Brett Halliday: The blonde cried murder

Patton stopped just inside the open door for a full thirty seconds while he surveyed the seemingly empty room, then motioned for Bill to remain behind while he-crossed to the closed bathroom door and jerked it open. He switched on the inside light and found it empty. He turned to the single closet in the room and opened that door. Half a dozen light suits and jackets were on hangers in perfect order. No one was concealed behind them.

Patton turned about with a puzzled frown, shaking his head dubiously at the bell-captain in the doorway, then dropped to his knees beside the bed, lifted the trailing coverlet to look beneath it carefully.

He got to his feet, brushing off his knees, his eyes hard and probing as he swept up the telephone from the small table at the head of the bed.

He rumbled, "Have you gone nuts, Evelyn? There's no one here-alive or dead."

"But that's what she said. That there was a dead man. Murdered, she said. I can't help it, Mr. Patton, if-"

He growled, "Skip it. Tell me this. Drood supposed to be in?"

"He-" she faltered. "Well, he was in earlier. But-uhfour-fourteen called down to his room about half an hour ago."

Patton got a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped sweat from his face. "Who's four-fourteen?"

"Miss Payne."

"Tall and skinny?" he ruminated, bUnking his eyes in thought "He go up there?"

"Well, I- How should I know? I connected them and-"

"And listened in," he cut her short wearily. "Yes or no?"

"Well, yes. I guess maybe he did. I just happened to hear her ask him-"

"Okay, okay. Tell Dick to hold the fort while we take a look."

He shrugged at Bill as he replaced the phone. "Up in four-fourteen? You had anything here or there this evening?"

"Not since about six. Ice to Miss Payne."

Patton left the door standing open and the light burning as he led the way back to the elevator. The operator stood in the open door waiting for them anxiously.

The buzzer let out a long peal as they stepped in and he said, "Up one floor."

"Somebody on eight getting mighty mad," said the operator. "Was he plumb dead. Chief?"

"Not even half," said Patton disgustedly. "Let eight keep on being mad."

They turned to the right this time they left the elevator, went about twenty paces and turned left into an intersecting corridor. A dim, red exit light glowed at the end of the corridor marking the fire-stairs.

Patton stopped in front of the fourth door on the left, stenciled 414. Light came through the transom above the door.

He knocked rather loudly. The transom was closed and they could hear nothing from inside the room.

Patton waited ten seconds and knocked again. Then he rattled the knob. A frightened female voice came faintly through the wood. "Who is it?"

"Hotel detective. Open up. Miss Payne."

"I don't- How dare you?" The voice was louder and more indignant. "Go away from my door."

He rattled the knob again and put his mouth close to the wood. "You don't want to cause a lot of attention, Miss Payne. Neither do I. Unlock the door or I'll use my pass-key."

He waited grimly, and after an interval of fifteen or twenty seconds the door opened reluctantly.

He pushed it and strode into a bedroom that was not quite as orderly as the one they had just visited on the floor below. Miss Payne was shoved back by his entrance, still clinging to the knob.

She was tall and slender, with aquiline features and a somewhat sharp nose, and with lightly graying hair piled atop her head. Her dark eyes flashed angrily at the hotel detective, and she clutched a dark blue, tailored dressing gown tightly about her in front.

"How dare you?" she gasped. "What is the meaning of this-?"

"I'm looking for Mr. Drood," said Patton quietly, his glance going beyond her. The room was somewhat Icurger than 360, with two wide windows directly behind the bed. Their curtains billowed in the breeze that swept in from Biscayne Bay, just in front of the hotel.

The bed was neatly made up, and there was no sign of Drood's presence-unless you counted the pitcher of almost melted ice, the bottles of gin, and Tom Collins mix, and the two highball glasses standing sociably side by side on a table at the other end of the room.

"Mr. Drood? Indeed?" Miss Payne had a thin, unpleasantly high voice. She tossed her head in regal anger. "The absolute insolence-"

"Now, take it easy, Miss Payne." Patton held up a beefy hand to ward ofiE her anger. "This ain't what you think. No harm in a couple of guests having a little drink together long's they don't bother other people. The management wants you to be happy here. But this is something else. I just had a dead man reported in Mr. Drood's room."

He raised his voice somewhat as he said this, and after a moment the tightly closed closet door opened and a portly, middle-aged man stepped out. He was in his shirt sleeves, but wearing a neat bow tie, his shiny face was wet with sweat and his thick lips were opening and shutting like a fish freshly taken from the water.

His eyes were round and frightened, and after several tries he managed to say, "A dead man, sir? In my room?"

"That was the report we got. How long you been here?"

Mr Drood drooled a trifle as he glanced despairingly at the haughtily silent Miss Payne, and he said humbly and weakly, "Perhaps half an hour. I just dropped in to-ah- to see an article of interest in the paper Miss Payne and I had discussed, and she was kind enough to-ah-offer me a refreshing drink." He waved with. attempted nonchalance toward the glasses on the table.

"Neither of you been back to three-sixty since you came up?"

They both shook their heads and said, "No," simultaneously and distinctly.

"And you don't know anything about any dead man in your room, Mr. Drood?"

"Indeed not. I should never allow-that is-ah-no. Is this the truth?"

Patton shrugged. "Some kind of crazy hoax, I guess. Did you leave the door of your room unlocked when you came out?"

"I believe perhaps I did. Yes." Drood nodded anxiously. "Indeed, I believe I may have even left the door open. I expected to be gone just a moment, you see, and then. when I arrived. Miss Payne was kind enough to-ah-" Again he waved toward the drinks.

"Some drunk must have stepped in while you were out and made the call. Well, can't blame you for that. Go ahead and enjoy yourselves, folks. Sorry to've intruded, but I had to check up."

"Of course you did, Ofi amp;cer. Naturally. We understand perfectly." Drood was very efiEusive as they went out, but Miss Payne did not echo his heartiness. She stood stiffly and disdainfully aside, and closed the door hard the moment they were out in the hall.

"What do you make of it, Ollie?" asked Bill curiously as they went back to the elevator. "Just practical joke?"

"What else can I make of it? So long as we don't have a body-"

The elevator buzzer was sounding insistently as they re-entered it. Patton said, "Take us all the way down, Joe. Then go ahead as usual. Tell 'em you've been out qi order for ten minutes."

In the lobby, he strode angrily around behind the desk to confront Evelyn who started to jerk out questions as he approached.

He held up a hand to cut her off and rumbled, "What sort of tricks you pulling, Ewie?"

"No sort of tricks." Her eyes rounded. "Who was it?"

"Nobody." He stood in front of her flat-footed, both hands on his hips, and his bunions hurt like the devil. "Not a' soul in the room. Drood all cozy with gin and sin upstairs in four-fourteen. You answer me that."

"But the call did come from three-sixty, Mr. Patton. I swear it did. I left my plug in just to be sure and I checked."

"Then you musta misunderstood what was said."

"No, I–I-" Slowly Evelyn's mouth widened into a big round O. "I wonder. Gee, gosh, I wonder, Mr. Patton. I'll tell you. When she first said: 'There's a dead man in,' I thought she said in 'three-sixteen.' That's why I checked my plug so careful and tried to call her back. But the call was from three-sixty, so I just thought for sure I'd been mistaken. I thought she must've said three-sixty instead of three-sixteen because that's where the call came from. Golly, do you suppose-?"