Stab in the Dark (10 page)

W
HILE
K
NOX
waited for Cora Deane’s phone call, he sat down and stared moodily at the blank television screen. He wasn’t looking at it or at anything in particular; he was letting his mind work over what little he knew. He sorted things into three categories—those points he was sure of, those he was in doubt about, and those that just might mean something. The first category was far too small.

He could call Beeker and break it open that way. But he hesitated, knowing that no matter how well meaning Beeker might be, the very nature of a police department would mean a certain amount of leakage. And even though Knox himself was known now, he still hoped to catch his quarry and what they had intact.

Thinking of the police reminded him of Maddy Keehan and that recalled his unfinished job in Leo Auffer’s room. What had been Leo Auffer’s room, he amended. He doubted if he would find anything but he had to make sure. It wasn’t the nature of World-Circle to train an operative to ignore a line of investigation because he doubted its validity.

He was pacing the floor restlessly when the telephone rang. It was Cora Deane. “I’m ready to go.”

He swore at her. “You were to call when you got to the room.”

“How many calls do you think it would take for the operator to get suspicious?”

Knox told her what the operator could do. Cora clucked her tongue at him. “Anyone would think you were passionate over me, Mr. Knox.”

“The name is Paul,” he said testily. “Call me from the depot.”

She was laughing at him when she hung up. Knox stayed by the phone, glaring at it. He hoped that she wasn’t quite as blithe as she sounded. Otherwise, she might walk right into them. Of course, they might not bother her since she was heading out, not into town.

In less than ten minutes the phone rang again. Knox snatched at it before it could stop. “Knox here.”

“I’m at the depot. The bus is leaving in five minutes.”

Knox started to tell her to take care of herself but she had hung up. Cradling the phone, he stubbed out his cigaret and left the room. He used the stairs, stopping at eight and going down the hall to Leo Auffer’s suite. The door was open and he could hear the sound of a vacuum sweeper. He had to step back as a maid came into view, her arms full of laundry.

“This room is vacant now?” Knox asked. He made it sound as if he had just happened by.

“Yes, sir. It
‘
ll be ready in an hour or so.” Dark eyes were indifferent peering over the laundry.

Knox said, “I’ve been waiting for a suite. I wonder if I could look at it?”

“Certainly, sir.” The maid stepped around him went on her way. Knox went in, stepping over the vacuum cord and turning toward the bedroom. The girl with the vacuum cleaner was at the far end of the living room. Knox went on to the bath. The medicine chest was empty. He backtracked into the bedroom, sweating softly.

Auffer’s suitcases were on the bare bed. The closet and the dresser drawers were empty. Everything had been neatly packed and was probably waiting to be sent to headquarters where it would be held until sent for by the company or Auffer’s relatives.

Knox listened. The vacuuming was still distant. Quickly, he tried the smaller suitcase. Without keys, the maid had been unable to lock the bags. The lid came up easily. The one thing Knox had not checked, the toiletries, was on top in the leather case. Knox lifted it and unzipped it quickly. Everything was there, razor, toothbrush, all of it.

The vacuuming died. Knox dropped the lid of the bag shut and snapped it. Hearing footsteps, he put the toiletries case in the the top dresser drawer. He was walking toward the living room when the maid appeared, pulling the cleaner behind her.

He repeated his story. She nodded with indifference, looked at the bags on the bed, and lifted the bedside telephone. She called down. “Gert? I’m ready here in eight-o-eight for them to pick up the baggage.”

Knox watched helplessly at she plugged in the cleaner and began to work on the bedroom. He left after she began to stare at him. He was in the living room when a bellhop appeared, took the two bags, and carried them off. The maid was still working over the bedroom.

Much longer, Knox knew, and his story would begin to show leaks. There was a limit to how long a person could ‘look over’ a room. Then he had an inspiration. Using the desk telephone, he called the room clerk.

“This is Knox,” he said. “If eight-o-eight isn’t rented yet, I’d like to have it.”

It was that easy. He told the maid he was having his things brought down, went upstairs and packed quickly, leaving his suits to be carried. Putting in a call for a bellhop, he returned to the suite with a small bag in his hand.

The maid looked at him oddly. “Just putting my mark on the place,” he assured her. Taking underwear from the bag, he laid it neatly in the top dresser drawer, effectively covering Leo Auffer’s toiletries case. Giving the maid a dollar, he strolled out. When he was alone, he patted the sweat from his forehead.

His next attempt was less successful. He wanted another look at the sub-basement and he was halfway along the corridor leading to the service entrance when a voice called him.

“Mr. Knox.”

It was McEwen. Knox offered up a smile he didn’t think he had in him. “Hi, Mac.”

“Going anywhere special?”

“Looking for you,” Knox said. “I thought I heard your voice back here.”

“Me?” McEwen’s rough features were innocent. He shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth. “What for?”

Knox reached for his billfold. “A little debt,” he said. “That bet we made paid off—for you.”

McEwen took the fifty dollars and tucked it away. “I get lucky like that every once in a while,” he said. He rubbed his chin. “Want to talk about it?”

Knox thought that one over. He said, “Sure, Mac. Let’s use your office.”

It was a cubbyhole behind the auditing department. McEwen played host well, waving Knox to a chair and setting out two glasses and a bottle of good whiskey. “Water?”

“This stuff is too good to cut,” Knox said in a voice that complimented McEwen’s taste in liquor. He lit a cigaret and sipped at the whiskey. “It’s this way,” he went on. “I’m on a Missing Person’s case. I had a tip that this Auffer might know something about her. Then he gets killed and there goes my lead.”

McEwen nodded solemnly. “Tough.”

“I hoped there might be something in his stuff,” Knox said. “That’s what I was doing last night.”

“Keehan would have hung you if he’d caught you there,” McEwen said.

“Thanks to you, he didn’t,” Knox said.

“Always glad to do a pal a favor,” McEwen said magnanimously.

“I appreciated it,” Knox answered. “Now I want another one.”

McEwen was obviously thinking of the two fifties he had earned. “Anything—short of murder.”

“I want a look around downstairs,” Knox said.

McEwen thought that over. “Let’s go.” He heaved himself to his feet, tossed away his cigar butt, and selected a fresh one. “But they went over that pretty carefully.”

Knox agreed they probably had. But still one never knew. He wasn’t too pleased to have McEwen along, breathing down his neck, but at least it gave some sort of official sanction to the affair. They checked the chair storeroom first and Knox found nothing of interest. He took more time in the other room, noticing that the tables did a better job of screening the back of the room from someone at the front than the chairs did. He was looking for something in particular, and logic told him this was the place to find it.

McEwen looked around the room, chuckling. “This is where they found the empty fifth and the dame’s panties, huh?”

“This is it,” Knox agreed. He crouched down and started peering. He saw faint scuffmarks as if tables had been dragged to one side and then replaced. Sighing, he rose. “Let’s start moving this stuff, Mac.”

McEwen didn’t get it but when Knox began pushing tables around, he pitched in and helped. There was a few remnants of footprints on the floor of the passageway they made between the tables but they were well dragged out; too much so to be of use, Knox decided after one close look. He kept shifting tables.

He found it near the back, two rows of tables over from the center, neatly hidden. It could have lain there until a stench brought an investigation if he hadn’t been so determined.

McEwen looked down at the body. “Jeez! How in hell did you know this was back here?”

There was no suspicion in his voice. “Because this is the one your stenographer Cora Deane saw,” Knox said. He told McEwen just enough for the remark to make sense. “If you want to wait, Mac, I’ll go up and call Beeker.”

‘I’ll call.”

“I’ll give you the credit,” Knox said. He lowered his voice although they were very much alone, not counting the dead man. “I have a little chore to do first.”

McEwen accepted a smaller bill than the fifty he had recently received, nodded conspiratorilly, and let Knox go. Knox went to the lobby on the double and called Beeker from there. Then he got the number of Catlin’s room from the clerk and put in a call on the house phone. Catlin was in. He, was, in fact, in bed with a very bad headache.

Knox said, “This is something personal, Catlin. The police are on their way. I thought you’d like to talk to me first.”

“Police?” Catlin sounded annoyed and then faintly frightened as Knox said, “Cora Deane isn’t around anymore, by the way.”

Catlin was very eager to have him come up. He met Knox at the door. He was in a robe and pajamas. His bed was mussed and there was a water carafe and a bottle of headache tablets on the stand beside it. Catlin himself looked peaked, dark circles under his eyes and little color in his face. His handsome sleekness was gone under obvious pain.

Knox said, “Sorry to interrupt you at a time like this but I thought it might be important.”

“What has Cora Deane to do with the police?”

“Did I say she had anything to do with them?”

“You intimated.” He was beginning to bluster a little.

Knox grinned. He did not like Catlin’s type, the sleek, foot under the table, hand on the knee romeo. He said, “It must be your conscience doing the intimating, Catlin.”

“Who are you?”

Knox told him. Catlin shrugged. Knox said, “I’m here on a Missing Person case. A woman. You seem the best subject around here for questioning when it comes to unattached women.”

Catlin took it as a compliment and preened a little. Then Knox said, “And that brings me to Cora Deane. You were the last person to see her, I think.”

Catlin said, “We had a drink together after you left her in the bar. Then we came up here and had another drink. Then she left. Hell, a dozen people must have seen her since.”

“No one did.”

“She called me at ten this morning.”

Knox said, “Get very far last night?”

Catlin opened his mouth, closed it, and looked sullen. Knox thought, “He’s hiding something.” He said, “What time did she leave last night?”

“I don’t remember. I was asleep.” He looked slightly smug again.

Knox rubbed at his chin. He had come here in the first place to get a line on Cora Deane. He knew that he would have to tell Beeker about her now that the other body had been found, and he had wanted as much ammunition as he could get. But this sounded like it might backfire.

“You mean she went to bed with you?”

“Is that your business?”

“She’s disappeared,” Knox said. “There’s a dead body in the basement.” He didn’t add that it had probably been dead a good twenty-four hours. He added, “Murdered.”

Catlin became even paler. “Are you saying that she killed someone?”

“Not the way this one was killed. It was a man.”

Catlin got up. The sudden movement made him wince. He sat down again, holding his head. “Are you intimating that I …”

“Maybe it was her other boyfriend,” Knox said softly.

He thought at first that Catlin would hit him, headache or not. But the anger drained out of him as rapidly as it had come. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked in-comprehendingly at Knox.

“You think I—I …”

“We don’t think anything,” Knox said. He stressed the
we
and left it up to Catlin to decide who was meant. After a pause, he added, “Yet.”

“It wasn’t me,” Catlin said. He had turned the color of a half ripe avocado. “I swear it wasn’t me. I haven’t been out of this room since—since I came up with Cora last night.”

“She’s gone. How can you prove it?”

Catlin took a headache tablet and gulped a full glass of water. “Listen, I don’t want it noised around—I mean about her being here so late.”

“If it doesn’t bear on the case, It’ll be confidential.”

Catlin swallowed more water. He tried a cigaret and stubbed it out, making a face of distaste. “All right, I’d had a couple at the bar. Then I had one with her downstairs. We came up and had a couple. I guess I was feeling it a little. You know how it is. A guy gets a tingle on and he’s got a good looking girl….”

“That he’s been on the make for,” Knox added for him.

Catlin let it go. “I made a pass. I guess Cora was feeling her drinks a little too. She wasn’t—well, hot about it, but she seemed as if she could be made interested. I—well, I remembed sitting on the edge of the bed with her. We were kissing and then …”

“Then?”

“Then I don’t remember. I woke up when she called me at ten this morning. I felt terrible, sick, headache, awful. I guess I had more than I thought. But it never hit me before that way.”

Knox stubbed out his cigaret. “Sick to your stomach? A head full of hammers right behind the eyes? A bad taste in your mouth?”

“I still feel that way—exactly that way,” Catlin said.

Knox started for the door. “Order up a tomato juice with Worcestershire sauce in it. If that doesn’t make you throw up, try some mustard and warm water, and a dose of salts. Clean yourself out, Catlin.”

He offered a pleased grin. “My friend, someone slipped you a very fat mickey.”

He went out, no longer grinning. A lot of good he would do Cora Deane if he told Beeker that she went around giving men mickeys. But from the look of Catlin and from his description of what happened, she undoubtedly had. And, Knox was sure, she also had a good reason for it.