Kept Women Can’t Quit

“Well, when guests come in they come in by taxi or by private car and unload their baggage out front. That’s the doorman’s jurisdiction. He takes the baggage and piles it by the entrance. The bell boys take it from there and put it all in a big row while they wait for the guests to register and be assigned rooms.

“After a guest is assigned a room the clerk calls out, ‘Front,’ and a bell boy comes and picks up the key and the clerk says, ‘Take Mr. So-and-So to Room such-and-such.’

“So then the guest goes over to the row of baggage and indicates the bags that are his and the boy takes them up to the room.”

“Go on,” I said. “What about the unclaimed brief case?”

“Well, you know how it is, Donald, during the rush hour, along early in the morning when the planes come in. There’s a lot of luggage that piles up there, quite a row of it. Then along during the slack time of day there won’t be any luggage at all. Then it will build up again along in the afternoon. For some reason people don’t check in quite as much during the middle of the day. Well, anyway, when they got all caught up with their baggage yesterday, there was one brief case left over. Some incoming guest had evidently failed to remember that he had a brief case and had gone up to his room and just left it sitting there.”

“All right,” I said, “there was an unclaimed brief case. What happened to it?”

“It was turned in to the Lost and Found, but no one’s claimed it.”

“Let’s go take a look,” I said.

“You think the brief case could be important, Donald?”

“Anything could be important; anything that’s the least bit out of the ordinary.”

“Heavens,” she said, “I never realized how many things happen that are out of the ordinary in a hotel of that sort — that is, things that I’d call out of the ordinary.

“What detained you, Donald?”

I said, “I was questioned by the police.”

“You were?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Oh, they thought I might know something.”

“Donald, you’re so mysterious and so casual and offhand about these things. I... Donald, I’m so excited I’m trembling like a leaf.”

“You’ve got to get over that,” I said.

“I don’t know what’s got into me,” she said. “Just the idea of associating with... with a private eye... Donald, I’m so excited I couldn’t eat a bit of breakfast. I managed to drink the coffee but, I just didn’t want a thing to eat this morning. And poor Bernie, she s absolutely all in. The look she gave me when she left... I just kept her awake half the night.”

“Okay,” I said, “let’s go to the hotel.”

We went to the hotel and Ernestine, who knew most of the employees, was proud as a peacock, taking me in tow and nodding to the bell boys and one of the porters. Then she took me over to the porter’s office and said, “He handles the Lost and Found.”

The porter looked me over, then looked at Ernestine as though he had never fully appraised her before.

Ernestine said, “John, my friend wants to see that brief case that was picked up. The sleeper that no one claimed. He—”

The porter produced the brief case.

“Locked?” I asked.

He nodded.

“That wouldn’t be any handicap, would it?” I asked.

“Why?”

“I’d like to look inside of it.”

“Yours?”

“It could be.”

“Oh, I know John could open it,” Ernestine said. “He’s clever with locks, and he has all sorts of keys, don’t you, John?”

The porter opened a drawer containing half a dozen key rings, selected one with small keys on it, tried a couple of keys without doing any good. On the third try the lock clicked back and the brief case opened.

I looked inside.

It was a brief case that held three compartments. There was a bloodstained knife in the middle compartment. There was a chamois-skin money belt also bloodstained, and nothing else.

The porter got a brief glimpse of the knife. He started to reach for the brief case. I grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t touch it,” I said. “It’s been contaminated enough already. Don’t touch a thing. We’ll let the fingerprint men work on it.”

“Oh, Donald, what is it?” Ernestine asked.

I said, “Ernestine, I’m putting you in charge. Don’t let anybody or anything touch that brief case. Tie a string around the handle so we don’t leave any more fingerprints or smudge any that might be on there. Now then, where’s the telephone?”

The porter said, “Use this one right here and I’ll listen while you’re doing your talking.”

I rang up police headquarters and asked for Inspector Hobart. After a few seconds I had him on the line. “Lam talking, Inspector” I said.

“Okay, Lam, what’s on your mind?”

“You have found the murder weapon,” I said.

“I have?”

“Yes, you.”

“Where?”

“At the hotel in a brief case.”

Hobart hesitated for a moment, then said, “I don’t like that, Donald.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too fast. It was too easy. You may be a smart investigator, but on this you’re too damned smart.”

I said, “If you and Sellers hadn’t interfered with my schedule this morning I’d have had it earlier.”

“You knew it was there?”

“I was looking,” I said.

“Where are you now?”

“In the porter’s office at the hotel.”