The blonde cried murder Read online

  Evelyn Thompson yawned not too prettily as she lounged in front of the switchboard at the Hibiscus Hotel. Normally she was quite a pretty girl, but tonight her face was sullen, her lips poutiAg with discontent.

  Still two and a half hours until midnight I Roger wouldn't wait. She knew darned well he wouldn't. Not for two whole hours. And there wasn't a chance in the world to get in touch with him and explain that things had gone haywire, that the other operator, who'd promised faithfully just that afternoon to relieve Evelyn at ten, so she could keep her date, had called up a while ago to say she had a headache and couldn't make it tonight.

  A headache? Haw! And her voice all blurry with gin. Wait until she asked Evelyn for a similar favor. Just waiti That's all.

  Evelyn yawned again and patted her open mouth delicately with flame-tipped fingers. Wouldn't be so bad if there was anything doing, but after nine o'clock at night at the Hibiscus in the off-season it was like running a switchboard in a morgue. Maybe there'd be half a dozen calls from partying rooms upstairs for more ice and soda before she went off at midnight. And that'd be all. For that, Evelyn had to sit here and miss her date with Roger.

  And he'd be sore as the devil about it. This was distinctly not the proper point in her relationship with Roger to keep him waiting two hours with no explanation at all. She'd worked it so carefully up to now. Playing him along just enough—giving in to him a little more each date, but

  withdrawing into dignity just in time so now she really did have him all hot and bothered and worked up to the point where tonight—

  A light flashed on the board in front of her. She stopped yawning and sat a little more erect and leaned forward negligently to plug in the connection. Room 360. That was Mr. Drood. "Drooling Drood," they called him. Not that he was so bad, but he did sort of seem to drool when he looked at a girl. Because his face was pufiEy and pink and always sweaty, and his full lips always looked wet.

  Funny he should be calhng down now. Only twenty minutes ago that Miss Payne in 414 had called him from her room. Evelyn had listened in, of course. Sometimes you heard some real good stuff when the guests of different sexes called each other late in the evening. And she'd seen that affair shaping up the last few days, too. Miss Payne was tall and had a sort of haughty way about her, but with a welcoming eye for the men for all that. Funny how she couldn't do better than old Drood. But then she was plenty old, too. Thirty-five at the least. And when you got that old, Evelyn thought complacently from her point of vantage at nineteen, you were just about ready to take anything that wore pants.

  But they'd been very circumspect on that earlier call. Almost like they might have some idea a girl downstairs on the switchboard wouldn't have anything better to do than listen in, Evelyn told herself indignantly.

  Just Miss Payne saying she'd found that piece in the paper she'd told Mr. Drood about that afternoon, and would he care to come up and get it? And Mr. Drood drooling into the phone how he'd love to, and maybe Miss Payne'd like it if he brought along a night-cap for the two of them. And Miss Payne saying she had the ice if he had anything to go along with it.

  That was it, Evelyn told herself as the plug went in. No ice had gone up to 414 since about five o'clock. Probably

  she just had a couple of half-melted cubes left, and when they decided to stretch the night-cap out into another one, old Drood had slipped back to his own room to order it— as if that was going to fool anybody in a hotel.

  Into the mouthpiece beneath her chin, Evelyn Thompson said in dulcet tones, "Your call, please?"

  A woman's voice answered from 360. Panting and strained, hoarsely hysterical: "There's a dead man in three-sixteen. He's murdered. Oh, please hurry." And there was a click that closed the connection.

  Evelyn sat rigid, staring at the board with dilated eyes. But that was Mr. Drood's room. 360. It was plugged into 360. Her staring eyes verified that fact. Sounded like the woman said "three-sixteen." But it was 360. Sure it was. She must have heard wrong.

  Murder?

  Evelyn frantically tried to call the number back. There was no answer. She jerked her head sidewise toward the profile of the clerk, half-dozing behind his desk, and whispered loudly, "Dick."

  The profile stirred and the clerk's head turned languidly toward her. She motioned excitedly with one hand while she plugged in another connection.

  The telephone buzzed in a private office behind the front desk, and a man who was dozing, fully clothed, on an old sofa in the small ofiice slowly came to life.

  Oliver Patton, "Chief Security Officer" of the Hibiscus, swung his feet over the edge of the sofa and sat up, rubbing his eyes. His was a twenty-four-hour job since he was the only dick the hotel afforded, and he had to catch his sleep when he could. Generally it wasn't bad. Most nights went straight through without requiring his services at all.

  He yawned as he glanced at his watch and reached for the phone beside the sofa. He was a big man who had gone steadily to fat since retiring from the police force a few years ago. His bunions bothered him a good deal, but.

  with his wife's hospital bills, his pension simply wasn't enough and he needed this extra money.

  Evelyn's low-pitched but excited voice leaped out of the receiver at him as he lifted it, "Trouble in three-sixty, Mr. Pattonl"

  "What kind of trouble?" he grunted sourly. "That's Drood, ain't it?"

  "But it wasn't Mr. Drood. Some woman called. There's a dead man there."

  "Dead?" Oliver Patton stopped scratching the fold of fat in front of his belly and his mouth gaped. "Drood?"

  "I don't know. It's awful, Mr. Patton. You better get up there quick. She said murder. Should I call the police?"

  "Murder?" Patton's voice took on a sharp note of authority. "Don't call anybody." He slammed down the phone and rose to his six feet two, his heavy face worried.

  Murder in a hotel was real trouble. It was his job to keep the police out if there was any way possible. Of course, if it was murder, it wouldn't be possible. But he knew most of the boys on Homicide. Sometimes you could fix things so there wouldn't have to be any publicity.

  He hurried out of his office and around a comer into the lobby where the clerk and bell-captain and elevator operator were grouped at the desk talking excitedly to Evelyn.

  They all stopped talking and looked to him for advice as he came up with ponderous swiftness. He disregarded them and demanded of Evelyn, "What you got, girl?"

  "Just that. A woman called from three-sixty and said there was a murdered man there. She hung right up on me and didn't answer when I called back."

  "Come along, Bill," he snapped at the bell-captain. "You watch it here, Dick. Don't let anybody out—nobody up." He trotted heavily to the waiting elevator, and when the door slammed shut, asked the operator, "Bring anybody down recently?"

  "They was a lady a few minutes ago, Chief. She come from five." As the elevator stopped and he opened the doors, he asked anxiously, "What must I do?"

  "Hold it right here." snapped Patton. "No matter how many bells ring." He turned to his left with Bill at his heels, moved swiftly but quietly toward a door standing open with light streaming out of it.

  The open door was numbered 360. The overhead lights were on, revealing an impersonal hotel bedroom with a double bed in the corner between two windows.

  There was no woman in the room, and no dead man in sight. Everything was in perfect order with a man's bedroom slippers showing from under the bed, a pair of violently flowered pajamas lying across the foot of it, a set of silver-backed brushes on the dressing-table.

  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 t
he 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—uh— four-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&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—?"

  "Here we go again," said Patton sourly. "Three-sixteen, huh? Who's three-sixteen, Dick?" he called to the clerk.

  "U-m-m, that's Miss Paulson, I think. Yeh. Cute little trick."

  "She in now? Buzz her, Ewie," Patton added to the girl in front of him.

  Dick said, "I don't think—no. Her key's in the box. And I think I remember seeing her go out a little while back."

  "She doesn't answer," said Evelyn.

  Oliver Patton shrugged. "Yeh. Well—you still think maybe the call said three-sixteen instead of three-sixty?"

  "Seems to me I'm sure of it now, the more I think back."

  Patton turned away from her tiredly and went back to the elevator, shaking his head at Bill this time. "Just to double-check," he said.

  When he reached the third floor again, he grimaced at the door of 360 still standing open, and turned the other way, as he had on the floor above, and into the corridor leading to the left.

  He stopped in front of the fifth door on his left this time, 316, near the end of the corridor. The overhead light was dim at this point, and no light showed through the transom of this room.

  Patton knocked loudly, waited and knocked again, ordering gruffly, "Open up or I'll use my pass-key."

  When nothing happened, he got out a ring of keys, selected one and unlocked the door. He stood on the threshold and reached inside for the wall switch. He blinked as the lights came up in a replica of Miss Payne's room.

  The interior was neat and a little warm because the windows beyond the bed, overlooking the bay, were closed. He entered stolidly and went through the motions of checking the room. He found nothing at all out of order, and left in a few minutes.

  Returning to the elevator, he glared at the open door of 360 as he waited for a car. Now his feet were hurting so badly he'd have to soak them in hot water before getting back to sleep.

  TWO: 9:37 PM.

  A narrow alley runs beside the Hibiscus Hotel from the street in front to the stone breakwater at the rear of the ten-story building. It is used only by delivery and garbage trucks which must back in between the hotel and the brick apartment house on the other side of the alley.