Free Gilded Nightmare by Hugh Pentecost Page A

him.”
    As I headed for the elevators, Mike Maggio, the night bell captain, flagged me down. Mike has a gamin Italian face that’s usually screwed up in a mischievous grin. He looked very serious at this moment.
    “I’m looking for the long-haired one,” Mike said. “You seen him?”
    “What long-haired one?”
    “The one with the red pants. Wynn, his name is. He’s missing. Hardy wants him.”
    “I haven’t seen him since six o’clock when he was buying a drink for Shelda in the Trapeze.”
    Mike’s mischievous grin wrinkled his face. “Shelda’s in good form, I hope,” he said.
    “Keep your nose out of my business,” I said, grinning back at him.
    I took the elevator to the second floor and headed for Chambrun’s office. “Hardy” was Lieutenant Hardy, a big, dark young man with an athletic build who looks more like a good-natured, if slightly puzzled, college fullback than a Homicide detective. We could be grateful for small mercies. We’d had Hardy with us before. He knew Chambrun and the inner workings of the hotel. He would know who to trust in our setup and wouldn’t waste a lot of time suspecting people like Mrs. Kniffen, the housekeeper, or some other innocent on the staff.
    Hardy was with Chambrun and Miss Ruysdale in the inner office. He gave me a friendly nod as I came in. I saw that Chambrun had a set of file cards on his desk. They must be the ones relating to Charmian and her crew.
    “Sorry to inconvenience you,” Chambrun said, drily. “The Lieutenant is anxious to find out what he can about the Zetterstrom mob before he starts on a questioning bee. We don’t have much on file except rumors.”
    “We have Sam Culver,” I said.
    “Sam has gone out somewhere for the evening. No reason he should have told us where he was going.”
    “I understand Peter Wynn is among the missing.”
    “I half hoped we might find him with you and Shelda,” Chambrun said.
    They say at the Beaumont that Chambrun must have some secret peepholes that allow him to see everything that’s going on everywhere at the same time. He was obviously aware that Peter Wynn had been in the Trapeze with Shelda and me.
    “You’ve got some kind of a nut prowling the joint,” Hardy said, scowling. “Only a sick mind could do the kind of job that was done on the girl—and the dog!”
    “Murder always involves a sick mind,” Chambrun said.
    “What actually happened to the girl?” I said. “No one’s told me.”
    “Another dog story,” Hardy said. “Woman walking a Pekingese. It started to bark and raise hell at the mouth of an alley down the street. The woman investigated and found the girl. Horror stuff. She was ripped to pieces, head smashed in. Lady had presence of mind enough to call the cops instead of running off screaming by herself. Quick identification. The girl hadn’t been robbed. Eighty-ninety dollars in her handbag, and the key to her room in the Beaumont. We knew who she was in ten minutes. Heidi Brunner.”
    “She’s the Amazon’s daughter,” Chambrun said.
    “She went out to get a prescription for sleeping pills filled—for the Baroness,” Hardy said. “Never got to the drugstore. The prescription was still in her handbag, signed by Dr. Malinkov.”
    “He’s licensed to practice here?” I asked.
    Hardy nodded. “He was a top-flight plastic surgeon during World War II. Brought here from Germany toward the end of the war to work on mutilated G.I.’s. Licensed then. He went back to Europe in 1950. Evidently became part of the Zetterstrom world about that time.”
    Chambrun glanced at me. “May explain the lady’s lack of wrinkles,” he said.
    The red button on Chambrun’s desk phone began to blink. Ruysdale answered, listened, then covered the mouthpiece with her hand.
    “It’s Marcus Helwig,” she said. “Both the Baroness and Madame Brunner are in hysterics. He knows the police are about to descend on them. He asks for the chance to answer preliminary questions away from