Free Deadly Joke by Hugh Pentecost Page A

anyone in my life,” I heard Clarke say to Chambrun. “I was in the Trapeze Bar when it started. I had to fight off half a dozen of them to get into an elevator and get up here. Damn near tore my clothes off. Can we see how they are inside?”
    It was Miss Ruysdale who opened the door to us. She looked as unruffled as if she had just modeled her trim black dress for a fashion show.
    “How bad is it?” she asked Chambrun.
    “It’s bad,” he said. “They’ve wrecked the main lobby.”
    In the living room of the suite Maxwell was standing beside his wife, who was sitting rigidly straight on the lounge. Maxwell’s hand rested gently on her shoulder. She looked in shock. Maxwell looked angry, not scared.
    Against the wall near the door to the bedrooms Diana stood. Her hands were spread out against the wall as if she needed its support. I tried to guess what she was thinking. She claimed allegiance to those rioting kids, but I had a feeling she was horrified at how out of hand it had all become. A few more minutes and her family might have been wiped out in front of her eyes.
    “What in God’s name happened to you, Watty?” Maxwell asked Clarke.
    “I had a little trouble getting here,” Clarke said. He glanced at Diana. “Your friends are on the rough side when they get out of hand, Diana.”
    “They’re maniacs!” Maxwell exploded.
    “Watson Clarke turned to Chambrun. “I’ve wondered how they knew they’d find Doug in this particular suite,” he said. “I’d assumed they wouldn’t get it from the switchboard. I mean, you were taking special precautions, weren’t you, Mr. Chambrun?”
    “We were,” Chambrun said. His voice was almost unrecognizably cold. “Someone on the inside either sold out or was frightened into telling.”
    God help whoever it was, I thought.
    “Wouldn’t it be advisable to move Doug and Grace somewhere else?” Clarke asked.
    “This will be quite safe,” Chambrun said. “I assure you.”
    “I think perhaps we owe Pierre an apology,” Maxwell said. “Our dinner party has made a shambles of his hotel.”
    Chambrun ignored the apology. He stepped over to Diana.
    “You could save us a lot of time if you’d tell us who the leaders of that mob are,” he said.
    She looked past him as though he wasn’t there; like someone in a trance.
    “You’re not saving anyone, Diana,” Chambrun said. “The police will have taken in dozens of those kids. Not all of them will have your kind of misplaced courage. Somewhere in that crowd may be the person who tried to murder your father earlier tonight. In the state of mind they were in just now that someone may have tried again. Save us time, Diana.”
    She turned completely around and pressed her forehead against the wall.
    Maxwell whispered her name, pleading. Grace Maxwell didn’t move or speak.
    The door buzzer sounded. Miss Ruysdale went to it and moved the little peephole shutter so that she could see who it was. Then she opened the door and Jerry Dodd came in.
    “See you outside for a minute?” he asked Chambrun.
    Chambrun nodded to me and I went out into the hall with him. Complete order had been restored out there. The two guards stood on either side of the door. The rioters and the cops were gone.
    “We’ve had it again,” Jerry said. The skin on his thin face looked stretched tight over the bones.
    “More rioting downstairs?” Chambrun asked.
    Jerry shook his head. “Murder,” he said. “Somebody beat Stewart Shaw to death and shoved him in the linen closet down the hall.”

Part Two

1
    S TEWART SHAW WAS A pretty ugly sight. One of the floor maids had gone to the linen closet after the rioters had been cleared away to get some fresh towels for someone. It’s called a closet, but it’s really a small room lined with shelves for sheets, towels, extra blankets. The maid had opened the door and found a man with half a head sitting on the floor facing her. He was tilted against one of the rows of shelves which had