Brett Halliday: Murder by Proxy

“Well, sure, Ma’am… I guess.” Tiny held the signed barcheck between huge thumb and forefinger.

“Next time,” she said, “at your hotel… you can sign. Isn’t that fair enough?” She emptied her glass and set it down hard. “Where’s all the gambling and nightclubs and excitement?” she demanded. “I’d just as well be on Park Avenue as here.”

“You want to do some gambling?”

“I’d love to do some gambling. A lot of gambling. You know where to go?”

Gene Blake told her, “I know every place on the Beach.” He slid a half dollar tip on the table beside his empty glass. “Only trouble is, my car is laid up in the garage for repairs. We’ll have to get a taxi.”

He slid off the stool, avoiding Tiny’s half-admiring, half-accusing gaze, and put his hand firmly on the rounded smoothness of her left arm just above the elbow.

She finished her drink and smiled sweetly at the bartender. “Good night, Tiny. Or au revoir. Or something.”

And to Gene Blake, she said as she slid off the stool and stood very close beside him, “We don’t need a taxi. I’ve got a car. Cute little convertible. Rented it this afternoon for the whole two weeks.”

Tiny grunted sourly as he watched them move away together toward the rear exit onto the parking lot.

That Gene, he thought, angrily and enviously. He’s got it made, by God. And what a dish! Loaded with money and sex appeal… and a jerk of a husband back in New York paying the bills. Good enough for him, Tiny thought viciously. He’d heard her remark to Gene about her husband thinking couples should be separated now and then. Like as not, Tiny thought, Mr. Herbert Harris had a private piece of his own that he was rolling in the hay tonight while his wife was vacationing in Miami.

So, what the hell? Why shouldn’t she make out with Gene?

He wondered how soon he’d see Mrs. Harris around again.

Martha Hays thoroughly enjoyed her job as a maid at the Beachhaven Hotel. She had been on the third floor for six months, and the work never did get monotonous. The population of the hotel was ceaselessly changing. Rich people from the North coming and going; mostly staying for a week or two, long enough to get to know the smiling and helpful colored maid who cleaned their rooms and was always eager to perform any small, extra task for the comfort or convenience of the guests. Mostly they were real nice when they departed and left fairly substantial gifts for the maid whom they’d got to know in a week or so; mostly a bill left on the dresser, often augmented by articles of clothing which refused to fit into the suitcases that were overstuffed with new purchases made on Lincoln Road during their stay.

It was always an adventure for Martha to unlock and enter the room of a guest who had just departed, and she was always eager for her first inspection of a room that was newly occupied.

In six months’ practice, Martha had learned that, if you were smart about it, you could tell a whole lot about the occupants just by looking at their belongings, how they had arranged them, the way they left the bathroom and the room itself when they went out in the morning.

She liked to have single men best, but she didn’t get many of those at the Beachhaven, and unmarried couples next. She did get quite a few of those. Many whom she could tell right off were unmarried, and others whom she came to suspect of an extra-marital relationship after cleaning up their room and observing them for a few days.

Best of all from Martha’s viewpoint was the combination of a middle-aged, very wealthy man and a younger woman who had never known real wealth. They were the best tippers. The man because he was happy and guilty, and wanted to impress his younger companion, and the woman because it was all going to end in a few days or weeks and it did something for her ego to be prodigal with money that didn’t belong to her.

The poorest bets of all were the single women who arrived at the Beachhaven in droves to spend one or two weeks of their vacations in the unaccustomed luxury of an expensive resort hotel. Most of them had saved up for a whole year to be able to afford the trip, and had come to Miami Beach with roseate dreams of meeting some wealthy, attractive, unattached male and making a conquest which might or might not eventuate in marriage.

Disappointed in the end when they departed (because there just weren’t that many wealthy, attractive and unattached males hanging around) they weren’t inclined to waste any large portion of their remaining funds on a gratuity to the hotel maid.

Martha knew when she knocked on the door of 326 that morning that the new occupant of the room was a married lady named Mrs. Harris from New York who had reserved the room for two weeks. The maids were all furnished this information on new arrivals as a PR policy on the part of the management. It was a little after eleven o’clock when Martha got to 326, and her knock on the door was perfunctory while she inserted a key in the lock. It was her first morning in Miami Beach, and Mrs. Harris was extremely unlikely to be still loitering in her room at this hour.

She turned her key, when there was no response from inside the room, and opened the door. She was surprised, but not too surprised, to note that neither one of the twin beds had been slept in the night before. This sort of thing happened often enough in a resort hotel like the Beachhaven to occasion little surprise. It didn’t displease Martha because it meant less work for her; and also, if Mrs. Harris was the sort to start sleeping out the very first night after she reached the Beach, it probably meant she wasn’t a dissatisfied penny-pincher who would go back to New York two weeks hence feeling that she had spent more money than she could afford without getting much out of it.

Martha stood just inside the doorway and surveyed the empty room with a practiced eye. Neither one of the beds had been touched. Not even sat upon. An open suitcase lay spread out on a luggage rack in front of a closet, and Mrs. Harris hadn’t even bothered to unpack. Some of the things were turned back in one side of the case, and Martha thought she had probably taken out a dress to change into for the evening because the jacket of a blue silk suit lay on the foot of a bed, and the skirt of the same suit had been discarded on the floor near the bathroom. An overnight bag stood unopened on the floor beside the suitcase, and the top of the dressing table was completely bare of any toilet articles. The windows were closed, and the air-conditioner was not turned on. Just to one side of the bathroom door a pair of beautiful blue spike-heeled pumps lay on their sides. From the doorway there was no other visible evidence that Mrs. Harris had ever been in the hotel room.

Martha left her little cart of cleaning things and fresh linens standing in the doorway, and walked across to the bathroom door. She stooped and picked up the blue shoes and caressed them gently, admiring the soft leather and fine workmanship, and momently visualizing the small, high-arched feet that had kicked them off so carelessly.

She set the pumps carefully just inside the empty closet, went back to pick up the blue jacket and skirt and hang them neatly in the closet.

Inside the bathroom, a white silk blouse lay crumpled on the floor. Only the lavatory had been used by Mrs. Harris. There was a wet washcloth and a damp fluffy hand-towel, and a cake of soap had been removed from its hotel wrapper and was in the soap dish.

Martha wiped up the bathroom thoroughly, and picked up the blouse from the floor and hung it on a hook in the closet. She got a dusting rag from her cart and spent at least three minutes wiping off the telephone and the ashtray beside it which held cigarette ashes, and desultorily flicking the cloth around on other surfaces that were already immaculate.