Kept Women Can’t Quit

Her eyes narrowed. She said, “You’re a detective. You’re deducing all that from the fact that when I opened the door I immediately assumed you must be coming to see Bernice. I told you she was out before you asked for her. You’ve put two and two together. The fact that you are a stranger to me, that I assumed Bernice had made a date with you and that somehow had got her wires crossed on this particular night and had made two dates for the same night — you’re just putting two and two together.”

“Well,” I said, “how did you expect me to know these things, by telepathy?”

“The way you... the way you read my mind.”

“I wasn’t reading your mind,” I said. “I was studying character. Now, there’s one thing about the sort of life you lead. You get rather lonely. You sit here in the evening and do some reading, but for the most part you watch television. You follow all the programs and have favorites on programs. You like the cops and robbers and you like the private eyes. I’ll bet you tune in on all of them.”

“I do,” she admitted.

“All right,” I told her, “that’s the sketch. You’re a girl who doesn’t go out much but you’re shrewd and you’re interested in people. You’re interested in television and there was a murder committed right in Bernice’s hotel. You couldn’t wait for Bernice to come home to find out what she knew about it.”

Suddenly the girl threw back her head and laughed. “All right, Donald,” she said, “you win. I pumped Bernice and turned her inside out.”

“And what did you find out?” I asked.

“I don’t know whether it’s right to tell you or not. Some of it is very confidential. Some of it, things she’s not supposed to tell.”

“I know,” I said. “Things she heard over the telephone.”

“Donald, you’re putting me in a spot.”

I said, “Which would you rather do, team up with me in working on the case and swap information, or try to hold out on me and have me hold out on you?”

“I... oh, Donald, would you let me work with you on the case?”

“If you’ve got some worthwhile information,” I said. “How long has this thing been going on between Evelyn Ellis and Standley Downer?”

“No one knows,” she said, “but it was long before she ever came to the hotel.

“She’d been living in Los Angeles in an apartment as Evelyn Ellis. About six weeks ago she came up here and registered in the hotel as Beverly Kettle. She kept her room by the month, but flew back and forth to Los Angeles.

“In Los Angeles she kept her apartment as Evelyn Ellis. She was building up two identities so that when she disappeared as Evelyn Ellis she had only to settle down here as Beverly Kettle.”

“Who knew about this?” I asked.

“Apparently Standley Downer was the only one. He used to call her four or five times a day on the long-distance telephone when she would be up here.

“But Downer’s girl friend, a girl named Hazel, found out about it some way. She came up here and there was a terrific scene, I guess. One of the adjoining rooms complained to the desk. There were very nasty words used.”

“What sort of words?”

“Nasty words, slut and witch, and... oh, Donald, you know how women are when they’re fighting. They aren’t at all careful of their language.”

“All right,” I said, “we’ll pass the language for a while, but what about the murder itself?”

“Well, I guess when Standley Downer arrived he called her the first thing and she must have been up there for a while and then... I guess that’s when they discovered there was something wrong with the trunk or something.”

“When did they start making calls?” I asked.

“Not a peep out of either of them. There was just silence from both the suite and her room.”

“But he did call her when he arrived in the hotel?”

“After he got up in his suite. He called her then.”

“And you think she went up?”

“I know she went up because somebody called for the suite and Bernie put the call through and Evelyn’s voice answered.”

“Do you know who made the call?”

“No, it was a man’s voice that was on the line. As soon as he said he wanted to talk with Standley, why, Evelyn turned the phone over to Standley.”

“And the conversation?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Bernie didn’t have time to listen. There were calls coming in and she had to keep things moving across the board.”

“No idea who it was that called?”

“No.”

“Have the police talked with Bernie?”

“Not yet.”

I took out my billfold and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “You’re going to run into some expenses in this thing, Ernestine,” I said. “I’d like to get a list of the numbers that Evelyn Ellis was calling during the last few days and I particularly would like to know whether she’s been doing any business with the Happy Daze Camera Company and whether she’s a nut on photography.”

“Does it make any difference? In the murder, I mean?”

“It might make quite a lot of difference. Think you can find out for me?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “Donald, how did you know all those things about me, about my character? Am I that obvious?”