Stewart Sterling - Dead of Night

“Don’t worry about it, maître.” I asked Hacklin, “What’s the big sweat?”

“See this?” He thrust a paper at me. A newspaper clipping headed Numerology. Under it was:

Following are the most significant numbers of the past thirty days. The figures in the third column indicate the number of times a certain number, played straight, has appeared since January, 1950. The figures in the last column indicate the number of times other combinations of the same number repeated.

Below it were figures:

and a lot more.

“So?” I knew it was one of those daily tab features for the suckers who throw their corn away on the numbers game.

“So we found it in Auguste’s locker!” Hacklin stuck his face close to mine.

I said I didn’t suppose more than three or four hundred thousand other guys would have clipped the same column.

“All right, Smart Stuff. We know the guy we’re after is mixed up in the policy angle. And there’s one other little thing that may interest you. This Auguste changed his black waiter coat to the monkey coats these fellows wear.” He jerked a thumb at the Plaza Royale’s gorgeous gold-braided mess jackets, only used to put on the dog at exclusive banquets.

“You found something in his other coat?” I didn’t like the ugly look in Hacklin’s eye.

“On it! On the sleeve. Sticky goo. I scraped off some with my knife. Blood. Yeah. What d’ya know about that!”

Across the hall I saw Auguste. He was coming toward us, straight toward Hacklin.

In the killercycle draymas, the criminal is just a stupid-though-crafty rat who eventually gets caught by the steel-trap mind of the detective. Nobody but the snoopersleuth is permitted to have a mind like a steel trap. Everybody else wanders around in a daze suspecting obviously innocent parties, until snap goes the trap of the mastermind. I wish I could operate like that sometime.

However, most of the criminals security men deal with are slick articles. Key workers, who hang around the information desk until they spot a guest’s name and room number, wait for him to go out, then step up, ask for his key, and go up and rifle his room; corridor cats who prowl along until they see an open door with a maid racking up, then boldly walk in and make like they’re the guests; crooks like that aren’t so stupid.

In the case of 21MM, anyone who could get into a guarded suite, murder the guard, and get away without being seen or heard, was a cool and calculating head. Auguste didn’t fit the picture.

Neither did it seem reasonable that a waiter who had the nerve to go up against a cleaver-equipped chef would be the sort to stab any man in the back. And even if Auguste had gone berserk, he’d never have returned to the scene of his crime and blandly admitted he was looking for the weapon he’d misplaced.

But if Hacklin waltzed him downtown to one of those high-pressure tête-à-têtes, by the time it was discovered the stains were only steak gravy, it’d be too late to repair the bad publicity. So I aimed at sidetracking Hacklin long enough to switch Auguste downstairs, get the truth out of him without scaring him out of his wits.

He hurried across the Crystal Room, straight for us. Armand tugged at my sleeve, trying to get my attention.

“Meestair Vine, Auguste—”

“Don’t melt your mustache, Armand.” By the speakers’ table, at the far end of the raised platform, I saw a blond crew cut and a white tie with Roy Yaker’s genial puss sandwiched in between. He was being buttonholed by an individual who had his back to me; the other man wasn’t wearing tails or tux. All I could make out clearly at that distance was the sparkle of a ring on his right flipper. It shone like a star sapphire.

I rattled the key I’d taken from Edie, lowered my voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Hacklin, here’s something more to the point than any waiter’s sleeve.” I half turned as if to keep Armand from overhearing; all I was after was to make Hacklin twist around, away from the oncoming Auguste.

“Where’d you get that?” Hacklin reached for it.

“Took it away from a sizzle sister down in the Steeplechase Bar just now.” I let him have the key. “A Miss Edie Eberlein. Claimed the key was given to her by Tildy Millett.”

“Yuh? You hold her?” The D.A.’s man was interested, all right.

Auguste bustled up. “Mister Fine, I am told—”

I waved him away. “See I’m busy, Fessler? Ask Tim Piazolle about it!”

“But Mister Fine, Mister Piazolle, he—”

“I’ll talk to you down in my office, Fessler.” I ignored him, turned back to Hacklin, who was observing Auguste suspiciously. “I didn’t have any charge against this zizzer, so I couldn’t hold her. But she was with Tildy Millett’s manager, gent name of Keith Walch. Thought you might want to question him.” Auguste raised his eyebrows and his shoulders, drooped the corners of his mouth, gazed at Armand, turned on his heel, walked away with his arms bent at the elbows, palms upturned.

“Walch, huh.” Hacklin decided he had no call to inquire into my business with any waiter named Fessler. “Where’s he?”

“Over there.” I pointed. “Talking to the big bucko in the soup and fish. Big lad’s name is Yaker. He’s running this kaffee klatch. Lanerd was to speak at the dinner.” If Hacklin inferred that I’d trailed Walch up to the Crystal Room, why should I have set him straight?

“Walch might know where his skater is.” Hacklin was mollified. “But put the clamps on that waiter, hear? We sent the coat down to Broome Street for tests. If it turns out the same type blood as Herb’s, I want five minutes with that son of a bitch before I turn him in downtown.” He stalked toward Yaker and Walch.

Armand puffed out his cheeks, blew out his breath with a soft hissing.

“Armand,” I said. “You are dumb.”

“M’sieu?” He patted his toupee, agitated.

“Deaf. Dumb. Blind. You know nothing about nothing.” I knuckled him gently in the short ribs. “N’est-ce pas?”

“Ah-ho!” His eyes became very round. “That is how it is, that way?”

“Just like that.” I went out to the check-off room, through the serving-pantry, into the banquet kitchen where the smell of quail Montmorency and sweetbreads Emile made me realize it was about the time I’d have been eating a frankfurter, if I’d gone to the Garden.

Tim wasn’t around. Neither was Auguste.

When the service car dropped me at the third and I went into my office, they were both there.

Tim had to explain why he’d missed Auguste up in the banquet kitchen. Auguste insisted on relating how he had learned “Mister Fine” was looking for him, how he’d hastened to locate me soon’s he knew I wanted him.

I told Tim what I wanted him to do about the maids, bellmen, porters, electricians, waiters, and valets who might have been on the twenty-first within the last four hours. Then I took Auguste into my private cubby.

Boiled down, what he said was that he’d served early dinner for Miss Millett, guest, and maid. Around six, that was. Vichysoisse, sole bonne femme, bifteck bearnaise, salade avocado, pêche Melba, café. He was especially careful with the order; Miss “Marino” took care of him excellently in the matter of lagniappe.

The guest had been Roffis. With the guard there had been not exactly trouble, but an argument only. “What was the matter, Auguste?”

“The filet, it was the finest, well aged and exzellently charcoaled, but this boozhwah claimed it was tough, sztringy. I do not tell him he is probably not uszed to such tender cuts, but this I think to myzelf. Iz not the firszt time we disagree about the meals, Mister Fine.”