Over My Dead Body

He had enough left to pay the fare. It wasn't a modern apartment house we stopped in front of, but an older building whose days of pride were in the past. The ground floor was a trinket shop, dark, of course. Barrett got out a key and unlocked a door that let us into a small public corridor, went to the rear of it, and with another key admitted us into a miniature elevator of the drive-it-yourself variety. That took us up five storeys, and then we had to climb a flight of stairs. The layout wasn't exactly shabby, though it was far from ostentatious. From the top of the stairs he preceded me through a sort of vestibule and used a third key on a wide, solid-looking door. I followed him in and he shut the door and turned to call out:

"Yoohoo!"

An answer came: "Back here, Donnybonny!"

I could already smell perfume, and the temperature even there in the foyer must have been close to ninety. I copied his example when he took off his coat, but when he scowled at me and said, "Wait here a minute," I disregarded it and went along behind him into a large and dazzling room full of heat, synthetic smells, thick rugs, divans and cushions, miscellaneous fluff, and a pair of damsels. They were sprawled out, one on a divan and the other on a chaise-longue.

Zorka, a loose red thing around her, started a wave of greeting at Barrett and then halted in mid-air as she saw me. Belinda Reade, nothing at all around her, called, "How's my Donny- Oh!" and grabbed for a pale blue neglig233;e that was draped over the back of the divan.

Chapter Eleven

Barrett growled at me, "Didn't I ask you to wait?"

"It doesn't matter," I soothed him. "When my mind is on business-"

"Why," Belinda Reade cried in innocent delight, "it's the detective man! Have a drink?"

She was working on one herself, and the ingredients for plenty more were handy on a little table. Zorka was having one, too. She had raised herself to her elbow on the chaise-longue and was smiling at me foolishly, without any intention, apparently, of saying anything.

Barrett said, "Be quiet, Bel. This fellow came…" He turned to Zorka. "He came for you. My God, look at you-both of you." He frowned at her and switched at me: "You explain it to her."

"Thees ees no time," Zorka declared in an injured tone, "for explanations."