Her hands trembled as she spread it out on the couch. There were no screaming headlines… nothing at all on the front page about the murdered man. She really hadn’t expected to find anything there. By the time she reached page three, the kettle whistled and she got up to pour the water in the pot.
Returning, she went through the paper to the last page without finding any reference to a dead man having been found in an uptown hotel room.
There was no reason to expect the story to break so soon, she told herself as she sipped her first cup of black coffee. In fact, it would be strange if the body were discovered before mid-morning when a hotel maid might logically let herself in. So it would likely be late afternoon before she could learn anything definite about him.
A cigarette with her second cup of coffee helped a lot. Her mind began to function again, and her thoughts turned back to Bart’s party… back to the real beginning. Whomever she had telephoned at midnight must have been someone who was on her mind at the moment. Someone she felt she could turn to at that time of night while she was locked out of her apartment.
There was no use denying to herself that men were her first interest when she was blacked out. There was too much evidence from too many sources. So, the person must have been a man to whom she was strongly attracted. Someone she wanted to be with. All right. There was Dirk. She remembered their little necking party before she passed out. It had been pleasant enough, and rather gay. The usual sort of thing when the gang got together. But what had happened to cause a fight between her and Ralph over Dirk’s attentions?
No, she decided, it couldn’t have been Dirk. Nor any of the others with whom she was familiar at Bart’s party. Because the telephone number was strange to her.
The man had to be someone she met after she blacked out. A man whose name she knew, but whose number she had had to look up and ask Joe to write down for her when she went to the bar.
She frowned and bit at her lower lip. Both Doris and Ralph had mentioned a strange man with whom she had been smooching. Ralph had described him vaguely. Mediocre… nondescript. That description might easily fit the dead man! And Ralph had given the man a name. What was it? An unusual sort of name. Thorn? No…
Torn! Vincent Torn! That was it!
Aline put out her cigarette and went for a third cup of coffee. Her heart pounded painfully as she considered a possibility. A distinct possibility, one she could check without too much trouble. She could telephone him, and if he answered, he al least wouldn’t be the dead man. That would eliminate one possibility.
And if he didn’t answer? Well, that wouldn’t mean much either way. He would likely be at his office, if he had an office.
She was returning with the coffee when she abruptly realized that she could check her hunch by looking up Torn’s name in the telephone book. If he was listed… if his number was the one Ralph had brought back from the bar… then she would know it was he whom she had called. If not, she would at least know she was on the wrong track.
Her trembling hand slopped coffee into the saucer as she put it down and hurried to the directory. She turned the pages feverishly, and found his name.
Vincent Torn’s telephone number tallied with the one she now knew so well. The number Joe had written on the card.
Aline sank back on the day-bed and tried to piece together the few facts she had learned about her movements last night. She must have reached Torn by phone, and made an appointment, because she hadn’t asked Joe for another dime. She had gone directly outside to wait.
Since she had no money for a taxi, she must have met Torn outside the bar and gone to the hotel room with him. She shuddered violently, but braced herself against self-loathing. She had to face facts. It was exactly the sort of thing her body was likely to do once the conscious mind ceased directing its movements.
What now? By lifting the phone and dialing she might settle one more thing… whether Vincent Torn was alive or lying dead in the hotel room. In her own mind she now felt positive that he was the dead man. She reminded herself again that failure to get an answer would prove nothing. And what if someone else answered? Mrs. Vincent Torn… or a daughter… or a maid? She could hang up, of course, or pretend some other reason and ask for Mr. Torn.
She had to try. Not knowing was agonizing beyond endurance. If she could establish the fact that Torn had not returned home last night, she would know. And that would be the real beginning of her search for the hidden truth. Her search for the real killer in order to clear herself.
Also, there was the matter of time before the police came to question her. Once the body was found and identified it would be a routine matter for them to learn that he had been at Bart’s party and that a girl named Aline Ferris had made a big play for him. A girl who would answer the description of the one who had checked into the hotel with him after midnight.
If the man was Torn! That was the crux of it now.
Aline steeled herself for the attempt, lifted the receiver and swiftly dialed the number.
A man’s voice answered immediately, and Aline’s heart leaped into her throat.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Torn?”
“He isn’t in.” The voice sounded disappointed, brusque. “Can I take a message?”
“No. That is, do you expect him soon?”
“God knows.” There was a note of dry amusement now. “He hasn’t been in all night, and I haven’t the faintest idea when he’ll show up.”
“I… see.”
“Any message?” the voice persisted.
“No, thank you. I’ll try later.”
She was about to hang up when the voice said with interest and sudden urgency, “See here, isn’t this Aline Ferris?”
She gasped, “No,” and hung up. She stood by the telephone, trembling and white, trying to collect her thoughts.
The dead man was Vincent Torn! She was sure of that now. But who was the man who had answered Torn’s telephone? What did he know about her… about Aline Ferris… that had caused him to ask that last question?
Had he recognized her voice? Was he someone she knew? Or was it merely someone who knew Torn had gone out at midnight to meet a girl named Aline Ferris and hadn’t returned home?
She went back to the couch and buried her face in her hands. What came next? In her own mind she had established the identity of the hotel-room corpse. What would a detective do next?
Detectives. The police! She suddenly felt physically weak, and she couldn’t think straight. She needed food, a bath, and she had to get into some decent clothes. If they came and caught her looking like this!
She stripped off her pajamas on the way to the bathroom, took a quick shower, brushed the hangover taste from her mouth with toothpaste and put on stockings and underclothes. Before putting on make-up and a dress, she poached two eggs and made toast which she ate with a final cup of coffee.
Ten minutes later she was studying her face in the mirror, and it seemed incredible that she could have been the jaded, terrified person who had fled from a murder scene only a few hours ago. The bath and the food and a careful toilet had erased all outer signs of her hangover and steadied her nerves.
Back in the living room, she settled herself on the couch and took up the back-tracking again where she had left off.
A detective, she decided, would look for someone who had a motive, and an opportunity.
Who could have known that she and Vincent Torn were together in that hotel room? Had he been the sort of man who often took girls to hotels, and was he in the habit of frequenting the Halcyon?
That might be one angle. If someone were looking for an opportunity to murder him, it might have seemed a good time to commit the crime.
There were other possibilities, of course. Suppose Torn had been murdered only because of her? Through jealousy because she had gone there with him? By someone who had followed them to the hotel and traced them to the room?
The two-dollar bill thrust into the top of her stocking might be a clue pointing in that direction, the act of a jealous lover who had discovered her with Torn and murdered him in a burst of passion.
But she had no real lovers, jealous or otherwise. There had been passing affairs… nothing more. And they
