She nodded, a swift decisive nod of affirmation.
“Now wait a minute,” Sergeant Jaffrey said, “let’s do this thing right, Tragg.”
“How do you mean?”
“We’re going to have an identification of a photograph. This girl may be all right. She may not. I can tell you a lot of things about this dump. I’ve been in it a hundred times. They’ve pulled everything here from call girls on up, or down, whichever way you want to look at it. Now, Frank Hoxie, the night clerk, has one gift. He never forgets a face. You can show him a photograph and if he’s ever seen the face he’ll remember it — even if it’s after weeks, and even if it’s someone who just casually walked across the hotel lobby.”
“Okay,” Tragg said, “let’s get him in, but we can ask Miss Hamlin...”
Jaffrey said with a significant jerk of his head, “Let’s get Hoxie up here first. Show him the picture. Let’s find out definitely who this dame really is.”
Lieutenant Tragg hesitated a moment, then picked up the telephone and said to the plain-clothes man who was at the switchboard, “Send up Frank Hoxie, the night clerk... That’s right. Send him up here right away.”
He hung up.
Jaffrey said, to no one in particular, “Of course, in a way you can’t blame the place. It’s a run-down dump and no one is going to put up money to bring it back into shape, not with this location, not with the reputation the place has, and not with the price that hotel furnishings are selling for these days. They tell me they try to do the best they can, and I’m inclined to believe them, but once a place gets this reputation, a certain class of trade gravitates toward it and there’s nothing much you can do about it.”
Tragg nodded.
Mason said casually, “That picture, is it anyone I know?”
“We don’t know,” Jaffrey said.
“Perhaps I could tell you.”
“You haven’t told us who the woman was who was in the room with you yet,” Jaffrey said.
“I don’t know,” Mason said.
“She told you she was Dixie Dayton, didn’t she?”
Mason started to say something, then changed his mind and remained silent.
“We’ll get around to you in a minute,” Jaffrey said. “We have an ace or two up our sleeve on this deal... Don’t think this is just an ordinary murder case, Mason. This is going back to a cop killing. This Dixie Dayton is hot as a firecracker. She’s tied up with Tom Sedgwick, who, from all we can tell, fired the shots that killed Claremont. Of course, we don’t have anything to say about what cases a lawyer takes, but we sure as hell can put the heat on a private detective if we have to — and we had to.”
“I think Lieutenant Tragg knows how I feel about this,” Mason said. “I’m not sticking up for any cop killers.”
“The hell you’re not,” Jaffrey grunted.
“But,” Mason went on, “how do you know who’s guilty? You haven’t a confession, have you?”
“I know,” Jaffrey said, “it’s the old line of hooey. You lawyers always pull it. A person is presumed to be innocent until he’s convicted. Every citizen is entitled to a jury trial and counsel to defend him. You wouldn’t represent a guilty person. Oh, no, not you! The law presumes your clients innocent until you get done defending them, or until...”
There was a trace of irritation in Lieutenant Tragg’s voice as he interrupted. “Let’s try as far as possible to confine our conversation to the investigation, if you don’t mind, Sergeant. You see, I want the shorthand reporter to be able to state that he took down every word that was uttered in this room and I don’t want to have too big a transcript.”
“And don’t want to have Sergeant Jaffrey cast as the villain of the piece,” Mason said, grinning.
“Well,” Tragg told him, “you know as well as I do, that if you can bait him into saying something he shouldn’t, you’ll subpoena the records and have a field day kicking him around the courtroom.”
“You misjudge me,” Mason said with elaborate politeness.
“Yeah!” Sergeant Jaffrey said sarcastically.
The uniformed officer opened the door. The slender, pale-faced night clerk, whom Mason had seen at the desk when he had first entered the hotel, came into the room and stood somewhat ill at ease in the presence of the officers.
Sergeant Jaffrey said, “Now, Frank, there’s nothing to be afraid of here. This is something you personally aren’t mixed up in. It isn’t like a raid by the Vice Squad. This is Homicide, and we want your co-operation.”
The clerk nodded.
“I want you to know you’re going to get a square shake here,” Jaffrey said. “I’m going to see that you do. No one’s going to push you around. This is Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide, and he wants to ask you to identify a photograph. I told him that you had a photographic memory, that you never forgot a face, and darn seldom forgot a name.”
There was a slight smile around Hoxie’s lips. “I try to be efficient,” he said, “and I think it’s part of the duties of a hotel clerk to be able to call guests by their name — when they want to be called by name.”
“I know,” Jaffrey said, grinning. “All you have to do is remember the name John Smith and you can greet nine people out of ten who register at this place...”
“You’ll pardon me, Sergeant, but we’re trying to run a clean place. Ever since that last time when — and that really wasn’t our fault.”
“Oh, I know, I was kidding,” Sergeant Jaffrey said. “Let it go. Take a look at that picture, will you, Frank?”
Lieutenant Tragg extended the picture.
Hoxie took the photograph, studied it for a moment* then nodded his head.
“You’ve seen her?”
“She’s the one who was registered in 815.”
“Did you register her?” Tragg asked.
“No, a man registered her in. He said she was his sister-in-law who had come for a visit. Mrs. Madison Kerby was the name.”
“But she’s the one who was in 815?”
“She’s the one. I remember giving her the key.”
“There’s no question?”
“None whatever.”
Lieutenant Tragg’s nod was suddenly triumphant. “Will you take a look at that photograph, Miss Hamlin,” he said. “We think that’s the woman all right, but we want your identification.”
“Of course,” Mason pointed out, “there are a lot of different ways of making an identification. This cumulative...”
“That’ll do,” Tragg said. “We don’t want any comments from the audience, Mason... Miss Hamlin, just look at that picture. I don’t want you to be influenced one way or another by what anyone has said. I want you simply to tell us whether that’s the woman you saw leave room 721, take a room key from her purse, and enter room 815.”
Minerva Hamlin took the picture, studied it carefully, then frowned. “Of course,” she said, “I...”
“Now, remember,” Sergeant Jaffrey interposed, “that lots of times a photograph doesn’t look too much like a person until you study it carefully. Take a good long look at it. This is important. This is important to everybody. Don’t say yes, right off the bat, and don’t say no. We don’t want you to say it’s the woman unless it was, but we sure don’t want you to boot the identification and do something you’ll be sorry for.”
“I think— I— I think it is.”
“Take a good long look at it,” Sergeant Jaffrey said. “Study that picture carefully.”
“I have done so. I think this is the woman.”
“That isn’t the strongest way to make an identification,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “Can’t you do better than that?”
“I’ve told you that I thought it was the woman.”
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