Kept Women Can’t Quit

“Give me the key,” I said. “You can close the door when you go out.”

“What will I do when I come back?”

“If I’m not here the key will be at the desk,” I told her.

I hurried down to the car, drove it into the driveway, unlocked the new padlock on the garage and took the trunk which was in the center of the floor and moved it far back into the shadows. Then I backed my car halfway into the garage, opened the back, rustled out my trunk and left it right in the middle of the floor where the other trunk had been. Then I drove the car out of the garage, locked the garage with the new padlock, parked my car near the curb and went back up to the apartment.

“Okay, Elsie,” I said, “you can leave as soon as the cab comes.”

“I’ll have to stop by a supermarket and grab some groceries,” she said.

“Sure thing,” I told her. “Get some coffee, cream, sugar, eggs, salt, bread, bacon — stuff of that sort — and get the place provisioned up. The manager may start checking. Get the taxi driver to carry your stuff to the elevator. If I’m here I’ll come and carry it in the rest of the way. Otherwise, you’ll have to rustle it in by yourself.”

“If you’re not here, will you get in touch with me and let me know where you are?”

I took down the number of the telephone and said, “Sure. I’ll be in touch with you. Now, you go ahead and get your stuff.”

The manager phoned to say the cab had arrived.

“Well,” Elsie said, putting on her coat, “as a dutiful wife, I’ll follow instructions. I hadn’t imagined being married to you would be like this, Donald. I’ll be back as fast as I can make it.”

After Elsie had left I sat there hoping the phone wouldn’t ring. I knew that if it did ring I’d have to let it ring. If a man’s voice answered, it would frighten away the quarry. On the other hand, if no one answered the phone, the call would be repeated later. But the manager of the apartment knew I was in. According to my plans she had to know I was there.

I pulled up a chair by the window, propped my feet on another chair and went over the sequence of events in my mind.

The telephone started to ring. I let it ring. It seemed an interminable time before the bell ceased making noise.

I got up and began pacing the floor, impatient with myself for letting Elsie go, yet realizing there was nothing else I could have done under the circumstances.

After fifteen or twenty minutes the telephone rang again and this time it continued to ring and ring and ring. I finally walked over, picked up the phone and said, “What number are you calling, please?”

“For heaven sakes, where have you been?” Mrs. Charlotte said. “I knew you were up there. I—”

“I couldn’t come to the phone right away,” I said. “What’s the trouble?”

“A man is here who wants to get into the garage,” she said. “He is instructed to pick up a trunk.”

“He got a letter to that effect?” I asked.

“He has the key to the garage; that is, the key to the old lock. Evelyn Ellis gave it to him. He tried to get in and found that the lock had been changed. You told me you were going to change it but you didn’t tell me you had changed it. I don’t have a key.”

I said, “I’ll be right down and let him in. I’m sorry.”

“I can come up and get the key. I just wanted to be sure—”

“No,” I said, “I’ll come down and open it for him. What does he want to take out?”

“It seems that Miss Ellis, the former tenant, left a trunk there and she sent him to pick up the trunk. That’s all he wants.”

“Oh, well,” I said, “if that’s the case, come up in the elevator and I’ll give you your key and then you can let him in.”

I walked down to the elevator and waited until Mrs. Charlotte came up.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have left you the key when I changed the padlocks.”

“You should have,” she snapped. “This is rather inconvenient all around.”

“I’m sorry.”

I handed her the key to the padlock.

She went down in the elevator.

I hurried down the stairs and stood where I could see the desk.

The man who was standing, talking with her, was the man whose photograph Hazel Downer had given me. He seemed exceedingly nervous.

Mrs. Charlotte walked out to the garage with him to unlock the padlock.

I slipped into the lobby, tossed the key to the apartment on her desk, then sprinted out to the agency car, started the motor and waited.

Mrs. Charlotte escorted the guy across to the garage and opened the door. He thanked her, stepped inside, looked around, walked back to the street, got into a big sedan and backed the sedan in the driveway until the rear of the car was just inside the garage. Then he got out and opened the trunk of the car and put my trunk, which I had left standing invitingly in the center of the floor, into the car. The lid of the car trunk wouldn’t go all the way down but he tied it with rope so it wouldn’t fly up. Then he drove out of the driveway and I swung in behind him long enough to get a good look at his license number. It was NYB 241.