Free Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart Page B

Campbell is the district attorney,” he said impressively. “Seems like we’re getting famous all at once.”
    “That’s hardly the word,” said Mr. Campbell dryly, as Floyd placed his package on the center table. “We don’t like to disturb you, Miss Spencer, but we’re trying to identify the—this woman. It seems likely that she had a reason for coming here. After all”—he cleared his throat—“there are a good many houses here not being opened for the summer. It seems strange her body was found in this one.”
    It was Dane who answered that. He was standing by the fire, looking interested but nothing more.
    “Probably most of them are boarded up,” he said. “This one happened to be open.”
    “With a caretaker in it,” said Mr. Campbell. “Why take a chance on a thing like that?”
    Carol asked them to sit down, and offered them cigarettes. Lieutenant Wylie produced a pipe and asked if she objected. Then Mr. Campbell cleared his throat.
    “I need not stress the need of identification of this woman, Miss Spencer,” he said. “I believe you have said you don’t know her.”
    “I didn’t say that,” she protested. “How can I tell? I hardly saw her, and when I did—I can’t think of anyone who would come here, or why they would be killed here. All I know is that she was here.”
    Her voice sounded strained, and the doctor smiled at her.
    “No need to worry, Carol,” he said. “It’s only a matter of identification. She may have been killed outside and her body brought here.”
    “But it wasn’t,” she said, half hysterically. “She had slept here. Go up and see for yourselves. She had slept in the yellow room.”
    If she had tossed a bomb into the room, the reaction could hardly have been greater. They poured out into the hall and up the stairs, and Carol found Dane’s hand on her arm.
    “Better not say I’ve been up there,” he said cautiously. “Let them look for themselves.”
    She nodded. Dr. Harrison knew the yellow room, and the others were already inside when they got there. The place spoke for itself, the bed, the toilet table, the tub in the bathroom, and the district attorney looked at Floyd.
    “Missed this this morning, didn’t you?” he said unpleasantly.
    “How the hell could I know Jim Mason hasn’t the sense of a louse?” Floyd said. “I had my hands full as it was.” He turned to Carol. “When did you find out she’d slept here?”
    “One of the maids saw it.”
    “When was that?” he asked.
    “Around noon, I think.”
    “And you didn’t report it?”
    “I thought someone would be back. I had no telephone, and the house was full of people all afternoon. I locked the door so it wouldn’t be disturbed.”
    He eyed her suspiciously.
    “It wasn’t locked just now, Miss Spencer.”
    The lieutenant had opened the closet door.
    “Nothing here,” he said laconically. “Unless—”
    He was a tall man. He ran an exploratory hand over the closet shelf, and when he brought it out it was holding a small white hat. It was a gay little hat, crisp and new, and all the eyes in the room were turned on Carol.
    “Belong to you?” the lieutenant inquired.
    “No,” she said faintly. “I never saw it before.”
    She sat down on a chair inside the door. More than anything else the little hat had brought the real tragedy of the murder home to her. She felt dizzy and her heart was pounding furiously. She did not realize that Floyd was standing over her until he spoke.
    “You missed it, didn’t you, Miss Spencer?”
    “Missed it? I never saw it.”
    He looked triumphantly around the room.
    “I’m wondering,” he said, “just what became of the rest of her clothes. She came here in a black dress and a pair of pumps, and she had a purse and an overnight bag. She undressed in this room. Look at that hat. Now what I want to know is who disposed of them, and how?”
    Carol stared at him.
    “Why would I do it? When she was killed I was at my sister’s in