Kept Women Can’t Quit

“Okay. I’ll arrange it. It’ll take about half an hour.”

He went out, and at the end of half an hour a plain-clothes man opened the door, said, “Come on, Lam.”

I followed him out to a police car. The officer drove slowly and carefully to the Ocean Beach Hotel, which was way out on the waterfront far removed from the scene of the murder and miles from the Happy Daze Camera Company.

The officer escorted me up to the room. It was a nice, airy room.

“What are the restrictions,” I asked, “about going out?”

“You don’t go out.”

“What about a razor, toothbrush and—”

“Your bag is over there in the corner. You’ll get excellent reception on that television. There are the late papers on the table. There are only two ways out of here, the front door and the fire escape. We’ll be watching the front door. Nobody will be watching the fire escape.”

“How come?”

“Well,” he said, “it might be cold and disagreeable sitting out there and watching the fire escape and, frankly, I think the Inspector would rather like to have you go down the fire escape.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, grinning, “it would make the case look better.”

“What case?”

“The case against you.”

“I didn’t know there was any.”

“There isn’t any now, but all we need is just a little more evidence in order to have a peach of a case.”

“I see,” I said. “The Inspector would like to have me resort to flight. Is that it?”

“Well, if you resorted to flight,” the officer said, “we’d certainly have enough to hold you on a murder case. In this state, flight is an evidence of guilt — that is, it can be used in support of a prosecutor’s case.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s certainly nice of you to have told me.”

“Oh, that’s part of my instructions,” the officer said cheerfully. “We want to be sure that if you dust out of here there’s no question about it being flight. You see, I can testify now that I told you.”

“Thanks a lot,” I told him.

“The door won’t be locked,” he said. “You can bolt it from the inside if you’re nervous, but the fire escape is at the end of the hall.”

“I can’t go out the front door.”

“That’ll be guarded,” he said.

“Well, I’m glad to know all the rules,” I told him. “I at least have the dimensions of the trap.”

“The trap?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Inspector Hobart would give his eye-teeth to have me go down the fire escape and resort to flight. He’d love it.”

“He probably would at that,” the officer said, and went out.

I called room service, asked for a double manhattan cocktail, a filet mignon, rare, a baked potato, coffee and apple pie.

I was told that everything would be sent up except the cocktail. Orders were to send up no liquor.

I turned on the television and saw the last twenty minutes of a private-eye program. Then there was news and the weather forecast. After that, the meal came up. I finished the food, phoned for the waiter to take away the dishes and glanced through the newspapers.

There was a little stuff about the case of a man having been murdered in a downtown hotel, but just the usual follow-ups: The police were working on “hot leads” and expected to have a suspect in custody “within another forty-eight hours.”

It was all running according to the regular pattern — the reporters having to make a story, the police having to keep the taxpayers satisfied they were on the job.

It was well after dark when I heard surreptitious knuckles tapping on the door.

I crossed the room and opened the door. Hazel Downer stood on the threshold.

“Donald!” she exclaimed.

“Well, what do you know?” I said. “It’s a small world. Come on in and park the curves. How did you find me here?”

“I followed you.”

“How come?”

“We found that you were being held by the police. My attorney, Madison Ashby, called up from Los Angeles and said he was going to get a habeas corpus unless you were released. They promised him that they’d release you within an hour and take you to a hotel.”

“So then what?”

“I was up in San Francisco keeping in touch with him. He called me and told me, so I went down and parked in front of Headquarters. When the plain-clothes officer drove you out here I followed.”

“And then?”

“I didn’t want to be ostentatious about it, so I waited for a couple of hours, then went and parked my car, got a taxicab, loaded some baggage in the taxicab, came up here just as bold as you please and sailed past the plain-clothes man who’s on duty downstairs, registered, and got a room.”

“Use your right name to register under?”

“Of course not.”

“You were taking a chance on being recognized.”

“I don’t think so. They don’t know me up here.”

I said, “Well, well, what do you know! So you’re here in the hotel.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I’m sure glad to see you. I was afraid I was going to have a lonely evening.”

“What do we do now, Donald?”

“What would you like to do?” I asked.

“I’d like to find out what happened to the money Standley had — the money of mine.”

“What do you think happened to it?”

“I think that Evelyn Ellis got it, but I’m beginning to get all mixed up.”