Free Severed Key by Helen Nielsen

chest and arms, normally tanned by the sun, now had an ugly grey cast. The arm dangled over the side of the stretcher. When one of the attendants raised it and placed it across his chest, a band of stark white flesh traced where he had worn a ring. An instant later the corpse was covered by a grey blanket and the stretcher rolled through the bedroom on its way to the hall.
    “Suicide?” Simon asked.
    Lieutenant Howard studied Simon through narrowed eyes. “I’ve seen your face in the newspapers,” he remarked. “You’re Simon Drake.”
    “Acknowledged,” Simon said.
    “Are you really going to marry that sexy night-club singer?”
    “In a matter of weeks.”
    Howard sighed. “Some guys have all the luck. Now, Lundberg’s luck ran out, wouldn’t you say? It does look like suicide, doesn’t it counsellor? The living room’s cluttered with newspapers all opened to coverage of the air crash that killed his girl. The television, which was playing when we got here, is set to the top news station. There’s an almost empty whisky bottle on the floor next to the chair facing the television and a glass was floating in the tub when we found the body. The bed hasn’t been slept in …” Howard paused, staring intently at the bed. “What’s missing?” he asked abruptly. “Something’s missing. Tell me, Mr Private Detective, what
don’t
you see on that bed?”
    Howard was about thirty and quick of eye. He knew his job. Simon and Keith looked at the bed. It was king-size. The sheet and blanket were turned back as if Lundberg had prepared for bed. There were two pillows: one with a crisp white pillow case and the other with no case at all. On the bedside table was a lamp, a radio-alarm clock and a set of keys.
    “One pillow case is missing,” Keith said.
    “Good! Now, why didn’t one of my men notice that? Burrows—” The lieutenant called out to the young officer in the next room. “—since you can’t seem to keep unauthorized people from coming in here, maybe you can locate that pillow case. Try the clothes hamper. If it isn’t there, check with the manager and see if this building has a laundry room. In my bachelor days I used to use one pillow case until it was dirty and then switch to the other pillow.”
    Simon had moved closer to the bedside table. He picked up the set of keys. A tiny replica of a licence plate was attached to the ring. He replaced the keys as Howard looked back towards the bed.
    “Something else is missing here,” he observed. “No ashtray. I didn’t see any ashtrays in the living room either. But there’s cigarette ash on the floor near your foot, Lieutenant.”
    Howard looked down at his feet. The ash was about an inch long and virtually intact. Nobody in the apartment was smoking and there was no smoke in the air. He took a card from his pocket, folded it to make a tent, and placed it over the ash.
    “Thanks, counsellor,” he said. “If Lundberg has no ashtrays, he didn’t smoke—but somebody who called on him did. I wonder if this place provides maid service.”
    The stretcher bearing Arne Lundberg’s body was now being rolled out of the apartment. Simon walked back into the living room. The white naughahide chair was facing the television set, and the newspapers were spread out on the coffee table and on the floor; but the lamp on the table was in a peculiar position. Simon switched on the lamp and sat down in the chair. The light blinded him. He turned it off.
    “What are you doing?” Howard asked.
    “Trying to see the television screen through a 200-watt bulb,” Simon answered.
    “The light was placed for the papers on the floor.”
    “I hope so.”
    Simon stood up and began to examine the chair. He switched the lamp on again. Now, from the higher angle, he could see a small reddish-brown smear on the edge of the cushion. He removed the cushion from the chair and handed it to the police lieutenant who had become an interested observer. Something glittered in