Richard Deming - Tweak the Devil’s Nose

“— that you’re a respectable married woman,” I finished for her, slightly bored with her belated and illogical virtue. “Tell me, is Roger jealous of your husband too?”

She raised her nose and got up from her chair. With head high, she swept toward the lobby entrance like a martyred queen. Returning to Fausta at the bar, I stared after Isobel thoughtfully as she disappeared from view.

“From the lady’s manner, I would guess you made improper proposals,” Fausta said waspishly.

I let a sensual leer form on my face and Fausta stuck out her tongue at me. It was a cute tongue, pointed and pink as a rose petal. But when Fausta saw me admiring it, she withdrew it and sulked.

I ordered another round from the bartender. A few minutes later Isobel unexpectedly returned. Sliding onto the stool next to Fausta, she held her face expressionless and directed her eyes at the bartender.

“Heard from Knight yet?” I asked her.

For a moment her gaze remained fixedly on the bartender. Then, woodenly, she turned her head at me, said, “No,” in a definite let-me-alone voice, and returned to her study of the drink mixer.

And at that moment, out of nowhere, something clicked in what I use for a brain. The sudden thought astonished me, not because of its penetration, but because I had been too stupid to see it previously.

“Do you know a Willard Knight?” I asked Fausta.

She frowned thoughtfully. “Knight,” she repeated. “Yes, I think so. He is an occasional patron at El Patio. A tall man with shaggy hair.”

Isobel’s back stiffened and I grinned at her. “Right under my nose,” I said. “I have to see a man, Fausta. Order a drink for Mrs. Jones while I’m gone.”

“Why do you never sit still?” she complained. “It is certainly lonesome to talk to you, because you go first here, then there, and one is mostly left alone.”

“One can talk to Mrs. Jones until I get back,” I said.

“One can also go with you while you see this man.” She slid from her stool with an air of definiteness about her. Shrugging, I took one bare elbow and piloted her toward the hotel lobby.

At the door I paused to look back. Isobel stared after us, her fists clenched so tightly in her lap the knuckles showed white. The expression on her face was that of a small girl caught in the cookie jar.

When we got on the elevator, Fausta looked at me curiously. But all I said was, “Fourteen, please.”

When we got off at fourteen, her expression had become speculative.

“When you were gone before, you registered for a room,” she hazarded. “You think I have drunk too many rum Cokes to know what I am doing?”

“I asked Isobel Jones first,” I growled at her. “She wasn’t drunk enough to give in.”

“Oh, well,” Fausta said philosophically. “Better second choice than none at all.”

We stopped before 1412 and I raised my fist to knock just as the phone inside began to ring. Dropping my hand, I waited for someone to answer. But the shrill peal went on and on.

Finally, when it was obvious no one was going to answer the phone, I tried the knob. Finding the door unlocked, I pushed it open. A quick glance from the doorway showed no one in the room. The phone, on a stand this side of the bed, continued to ring. Crossing to it, I lifted it from its cradle and said, “Yes?”

“Willard?” asked Isobel’s voice.

“Yes?” I said again.

Her voice was breathless. “That Moon man knows who you are. I think he’s on his way up.”

Fausta had moved from the doorway past the foot of the bed to the windows. Something in her manner caused my gaze to jump at her. She was standing rigid, an expression of shock on her face at something on the floor beyond my range of vision.

In a toneless voice I said into the phone, “Thanks,” and hung up.

Then, rounding the bed, I stared down at the body of Willard Knight, alias Roger Neltson, alias George Smith.

He lay flat on his back between the bed and the windows, his eyes wide open but sightless. His mouth sagged open too, and the lips had drawn back from his strong teeth to give him an expression of gaping wonder. The whole front of his shirt was soaked with blood from a wound in his chest. His body and the floor immediately around it were sprinkled with feathers.

At Knight’s feet lay the pillow from which the feathers had come, a powder-blackened hole indicating it had been used by the killer to muffle the sound of the shot.

Taking Fausta by the arm, I led her to the door. “Wait for me at the bar,” I told her, pushed her out into the hall and shut the door in her face.

Then I made a systematic search of the room.

A pigskin traveling bag containing a few changes of linen and toilet supplies was all the luggage I found. There were no papers of any sort in it or anywhere else in the room.

Finally I turned to the body. A wallet contained slightly over a hundred dollars in currency, several lodge-membership cards and a driver’s license issued to Willard Knight. His pockets yielded the usual assortment of keys, pocketknife, cigarette lighter and small change, but only one item of any interest.

In his side pants pocket I found a duplicate deposit slip issued by the Riverside Bank, showing a deposit made only that day to the account of the Jones and Knight Investment Company.

The amount shown was seventy thousand dollars.

Putting everything back the way I had found it, I lifted the phone and asked for the house detective.

“You had him right in your arms!” Day yelled at me. “Once you even had him unconscious!” He drew a deep breath. “So you just stood around until he woke up and took off.”

He was leaning over my chair, his nose approximately an inch from mine so that he could be sure I heard him clearly. Now he straightened, scrubbed a palm over the top of his head in a violent motion which would have left his hair a mess if he had had any, and returned to flop behind his desk. Hannegan, bending above me from the other side, snorted, “Hah!” and walked over to lean against a wall.

“Can you give me any explanation at all why you didn’t report Knight in the first time you saw him?” Day asked in a controlled voice.

“Didn’t recognize him,” I said for the twenty-seventh time.

“Oh, stop it!” he said crossly. “You’re not that stupid.”

“Yes I am,” I insisted modestly. “I didn’t have a description of Knight and had never seen his picture. I should have had, but I muffed it and I’m not making any excuses. Even without knowing what he looked like, I should have at least wondered if George Smith was Willard Knight, because I had half an idea Mrs. Jones was carrying on an affair with Knight, and George fitted there. But I had Mrs. Jones tagged as a gal who played the field, and assumed she was fooling with both Knight and Smith.”

When neither Day nor Hannegan made any reply other than disbelieving scowls, I said, “I just wasn’t awake. I can’t be a genius all the time.”

“Hah!” Hannegan snorted again. Two audible statements from the lieutenant within a few minutes was a record, even though both statements consisted of the same word. It led me to believe he was as upset as the inspector.

“If anyone else disappears during this investigation,” I said, “I’ll memorize his description and carry his photograph next to my heart. Why don’t you admit what you’re really mad about is Knight not being Lancaster’s killer, so you could close the case.”

“I never said he was Lancaster’s killer!” the inspector half yelled. “He was only a suspect.”

“And now who have you got?” I asked. “A hood who’s cagey enough to stay across the river until the heat dies down.”