“This lady might not have had hers on,” Shayne said. “Think hard. It would have been around twelve- thirty.”
“Sho wish I could say, but I jest cain’t.”
Shayne heard a commotion in 309 and turned to see Rourke’s head peering through the door and beckoning to him frantically.
Thrusting the bill into the boy’s hand, Shayne broke into a trot. Rourke met him outside the door and said excitedly:
“It’s Beatrice, Mike! They found her locked in the closet. I’m afraid she’s dead, too.”
Shayne stepped past him to the doorway. Beatrice Lally was lying on the floor and one of the detectives was applying artificial respiration. She was as limp as a rag doll and looked pitifully helpless with her hair disheveled and her clothing torn. Streaks of dirt and tears mingled on her waxen white face.
Gentry got in front of Shayne and shoved him back as he started toward the girl. “Take it easy, Mike,” the chief advised gruffly. “She’s breathing. She’ll come out of it. But my God, she must have been locked in there with no air for an hour or more.”
Shayne thought swiftly of the dead, thick air in the room when he first entered with Garvin. He caught Gentry’s arm and growled, “Where’s Garvin?” after looking around the room and not seeing him.
“In the next room,” said Gentry sourly. “It’s empty and I shoved him in there when he pulled that faint-or a phony. Where’d you get him, Mike? Where does he fit in?”
“He’s the local manager for Miss Morton’s syndicate. He first denied knowing Morton’s address, but we got it from his office and came here. I caught him in a couple of lies and he finally admitted coming here after midnight to see Morton. Claims the room was unlocked and the light on and Morton was lying like that when he looked in. So he beat it.”
Shayne spoke swiftly and in a low voice, watching Beatrice Lally steadily. When she blinked her eyes and moaned, he elbowed Gentry aside and pushed forward to drop on his knees beside her. She moved her head restlessly and her eyes fluttered open, only to close quickly as though to shut out the painful light.
When she finally held them open long enough to see Shayne’s grimly concerned face, she smiled faintly and said:
“What happened?” Her voice was a whisper and her round, sooty eyes looked wonderingly into his. “I came here-like you said-and-and someone hit me.” She shivered and closed her eyes tightly.
Shayne realized then that the window was wide open and a cool, strong breeze was blowing in, but the gusty blasts of the impending storm has passed. “Better close that window,” he said. “She’s shivering with cold.”
Miss Lally was trying to sit up. Still on his knees, Shayne put his arm around her and lifted her to her feet as he came up. There was a dull reddish bruise high on her right cheekbone, just in front of the ear. Shayne kept his arm around her. She drew in a deep breath, moistened her lips, and looked around dazedly.
“Get her a glass of water,” Shayne ordered, and helped her to the only comfortable chair in the shabby room.
Gentry brought the water and she drank a few sips gratefully. “When you feel like talking-”
She puckered her near-sighted eyes at the chief and Shayne explained:
“This is Chief Will Gentry. But don’t talk until you feel like it.”
“I was unconscious for a time, I guess. Then I came to. Or, it seems I did. Perhaps I dreamed it. It’s like a horrible nightmare,” she went on, stopping to breathe deeply after each short sentence, while the men moved in closer to hear more clearly the words she spoke only slightly louder than a whisper. “It was all black and silent. Like being in a coffin. I screamed and pounded-and crawled around like an animal. I was so weak. Then everything faded. There wasn’t any-air-to breathe.”
“You were locked in the clothes closet over there,” Shayne explained gently. He looked at Gentry, who was bending close to her on the other side of the chair. “Do you think it’s wise to question her now, Will? Sometimes a case of shock has serious consequences.”
“It’s all right,” Beatrice said. “I’m all right now. I can breathe again. I’ll take another sip of water, please.”
Gentry held the glass until she had it firmly in her hand. She took larger swallows now, draining the glass. When Gentry took the glass and set it aside, Miss Lally squinted up at Shayne and asked:
“What happened? You said you’d be waiting for me.”
“Tell me exactly what I did say.”
“Don’t you remember?” She frowned and rubbed her hand weakly across her eyes, murmuring, “My- glasses.”
“I didn’t phone you at Miss Hamilton’s,” he told her patiently. “It was some other man.”
“His voice-sounded like yours,” she faltered. “He called me by name and said he was you and I was to meet him right away in his hotel room. Number three-oh-nine,” she went on, her voice growing gradually stronger and her breathing freer. “But I wasn’t to tell anyone where I was going. Not even Miss Hamilton. And I shouldn’t come directly here by cab because it might be traced, but to get out at a corner and walk a block or so. And I did, and-” Her voice trailed off and she began rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child. “Please, may I have my glasses? My eyes hurt and I can’t see very well.”
“Your glasses are broken,” Shayne told her. “You say someone struck you?”
“The minute I opened the door.” She shuddered with the memory. “I knocked and a man asked who it was. I still thought it was you. I told him my name. He said to come in. I opened the door and took one step inside. Then the lights went out and something hit me on the head.” She touched the bruised spot with shaking fingers. “I didn’t see anything or anyone. It was just black-like death-until I sort of half came to. But I’ve told you about that. If it wasn’t you, Mr. Shayne, who was it?”
“I don’t know,” he said soberly. “Try to recall the voice. Could it have been Ralph Morton?”
She frowned briefly, closing her eyes to concentrate. “I don’t think so. Oh, I don’t know,” she cried out in despair. “How can I tell? I thought it was you.”
“I think we’ve got enough from her right now,” Gentry said gruffly. “There’s an ambulance downstairs. She’d better get to a hospital for a thorough examination.”
The back of her chair was toward the bed. Shayne and Gentry each took one of her arms and helped her up. The other men stood back, and with Shayne’s body blocking her short vision she was carried out without discovering the sheet-covered body of Ralph Morton.
In the hallway Gentry turned her over to the ambulance driver and his assistant, waited until they were in the elevator with the door closed, then turned a quizzical gaze on Shayne and asked:
“What do you make of it now, Mike-with all the inside information you’re holding out on me?”
“I’m not holding out anything, Will. That is-” He hesitated, shrugged his rangy shoulders, and said, “Not any more, I’m not. With Garvin tied into this so closely, you’ll have to hear where Burton Harsh comes in and decide for yourself.”
“Do you think Morton lured her here-attacked her and locked her in the closet and then either shot himself or was shot by someone who came in after she passed out?”
“I don’t know. How would Morton have known where to phone her?”
“I thought you might tell me that,” Gentry rumbled mildly.
“I want to talk to Garvin. And I’d like to get my hands on one Edwin Paisly.” Shayne started to the door next to 309 and Gentry went with him. He had his hand on the doorknob of 311, and before turning it he asked in a low voice:
“Do your boys make Morton murder or suicide?”
“Could be either from the preliminary examination,” Gentry told him. “But they’re inclined toward murder. No suicide note-several small indications-”
Shayne nodded and pushed the door open.
Chapter Thirteen
