Free The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper by John D. MacDonald Page B

away, woman. Have a nice sleep.
     
     
I went into the bathroom. I glanced at my toilet-article kit atop the pale yellow formica of the countertop, and my random restless thoughts were gone in an instant, and I was totally focused, the back of my neck feeling prickly and cool.
     
     
Caution is like the seat belt habit. If you are going to -use seat belts, then you'd better make it automatic by latching your belt every single time you get into the car. Then you stop thinking about the seat belt and you do not have to make any decisions about seat belts because you are always strapped in.
     
     
I have a lot of little rituals that are completely automatic. They are the habits of caution. A lot of these habits are seemingly casual and accidental arrangements of things. When I leave the toilet kit open, the last thing I usually replace in it is the toothbrush. I am a brush-last type. I lay it, bristles-up, across the other items in such a way that it is fairly stable and is on a perfect diagonal, aimed from corner to corner out of the case. When I reach into the case in the morning to take the stuff out, I am not consciously aware of the precise placement of the toothbrush. I am suddenly very aware, however, if it is not in its proper place and alignment.
     
     
I reconstructed the morning. By the time I came back from breakfast, the maid had done the room. I had been in the bathroom, and had the brush been in the wrong place, I would have noticed it. I studied the new position of it. No passing truck, no sonic boom, could have moved it so far from its proper position.
     
     
All right. So somebody had been messing with my stuff, poking around. Petty thief with a passkey. Very easy to prove. All I had to do to prove it was lift the soap dish. (Only masochists use those sorry little slivers of lilac that motels call soap.) Two twenties, folded twice. I unfolded them. There were still two. A dumb thief would take them both. A slightly less stupid thief would take one.
     
     
If you are in a line of work where people can get very emotional about the fact you are still walking around and breathing, a forty-dollar decoy is a cheap method of identifying the visitor. Had the money been gone, it would not have been absolute assurance that it had been a visit by a sneak thief. A professional of enough experience and astuteness would take it anyway, knowing that if I had left any little trap around the place, the missing money would be a false trail.
     
     
I went back to the bed, sat on the edge of it and glowered at the carpeting. I had brought nothing with me that could possibly clue anybody about anything.. My temporary address was known to Biddy, Tom Pike, the car rental girl, and whoever they might have told or who might have questioned them.
     
     
Biddy and Tom knew that I would be away from the motel at lunchtime. Tom would have had time to come to the motel before going home. Looking for what? Helena's letter? Work on that assumption and stay with it until it breaks down. But why? What could be in the letter? Unless Biddy was one hell of an actress, she hadn't known there was a letter until I told her. Seemed doubtful that Helena would mention having written me a letter. It was too highly personal a letter, for one thing. D. Wintin Hardahee had known for sure. And maybe a nurse had known. Forget the why of it, at least for now. Start at a known point or with a known angle, which is the basis of all navigation.
     
     
I knew that it could be some foul-up in identification. Maybe I looked like somebody somebody was looking for. Maybe it had been a little once-over by the law. Maybe there was a nut on the loose with a toothbrush fetish.
     
     
I phoned Mr. D. Wintin Hardahee, of Folmer, Hardahee, and Krantz, located in the Courtney Bank and Trust Company building on Central Avenue. I got through to his secretary, who said that Mr. Hardahee was in a meeting. She did not know when it would be over. Yes, if I wanted to take a