Free Confidentially Yours by Charles Williams Page B

far as we can find out. According to the housekeeper on her floor, she stayed in her room every night, and if she ever had a man there nobody ever saw him and he didn’t leave any tracks. She apparently had no visitors at all, and the only phone calls anybody can remember were from a woman, probably Mrs. Dickinson. There is one funny thing, though; she was never in the hotel in the afternoon. She always left a call for ten-thirty A.M ., had breakfast and the newspapers sent up to her room, and then went out about a quarter of one. The doorman always got her a cab, but he never heard what she told the driver. We’ve had the picture copied, and at shift-changing time at four P.M. we’ll cover “the garages of all three leading cab companies to catch as many of the day-shift jockeys as we can at one time. There’s a good chance we’ll find somebody who remembers her and where he took her.”
    “Good,” I said. “And thanks a lot. I’ll be in touch.”
    “We’ll have something definite by tomorrow morning, I’m pretty sure.” He hesitated, and then went on, “Look, Mr. Warren, it’s your business, and you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, but it’ll make it a lot easier if you level with us. Were you having her tailed at any time when she was down here?”
    I frowned. “No. Of course not. Why?”
    “Well, I’ve got a hunch somebody else was interested in what she was doing.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, these bellmen are a pretty wise bunch, and they don’t miss much. One of ’em hinted he knew something, and when Snyder primed him with an extra fin, he said there was a guy he was pretty sure followed her away from the hotel three or four times. He’d come in around noon and stooge around the lobby chewing a cigar and pretending to read a paper, and when she’d come out of the elevator he’d drift out after her and take the next cab off the stand.”
    “You suppose the kid just made it up, for the five bucks?”
    “There’s a chance, of course, but I don’t think so. From the way he described this joker, I think I know who he is. He’s in the business.”
    “Could you find out who hired him?”
    “Not a chance. If it’s the guy I think it is, he wouldn’t tell his mother the way to a fire exit.”
    “Could the police make him talk?”
    “Sure, or make him wish he had. But you’ve got nothing to take to the police, at least so far. There’s no law against her spending her own money—or even yours, for that matter.”
    “Yeah,” I said. I wondered what his face would look like when he saw the evening papers. “Well, keep digging-”
    I hung up, dug in my pocket for another handful of change, and dialed long distance. “I want to put in a person-to-person call to L. S. MacKnight, of the MacKnight Construction Co., El Paso, Texas.”
    “Thank you. Will you hold on, please?”
    Mac was an old friend. We’d gone to the same military school in Pennsylvania and later were classmates at Texas A. and M. We hunted quail together somewhere every year. I hoped he was in the office now. Luck was with me.
    “Duke? Why, you crazy devil, where are you?”
    “New Orleans.”
    “Well, grab some airplane. Let’s go huntin’.”
    “I wish I could, but at the moment I’m working the other side of the street.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’m in a jam, and I need a little help.”
    “Name it, pal.”
    “Well, look, I’d better tell you first—you could get your tail in a sling, if they ever proved it—”
    He cut me off. “I said name it, knucklehead. Never mind the fine print.”
    “I want you to send a telegram for me.”
    “Hell, is that all?”
    “It’s enough. Let’s see—you’re on Mountain Time there, so send it about eight tomorrow morning, straight wire. Phone it in from a pay phone, so there’s no way they can trace it back to you. Got a pencil handy?”
    “Right. Commence firing.”
    “ TO WARREN REALTY COMPANY, CARTHAGE, ALABAMA. IMPERATIVE YOU CONTACT LOUIS