Free Golden Trap by Hugh Pentecost

in the Trapeze; M on a woman’s card means a man-hunter; O arbitrarily stands for “over his head,” meaning that particular guest can’t afford the Beaumont’s prices and shouldn’t be allowed to get in too deep; MX on a married man’s card means he’s double-crossing his wife, and WX means the wife is playing around. The small letter “d” means diplomatic connections. We have a lot of them at the hotel. If there is special information, it is written out in the form of a memo on the card, and if this information is not to be public knowledge in the front office, the card is marked with Chambrun’s initials, meaning the information is in his private file.
    I looked at the cards Chambrun had handed me. The top one bore the name of Louis Martine; credit unlimited, the small “d” for diplomat, and a note indicating he was head of the French delegation to the UN. I knew Monsieur Martine casually. I’d done a press release on him when he’d registered with his wife, onetime film star Collette Cardone. I was too young to remember Miss Cardone’s starring years in prewar films, but she was still quite something to look at, and she had that husky low voice typical of so many French women. The Martines were a very elegant, very distinguished couple. I’d been instructed to give them the red-carpet treatment when they registered.
    “Louis Martin was in the Resistance with George and me,” Chambrun said. “He has every reason to remember George with gratitude and affection. Madame Martine may be something else again.”
    There was nothing on Collette Martine’s card to indicate she was of special interest. I looked up at Lovelace.
    “Collette Cardone was a collaborator with the Nazis in Paris,” he said in a flat, toneless voice. “She had no connection with Louis Martine in those days. I don’t think he met her until after the war. Collette was wined and dined by the Nazis. She made propaganda films for them. There were many French people caught one way or another in that trap and they were forgiven for it later. Collette was obviously forgiven by Louis Martine, who did not offer forgiveness easily. But Collette’s father, also a collaborator, was something else again. He was a part of the German secret police, betraying his supposed friends right and left.” Lovelace drew a deep breath. “I killed him. I caught him delivering secrets about the Resistance to a German official. I killed them both.”
    My mouth felt dry. He said it so casually, as though it had been part of the day’s routine.
    “I don’t imagine Collette has ever forgiven me,” Lovelace said.
    “And Monsieur Martine?”
    Lovelace shrugged. “He is married to her. He loves her.”
    I turned to the next card, which carried information on a Dr. Claus Zimmerman. He rated an A for alcoholism, an O for over his head financially, a W for woman-chaser. The further note on the card read: “Traveling on a Swiss passport.”
    “I knew Zimmerman when I was Karl Kessler in Germany,” Lovelace said. His voice seemed to grow unsteady. “He was a doctor at the Auschwitz death camp. He was an experimenter on live human beings—a cold-blooded bastard. He stood by, probably laughing, as thousands of Jews were slaughtered. He was tried for war crimes after the peace, and the evidence of Karl Kessler—me—sent him to prison for a long term. But somehow these people all slip back into the world, fresh and clean. He was paroled. Everyone seems to have forgotten who he was and what he did. He hasn’t forgotten, of course, and he hasn’t forgotten what I did to him.”
    I looked at the next card made out to Anton Rogoff, a Roumanian businessman. He had only checked in the day before. His credit rating was excellent. He had reserved a suite for ten days. A note indicated he was a personal friend of Mr. Battle, the Beaumont’s owner. Kid-glove treatment indicated.
    “He knew me as Gregor Bodanzky,” Lovelace said. “He manufactured munitions during