reading

Find a full list of our authors and

titles at www.openroadmedia.com

@OpenRoadMedia

“That’s what, all right. You hit it that time. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Sex …” she repeated, lingering over the word as one might linger over the olive in one’s first martini.

Maybe I’d better tell you about this kid before you get the wrong idea. Kid—hah. I’m only thirty years old myself, not exactly a kid, but this babe could have been my father.

You could say she was so thin she had to wear a fat girdle. You could say she appeared to be wearing a lifeless bra. You could say she had no visible means of sport.

Her complexion was the delicate tint of poisoned limeade; and her expression was that of one biting down, all unaware, on thirty-two cavities. I had seen that light in her eyes before: in glass eyes. I had seen those curly locks on her head before: on drugstore dummies. I had seen—well, I had seen enough.

Her name was Agatha Smellow, and to put it gently, she simply was not my kind of tomato; thus this was—at least—an unusual circumstance for the one man of the one-man firm, Sheldon Scott, Investigations. That’s me, Shell Scott. And I wished I was dead.

“Well, Aggie, old girl,” I said—she had asked me to call her Aggie—“here’s to nothing.”

Friends, in my years as a private investigator in Los Angeles, I have looked upon death and destruction, blood and urp, split brainboxes and disemboweled oxen. But I have seldom looked upon anything less appetizing than Aggie fluttering her bald lids at me.

I am a fairly large fellow, reasonably agile, healthily tanned from much Southern California sun. The face is bearable, even if it is not the one I might have chosen if given my pick of a half-dozen gorgeous ones; what poetry of feature it might once have possessed having since been edited into disrhythm by numerous individuals who bore me no good will—guys, that is, who socked me and kicked me and jumped on me and sapped me and even shot off a piece of one ear.

The head to which all that was done is topped by inch-long white hair springing upward, as if trying for an inch and a half, and sharply-angled cotton-white brows, which I now suffer bravely, having learned as a mere boy that despite the exercise of much ingenuity and even mustache wax I could not straighten them out.

Despite all this, I generally look forward to whatever life brings—even if, as sometimes happens, it’s death; for the blood does not creep in my veins, but rather, I like to think, sings and sometimes yodels in splendidly harmonious arteries.

More, in my yodeling blood are several pounds of iron filings, each ounce of which is magnetically attracted to what I think of, fondly, as toothsome tomatoes. I have, in fact, a fondness amounting virtually to dedication for lovely lasses with lissome curves and eyes like silk, with smiling lips and boastful cleavage, with fire in their glances—and all that.

Clothes were scattered around, as if a hurricane had hit the wash basket. None of the guests I glimpsed were jumping about vigorously, at least not at first, but all of them looked as if they’d really been living.

Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him. Of course, he wasn’t actually right out in plain sight, being half hidden among bushes and ferns and big-leafed tropical plants, which lined a narrow winding path. Also it was night, after ten p.m. on a balmy Friday evening in July; but there were plenty of garden lights spilling reds and yellows and blues and greens all over the landscape, and it was difficult to miss him entirely.

Even so, I walked past him myself, thinking he was passed out, or sleeping and dreaming sweet dreams. But I have seen a lot of dead guys, and there was something about the way he lay on the grass under a hydrangea bush.…

I’d come in the side gate into the six-foot wall, through the radiantly-blossoming garden, and walked over a white gravel path to the side of Mr. Halstead’s big hilltop house in the Hollywood Hills, and stopped for a moment near the forty-foot long free-form pool. So the first person I saw was the gal in the pool.

I can usually tell gals from other things without much difficulty, but the deduction was made easier because she seemed to be wearing the standard outfit here: nothing.

She was swimming lazily in the pool, sort of swirling around like a sleepy otter, and for a moment I wondered if I should take off my shoes—at least—and jump in and rescue her. There was a chance she was drowning.

I knew I’d never forgive myself if a gorgeous babe like that drowned right in front of my eyes.

She swam toward me, reached the edge of the pool, and climbed out. “Whoo!” I said.

“Never mind, you’ve answered the question. Boy, I hope to shout you’ve—”

This gal was quite a number. Quite a lot of numbers. Like, maybe 66 inches tall, 125-130 pounds, 39-24-37, and 25-30 years old; and her parts added up to more than the sum of her numbers.

“I didn’t think so.” She looked me up and down attentively. “I think I’d remember if I had. Who are you?”

“Sybil Spork? That’s … ugh. Well, I’m pleased to meet you, anyway, Miss Spork. Or Sybil. May I call you Miss? I mean, may I call you Sybil?”

“Why not?” she said. “Only it’s not Miss. I’m Mrs. Spork. Did George invite you?”

That shook her up. She stifled a yawn, squeezed her eyes shut, then stretched langorously and let her arms flop to her sides. “Well, see you around,” she said.

It was a long, low pink job that looked sort of Spanish-Mediterranean, with thick cement arches and a red tile roof, about thirty yards away and half hidden behind clumps and masses of Southern California flora. I watched Sybil until her delectable Southern California fauna disappeared in the masses of flora, then I started after her.

I had to go to the house anyway. There, presumably, was where Mr. Halstead would be awaiting me. Probably soused to the gills. Passing a hydrangea bush, I walked past a heavy-set and hirsute individual lying face-down on the grass, three or four feet off the path; and I took two more steps before I stopped.

Then I turned around, looked at the guy again, went back and knelt by him. No pulse. No heat, no electricity, no zip. No more parties for this one.

Somebody let out a lusty whoop. From where I squatted I could see one small segment of the swimming pool and the blue-tiled deck next to it. As I looked toward the whooper, he came into view pursuing a short, shapely redheaded gal who dived into the pool. The man, a tall, large boned, dark-skinned egg with an enormous amount of black hair waving over his scalp, stooped and picked up a red and green beach ball. When the gal swam to the edge of the pool, he let out another whoop and whomped the beach ball down on her head. Then he jumped in at her. She climbed out and raced away. He climbed out and raced after her.

The dead guy lay with his legs extended toward the path on which I’d been walking, his head and shoulders half hidden by drooping shrubbery. A white bath towel was crumpled near him. I moved alongside him until I got a look at his head. He had a lot of wavy dark hair, but it was crushed in at the base of his skull. So, of course, was the base of his skull. There was quite a bit of blood.

I moved back to the path and walked toward the house again, wondering if this explained why Mr. Halstead had called me. It seemed a logical deduction. At first. A little more than half an hour earlier I’d been in my apartment at the Spartan Apartment Hotel, relaxing with a bourbon and water while watching the tropical fish frolicking in the community tank, when Halstead phoned. He’d sounded somewhat unraveled and, speaking very softly after identifying himself, had merely asked me if I would come to his home on a matter of the “greatest urgency,” and as speedily as possible. He hadn’t told me what was so urgent, explaining only that it was a matter of “peculiar delicacy.”

Which made me wonder if me wonder if my deduction was so logical after all. A man with his skull bashed in wasn’t what I would have called a matter of “peculiar delicacy.” Moreover, thinking of the people flitting nudely about, I had a hunch the party was supposed to have ended at least half an hour ago. But Halstead had told me he would meet me in his den and there explain everything in detail, so I let the hunch simmer.

This was the rear of the house, so—following Halstead’s instructions—I walked to the end of the path and over a bricked patio to the rear door, through it and inside. Stairs rose on my left, and I went up them to the closed door opposite the head of the stairs. I knocked, waited, knocked again, and then went in.

It appeared to be the den, all right: large, masculine, with a dark cork ceiling and cedar-paneled walls, two small bookcases, a few hunting prints, and a hideous etching of some dead ducks. The carpet was shaggy and brown, and the couch and several chairs were big, squat, heavy. There was a desk in one corner, a few papers on its top, and a TV set glared from the wall. But that was all. No Halstead, nobody.

I went downstairs again, out the back door and stood for a moment, thinking about that hunch. In a few seconds there was the soft pad of feet behind me. As I turned, the door opened and out came a gorgeous naked tomato. It was the same one who’d been alone in the pool.

She was eating a big, red, juicy-looking apple. “I still don’t know what that means,” she said.

She lifted her brows and rolled her eyes, thinking. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Haven’t seen him for a while.”

She turned and pointed with her apple. And quite a lot of tomato. “Right down the hall there,” she said. “Second door on the right.” Mrs. Spork—or, as I preferred to think of her, Sybil—added, “At least she was. I saw her go in there a while ago.”

Then she took a big crunchy bite out of her apple and walked past me. I watched her till she reached the pool and jumped in feet first, apple and all. You aren’t supposed to swim right after eating, I thought. But, then, these people seemed to do lots of things people aren’t supposed to do.

Musing thus, I walked down the hall to the second door. It was open. The room was a bedroom, and at first I thought there was nobody in it. But there was one person, a woman—presumably Mrs. Halstead—in the bed. I walked over there.

She was sleeping in the nude beneath a pink sheet and spread, both of which had been pushed, or slipped, down to her waist. She was a strawberry blonde about thirty years old, with a pretty face and at least half of a splendid figure.

It was a jolly sight, but you don’t stand around staring at sleeping tomatoes when their covers have slipped. Not much, you don’t. But it didn’t seem right not to let her know somebody was here—especially under the circumstances.

So I cleared my throat. Not very loud. In fact, I couldn’t hear it myself, which proabably explained why she didn’t wake up.

I cleared my throat again, then hummed a jazzy little tune. Didn’t do any good. So I reached over and waggled her shoulder a bit.

She said something like, “Glammbl,” and her eyelids went up and down about eight or nine times, very slowly, and the last time were either staying down or moving so slowly I couldn’t detect any movement whatever.

She knew I was there, though. I was still kind of shaking her shoulder. “Hey,” I said. “Hey. All sorts of things are going on around here. Things you ought to know about. Hey.”

“Are you Mrs. Halstead?” I said. “You better be. I’m not going to look much longer. I’m going to say the hell with it, and go for a swim or something.”

She made a little effort to cover herself up. Not much. She sort of plucked at the pink sheet, but not very pluckily.

For some reason, I counted the seconds as she stared with her eyes—finally—wide open. You know the way you count seconds; that’s the way I was doing: One-two-three-four; two-two-three-four; three-two-three-four; four-two-three—that was all.

By my count, it took three and three-quarters seconds, and then zowie! She was standing about fourteen feet from the bed—behind me, even—sort of in a crouch and yelling, “Dead? DEAD? Dead?”

I’m not certain I even saw her move. One moment I was looking down at her, kind of waggling her shoulder, and then she was behind me making an awful racket.

“You ought to at least put some shorts on,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I sure like it.”

Yeah, back in bed. Covers up under her chin. Couple more of those and she’d be wide awake. Or clear over the hill and halfway down the next valley. Never did see a gal move like that.

“Beats me. I just got here. Your husband phoned me about half an hour ago and asked me to come out. But I’m beginning to doubt—”

She shook her head. “Why would George phone you? Especially tonight …” She let it trail off. She got a kind of tortured look. After a few seconds she said, “Did you … see anybody else outside? Or—inside? Any—people?”

“Naked. That’s the best one-word description I can think of. I suppose that’s what you meant. Aside from that, well, they looked … happy, I guess.”

She blinked her eyes some more, rapidly this time. Then she said, “Who did you say you were?”

“He didn’t explain. He was going to tell me the details when I got here. I’m a private investigator, and he merely—”

“You’re a detective?” I nodded, and she said, “My God. What in the world would George want with a detective?”

I shrugged. Mrs. Halstead was wide awake now, and apparently trying to think about three or four things at once. In a moment she said, “Dead … Were you serious? Somebody’s dead?”

“I’ll turn my back if you want to put on a robe or something. Of course, if you don’t give a hoot—”

She gave a hoot. I turned my back, and in half a minute she was clad in a rosy-pink bathrobe and following me down the path outside.

She stepped off the path, parted the shrubbery, and looked down at the dead man.

Then she turned and stepped back by me. “That’s George,” she said. “It’s my husband.”

Her tone was level, soft and apparently controlled. Her features weren’t twisted into an expression of pain or shock. But I waited a few seconds before saying anything. And then there was no need to say anything.

Her lips puffed very slightly as breath pushed through them. Her head rolled to one side. Then she collapsed and fell suddenly, loosely, like an empty sack.

But I’d had a hunch she might keel over, and was able to catch her as she fell. Which made two of my hunches, so far, which had been proved correct.

I carried Mrs. Halstead into the house, laid her gently on the bed, and waited for her to come around again.

Twenty minutes later Mrs. Halstead was not only back almost to normal, but she was my client.

She claimed to be extremely curious to know why her husband had phoned me—if he really had, as she put it, which gave me something else to wonder about—but also, and naturally enough, she wanted me to do everything I could to find out who had killed him, and why. I told her there was probably little I might come up with that the police wouldn’t get to first, but that I’d certainly do what I could.

By then I had called the police and they were on their way from the Hollywood Division, but I’d delayed my call briefly in deference to my client’s wishes.

When she’d recovered enough to talk intelligently, she had asked me to please, please refrain from filling the premises with all kinds of cops until she could arrange for her guests to get their clothes on.

It seemed a reasonable request, so I told her, “O.K., but I’ll have to tell the police some of the, ah, clues have been covered up.”

“Look, Mrs. Halstead, first of all I’d tell them anyway. If that seems like betrayal, fire me. But in the second place, the police will find out whether I tell them or not—and it’s better for all concerned if I do tell them.”

“When the officers get here and find everybody clad in the height of fashion except the … the victim, this will give them pause. They will query the guests—and you—about this unusual circumstance. And they will find out precisely what the score was, believe it or not. Contrary to opinion bruited about in some areas, the police are just as bright as the rest of us—and in some areas, a good deal brighter. You want them to find out their own way and land on your guests—and you—like a ton of bricks?”

“Yeah. So, O.K., tell the people the party’s over—just so long as nobody, but nobody, leaves here.”

She agreed. In fact, even before she passed the word around—caught me a little off guard there, by the way—I had her give me a list of the names and addresses of all the people present.

It turned out there had been, aside from the host and hostess, five other married couples enjoying the Halsteads’ hospitality. They were the Warrens, Pryers, Smiths, Bersudians, and Sporks.

I went along with Mrs. Halstead while she rounded up the guests. She made a lot of racket, yelling names and things like “Lookout!” and “Yaah, here we come!” as we walked, which I thought interesting.

Even so, we found dark-skinned Mr. Bersudian with redheaded Mrs. Warren; they were sitting in a brightly-striped canvas-covered swing, but they weren’t swinging, merely looking about blankly and breathing through their open mouths.

We found Mr. Warren and Mrs. Pryer lying on their stomachs, side by side on green grass beneath a weeping willow tree, plucking industriously at the grass, as though they were uncontrollably superstitious and each blade was a four-leaf clover.

Mr. Pryer came out of the house with Mrs. Bersudian, hand in hand, he saying over and over, “Wuzzamatter?”

And Mr. Spork, the old fuddy-duddy, was in the pool with, curious to relate, Mrs. Spork.

Perhaps more curious to relate, we found no Smiths. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were not on the premises at all.

Since I was now working for Mrs. Halstead, I took the opportunity to question Mr. and Mrs. Pryer, once they pulled themselves together, so to speak. Mrs. Halstead was still looking for the Smiths. I stood near a green chaise longue, on which Hugh and Betty Pryer sat.

He was in his middle forties, a short, solidly built man with thinning brown hair and long sideburns, good teeth and dark brown eyes that would probably have been intelligent and alert if he hadn’t been so stewed. His wife was a few years younger, a slightly plump woman with small blue eyes and the faint beginning of a double chin, but with a rousing good figure nonetheless. She was quite sober.

They knew George Halstead was dead—they and everybody else here; Mrs. Halstead had blabbed that at the top of her lungs before I could stop her—and for the first minute or so, the Pryers merely expressed their shock and total ignorance of anything and everything connected with the homicide, Finally I said to Mr. Pryer, “What about the people who aren’t here now? What can you tell me about them?”

He shook his head, as though trying, unsuccessfully, to clear it, then said thickly, “Well, lessee. The Whists and Rileys dropped out. The Kents and Nelsons weren’t here at all tonight, though. That’s—”

He chopped it off because little Betty Pryer got him pretty good in the ribs with her elbow. It was neatly done, hardly noticeable at all. But I noticed it.

She looked up at me, smiling sweetly. “The Smiths?” she said. “That’s John and Nella. I haven’t any idea what—”

“Yes, you … dear,” she said. “That’s who Mr. Scott is asking us about. John and Nella, who were here earlier, but who aren’t here now.”

His wife was right, I had indeed been asking about the Smiths. But I was now more interested in Hugh’s woozy response, so I tried to keep him going. “You say two couples dropped out earlier? You mean they were here tonight?”

“No,” he broke in. “Ackchully, they weren’t. I must’ve been thinking about another part—another time, somewhere.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a couple of seconds. “I mus’ confess, I had a little to drink, had a couple. Couple thousand, it feels like. You mus’ excuse me, Mr. Scott.” He paused. “Smiths, huh? I didden even know they left.”

George Halstead’s body was on its way to the morgue, and the police were still taking statements when I decided to leave. I’d told them all I knew, and they would efficiently cover everything to be done here.

Also, if they came up with anything significant, I knew I could probably get the info tomorrow. Not only am I on very good terms with the Hollywood and Los Angeles police, but Captain Phil Samson, head of Central Homicide downtown at the L.A.P.D., is my best friend in town. So I led Mrs. Halstead aside and told her I was going to take off.

She was pale and unsteady, not in very good shape, her large green eyes dulled with shock, but holding up well enough under the circumstances. I knew she wanted to take a sleeping pill and get back into bed, but there were a few questions I had to ask.

“I don’t understand what he could have meant, Mr. Scott. John and Nella were here. The Smiths. I’ve no idea what happened to them. But neither the Whists nor Rileys was here at any time tonight. I haven’t seen them for, oh, weeks.” She smiled wanly. “No telling what Hugh meant—or thought. I’ve never seen him so drunk.”

“Hugh seldom drinks more than a highball or two,” she assured me. “But he did tonight. Of all nights.” She chewed on her lower lip. “In fact, most of us did. The party got … well, a little out of hand. If you know what I mean.”

“George made a punch. I don’t know what he put in it. But it must have been …” She finished with an expressive shrug of her eyebrows.

She went on, “It was awfully good punch. And everybody … It’s embarrassing to talk about it …”

“So forget it,” I said. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Mrs. Halstead.” I smiled. “After all, I’m supposed to explain things to you.”

She smiled slightly again, and I said, “In which connection, I would like the addresses of those couples Mr. Pryer mentioned.”

“I know. But the person we’re looking for was either somebody present, or—perhaps more likely—somebody not known to have been present. Someone who simply walked in.” I paused. “It’s just for a check. You never know where a lead might come from.”

She nodded, then gave me the names and addresses from memory, and I jotted them in my notebook.

She had already told me, and the police as well, that she knew of nobody who might have wanted to kill her husband, no possible motive for the crime. So far as I’d been able to tell, that was the same story the rest of the guests were giving the officers. George Halstead had apparently been extremely well liked by almost everybody. But, clearly, not by everybody.

So, simply as routine, I asked, “Was this the first marriage for both of you, Mrs. Halstead?”

“Agatha Smellow. She and George were married for, oh, twelve or fourteen years, I guess. She later married a man named Smellow, but he died after a year or two.”

Agatha Smellow, Culver City. Probably not worth much, but you never know. “Mr. Halstead and his former wife were still friendly?”

“I don’t mean hated. I shouldn’t have said that. They still saw each other occasionally after she divorced him. There was a lot of bitterness connected with the divorce, though.”

Mrs. Halstead’s face was virtually without expression, like a mask of wax, but right then I noticed the shimmering softness of her green eyes. They filled with tears, and the tears spilled silently, and glistened down her cheeks.

I had kept her talking about it long enough—too long. I looked around, caught the eye of a police lieutenant I knew, and jerked my head toward the house. He nodded.

I took Mrs. Halstead’s arm and led her to the back door. There I said, “Sorry I kept digging at you.”

She stopped speaking, leaned her forehead against my shoulder and sobbed quietly, her arms hanging loosely at her sides.

The lieutenant—a tall, bald man named France—was leaning against a white-stone outdoor barbecue grill when I walked over to him.

He puffed a couple of times, then said, “You ask me, nobody in this bunch busted his head in. They’re shook up. Which is natural enough. But I can’t smell anything else, Scott.”

“Another team’s checking them out now. Haven’t heard yet. You got anything else we can use?”

“Yeah. Naked as jaybirds. Bloody nudists.” He shook his head, looking around. “This is how the rich live, huh?”

“Jaybirds of a feather,” he said. “Looks like every damn one of them’s in the excruciatingly painful tax brackets. Where I wish I was.”

I nodded, walked back toward the side gate I’d come in earlier. Near the pool, seated in metal-frame chairs laced with strips of plastic webbing, were Sybil Spork and Mrs. Angelica Bersudian. Sybil looked extremely delicious in clothes, too. She was peeling an orange and licking her fingers.

Mrs. Bersudian had looked quite a bit better naked. In clothes she appeared fat. She wasn’t fat. Angelica Bersudian was a tall, bosomy, healthy-looking gal, thirtyish, with thick black hair and heavy lashes drooping over slumbrous eyes. She was speaking to Sybil in a low, humming voice as I walked by them.

Sybil dropped a handful of orange peelings into a redwood wastebasket, then looked up at me.

Driving home, top down on my Cad convertible, the thought kept coming back: I wonder what she meant by that?

I was also wondering why her name had to be Mrs. Spork. Spork was bad enough, but the Mrs. ruined it entirely.

I was wondering about a number of other things, too. From brief talks with some of the Halsteads’ guests and a chat with Lieutenant France, I had a few other facts. George Halstead’s skull had been bashed in with a smooth, heavy rock—there were small boulders all over the place, lining paths, in decorative clumps, and scattered in and among the plantings—which had been found in a clump of dichondra about ten yards from the body, near an outside phone apparently used by swimmers around the pool. So either Halstead had been clobbered where he fell and the stone tossed away, or he’d been struck and then dragged to where I’d found him. The police hadn’t come to a decision on that when I left.

Halstead was worth a couple of million dollars, perhaps more. All the guests present were, at least, well-to-do. Or “Jaybirds of a feather” as Lieutenant France had said. He’d also said he doubted that anyone present had banged Halstead in the brains, and if that’s what he thought, I was inclined to go along with him. Which left the disappearing Smiths, whom the police were now checking on, and the others Hugh Pryer had mentioned: the Whists and Rileys, Kents and Nelsons. Plus, of course, any one of perhaps two or three million other people.

Even so, it was possible that by the time the police finished their investigation tonight there’d be no further investigating to do. Often it happens that way, and a case is closed shortly after it opens. But until and unless that happened, I was interested in talking to a few people myself, particularly the Whists and Rileys.

I was remembering Hugh Pryer’s mention of them and the not-so-sly dig in the ribs from his wife. It has been my experience that when a husband says something apparently innocuous and his wife instantly gets him a good one in the ribs, the comment may well be considered nocuous. So, while driving to Hollywood Boulevard I checked the addresses I’d jotted down as Mrs. Halstead gave them to me.

The Rileys lived in Pasadena, farther then I felt like driving at this hour—it was after midnight. But the Whists were living at the Norvue, which was in Hollywood and only a few blocks out of my way. So when I hit Hollywood Boulevard, instead of turning at Vine and continuing on to North Rossmore and home, I kept going to Highland Avenue and swung left toward the Norvue, three blocks ahead.

It was a new building, twelve stories of swank apartments and suites built around an enclosed pool-and-patio area and outdoor dining room and expensive as hell. I’d never been inside the place. The Whists were in 12-C, which I presumed would be one of the four penthouse suites on the Norvue’s top floor.

As I turned to park in the curving drive before the lobby entrance, I noticed something mildly disturbing. Or, rather, noticed it again.

Checking traffic and keeping a casual eye on my rear-view mirror has become a habit with me, so before pulling into the Norvue’s drive I glanced at the mirror, fingering up the turn indicator to signal for a right turn. The only car behind me was half a block back, but the left headlight was a little cock-eyed and tilted up slightly, so that its beam glared more than the right one. It wouldn’t have been important, except that I’d noticed that same cock-eyed light behind me a few minutes earlier.

By the time I’d pulled into the drive and started slowing to a stop, the car had gone on by, and I didn’t get a good look at its make or color. It was a dark sedan, but that was all I knew.

It probably wouldn’t have looked more expensive if they’d built the furniture out of new money. The carpet was off-white, thick, spongy, probably fifty bucks a yard—and there were a lot of yards. The furniture, divans and chairs and even “love seats,” was a little spindly for my taste, but it looked as rich and as modern as Mars flights. A bank of elevators was on the right; and on my left behind arcs and planes of black steel bands and rich red woods the shade of vitamin-enriched blood stood, at alert attention, a thin man with a kindly face.

He was dressed in a black suit, an unobtrusively patterned white shirt, and a white silk tie, and he stood there beaming kindness at me.

They didn’t just help you here. They aided you. That was probably good. “I’d like to see the Whists. Ed and Marcelle.”

Mrs. Halstead had told me their first names, so I tossed them in, probably thinking that my casual familiarity with penthouse dwellers might make up for the lack of class of my chops. But that was a pretty sneaky thing to do, I immediately realized, so I added, “Actually, I don’t know them. Not intimately. Not even personally, that is.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “But Mr. and Mrs. Whist have not been in residence for nearly a month.”

It may be that I am not the most patient chap in the whole wide world. I flipped out my wallet, flapped it open to my private detective’s card and dangled it before the desk man’s eyes; then I leaned on the counter, maybe even a foot over the counter, and said, “Look, friend, maybe you’ve got nothing else to do, but I should like enormously either to see the Whists or determine before the dawn where the hell they have got to. So will you give it to me all in one gob?”

“They took a six-month lease on their penthouse,” he said. “It expired night before last, but—” He broke off, flipped through some cards, then went on, “Last night they were here was four weeks ago.”

“No, nothing like that. They paid the six months in advance. I recall asking the bell captain about them a few days ago. He said that when the Whists’ luggage was taken to their car, Mr. Whist, after presenting him with a handsome gratuity for his aid, indicated they were going on a short vacation.”

“Well, if their lease has expired, what about the stuff still left in the suite?”

“All. Which, I presume, is why Mr. Whist presented the bell captain with such a handsome gratuity.”