Free Under Suspicion by The Mulgray Twins

solid wooden doors. Last week when I’d engineered a daytime visit to the administration floor, the corridors had been well lit and anything but silent. A constant stream of people had moved between the various offices. There had been a buzz of activity – people talking, telephones ringing, photocopiers and printers chattering and humming. Now only the muted hum of the air-con broke the silence.
    I wasn’t expecting to see the thin line of light beneath the door third along to my left, Mansell’s office. I wouldn’t have seen it at all if the corridor illumination had been brighter. Someone was working late, probably updating the files on the computers. Just my luck, best-laid schemes and all that…
    G and I walked softly along and stopped outside Mansell’s office. On the other side of the door, I heard the rumble of a filing drawer being pulled open, the clunk as it shut, another rumble, another clunk . Then click-click-click , the sharp sound of heels crossing the office’s marble floor.
    As a shadow broke the line of light at the foot of the door, I scooped G up and took half a dozen strides along the corridor. Putting her down, I took up position close to the wall in the pocket of darkness between the dim lights, a shadow amid the shadowsin my darkish blue outfit. As the door opened, I crouched down and half-turned away to conceal the white blob of my face. If the late-working employee came my way, I could pass myself off as a guest fussing over her pet. I heard the door close softly. The heels clicked their way towards the elevator and the stairs. I risked a look.
    Millie Prentice . As she passed under one of the lights there was no mistaking those unruly curls or that skimpy dress. In her brisk walk there was not a trace of the tipsy young woman that I’d left sprawled on the divan in the courtyard, no sign of intoxication at all.
    The elevator doors closed silently behind her, and Gorgonzola and I were left alone. 5-4-3 the floor indicator flickered down, 2-1-0. I waited a few minutes to make sure that she wasn’t going to return. Then, courtesy of Gerry’s natty electronic device, Mansell’s office received its second unauthorised visitor of the evening. How had innocent-seeming Millie managed to gain entry? Something else to ponder.
    I left G to do her own ferreting while I tackled the desk and filing cabinet. Millie might have got something out of her little rummage-around, but I drew a blank. The papers I could access seemed to be above board. I hadn’t really expected anything else. Unless he was a very careless man, he’d have stowed away any obviously incriminating documents in that fireproof safe in the corner.
    ‘Time for us to make ourselves scarce, G,’ I said.
    Taking the elevator from the fifth floor had been careless of Millie. We professionals once again used the stairs, then took the lift down from the fourth floor to the ladies’ room. There was no trouble getting Gorgonzola into the cat-carrier, perhaps because she knew she was going home, and it wasn’t long before I was looking down into the Casablanca courtyard from the first floor arches. If Millie had returned to the chaise longue, I could take the chance of paying a visit to her room. I was in luck, she had. No longer the lolling, squiffy figure, she was now soberly upright in earnest conversation with Rudyard Scott. More food for thought, but not now. Gorgonzola, the natty device and I had those visits to make.
    In 307, Rudyard Scott’s room, I stuck a telephone card into the slot to operate the lights, and released G for an investigative roam-around while I did some snooping myself. On the floor of the wardrobe, sporting a shiny new padlock, lay the black airline case. Empty by the feel of it, but I’d take a look anyway. I reached into my pocket for my set of picklocks. Shit . They weren’t there. I’d discarded them in favour of that all-singing, all-dancing natty device of Gerry’s. If the money wasn’t in the