down there I see smoke’s comin’ from the stair door. Comin’ up from eight. So I run down there an’—”

“What time was this?” Pedley cut in.

“Only a couple minutes before I phone in. Don’t know exactly. I just punch my clock on nine when I get that whiff of smoke. When I get down to eight I still can’t tell where it’s coming from. I figure it ain’t safe to delay any longer. So I push in 802 — that’s a vacant they’re repapering — and grab the phone.”

“Been making your regular tour up to that time?”

“Yes sir.”

“Where’d you start?”

“From the mezz.”

“When?”

“Midnight. Maybe a little after. Clock’ll show.”

“The alarm hit the Telegraph Bureau at 1:07. How long’s it take you to cover a floor?”

“Suppose to be around five minutes. They allow an hour for me to cover ten floors.”

“Why’d it take you sixty-seven minutes to inspect eight, then?”

“Crysake!” Harris coughed. “I don’t generally gallop up them stairs. An’ I took out for a personal. On six, that was.”

“Didn’t notice anything out of the way on any of the lower floors when you came through?”

The floor patrol’s glance flickered for a split second.

“No sir.”

“Know the party in 441?”

Harris repeated the number with a rising inflection.

Pedley consulted a card. “Register says it was occupied by a Mrs. Doris Munson, Danbury, Connecticut.”

“She’s a permanent.” Harris fumbled at his bandage, showed his teeth in a grimace. “Works here. On the switchboard. Day side.”

“Know anything about her?”

“A blonde. A nifty. Thirty or so.” He rubbed his bald eyebrow. “Why? What’s she got to do with it?”

“Fire started in her room.”

The floor patrol’s eyes grew round. “Holy cats!”

“Smoking in bed, looked like.” Pedley’s face told nothing. “Was she much of a boozer?”

“Not that I hear of. But—” Harris didn’t finish whatever it was he had been going to say.

“But what?”

“Nothing.”

The Marshal took two quick steps, wound his fingers in the cloth of Harris’s uniform coat at the second button, jerked the shorter man up on tiptoe. “This blaze put twenty people in the morgue! Twice that many in the hospital!” He put his face close to the other’s, growling: “If you know one damn thing about how it started, spit it out! Fast! Or you’ll have a long time to wish you had!!”

“I don’t know,” Harris looked as if he was about to sneeze, “if I do know anything...”

“Let me decide.” Pedley released him.

“This Mrs. Munson. She’s kind of... uh... friendly... with Check Wayner...”

“Who’s Wayner?”

“Bell captain. Night side.”

“Keep pouring.”

“He goes up to her room once in a while. He ain’t suppose to; it’s strictly against house rules. I don’t know if anybody else knows it. But I seen him coming out of 441 a couple times when he didn’t know I was around. He was in there tonight.”

“You see him go in?”

“No, sir. I hear him. When I’m comin’ along the corridor on four. They’re havin’ some kind of argument.”

Pedley eyed him stonily. “So you listened at the door.”

“I’m suppose to see nobody roams around in rooms where they don’t belong,” the patrolman protested. “Mrs. Munson was a single.”

“What were they battling about?”

“You couldn’t prove it by me. I only horn in on it a minute. I figure it’s one of them things and none of my business. Except I wonder how Check gets away with bein’ off his desk so long.”

“What were they talking about?!” Pedley stepped in close again.

Harris retreated a step. “Near’s I can make out from the little I hear,” he muttered defensively, “Check is bawlin’ her out for fidoodling around with some other joe. An’ she’s tellin’ him to peddle his papers, she’ll do like she pleases.”

“That all?”

“Well, Check gets pretty sore, from the way he sounds. I figure he’s about due to come bustin’ out of the room. So I mosey along. Last thing I hear him say is — “I’d rather see you dead than living this way, Doris!”

Pedley waved brusquely at the short, dapper youth in the snappy bellman’s uniform.

“Sit down, Wayner.”

Check Wayner didn’t make any move toward the straight-backed chair beside the manager’s desk. “You got no right to hold me.”

“Get the idea out of your mind, fella. I’ve the right to hold you, arrest you, try you and convict you — right here and now. At the scene of a fire I’m cop, prosecutor, judge and jury, all in one. You better take my word for it but it won’t make a damn bit of difference whether you do or not. What you know about this blaze?”

“Nothing.”

“Still alarm came in at one-seven ayem. Fire had a ten, maybe a fifteen minute start by then. Where were you, around ten minutes to one?”

“Taking a bucket of ice up to somebody, chances are.”

“Your call sheet doesn’t show any entries after 12:25.”

“Then I was in the lobby.”

“Weren’t up on the fourth?”

“No.” Wayner’s eyes became wary.

“Not in 441, maybe?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you were up in that room?”

“Don’t the call sheet tell you that, too?” the bell captain inquired sullenly.

“You were up in Mrs. Munson’s room about quarter past twelve. How long’d you stay?”

“I don’t remember...”

Pedley looked unhappy. He got up from the chair behind the desk, shucked his coat. “I’ll lay it on the line, kid. This hotel was torched. The fire started in Mrs. Munson’s room. It was set so it would look as if she’d been smoking in bed and fell asleep...” He rolled up his sleeves; Wayner watched him.

“A lot of people got killed,” the Marshal went on. “A lot more got hurt, some of ’em so bad they’ll die. Most of ’em were guests in this hotel but some of them were firemen. Friends of mine.” He stared down at his big hands, flexing the fingers slowly. “I’m going to find out who touched off this blaze. I don’t know whether it was you, or not. But you know something. I’m going to get it out of you, one way or another. Up to you, how I do it...”

Wayner spoke through set teeth. “You think I’d start a fire that put my sister in the hospital?”

“Mrs. Munson your sister?”

“Yes. I got her the job on the switchboard here.”

“What were you quarreling about, tonight?”

“We weren’t.”

“Les Harris says he heard you when he came past 441 on his twelve o’clock tour.”

The bell captain snarled: “He’s a liar.”

“He says he heard you tell Mrs. Munson you’d rather see her dead than living the way she was. What was that all about?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

Pedley turned, tapped the telephone. “The doctors just told me she wouldn’t be answering any questions, Wayner.”

“She’s dead?” He breathed it, as if it hurt him to speak.

“Not yet. She’s going to die.”

The youth whirled for the door. Pedley caught him:

“If you want to see her before she goes, you better loosen up, kid. I can’t let you go until you do.”