one was distinctly second-rate, with pretensions, but my enquiry about an old lady in pantaloons and tall boots paid off. The man at the desk flicked his eyes over me appraisingly, and obviously he did not know what to make of my combination of wire-rimmed glasses, thick, old-fashioned hairstyle, tailored trousers and jacket, expensive silk blouse, and a gold band on my right hand, with no hat, no gloves, and flat shoes. He was forced to abandon all assumptions and treat me matter-of-factly, which was, of course, one of the reasons I dressed as I did.
'Yes, madam, the lady checked in on Monday afternoon. I saw her on Tuesday, in the afternoon, but I was off duty on Wednesday and Thursday.'
'Is her key in?'
'Yes, madam, as well as a letter.'
'Oh, I wonder if that's why she didn't meet me today at the restaurant? May I?' My tone and my waiting hand made it no question. He automatically held it out for my inspection, and I deftly took it from him. It had a Cambridge postal mark on it. I thrust it into my handbag and smiled at him. 'Yes, it's mine. Very worrying, though. I hope she's all right. Do you mind if I have a look in her room, to make sure she's not ill, or perhaps left a note for me? She's very absentminded.' I smiled vacuously at this non sequitur and held out my hand again for the key. The man had been off for two days but even so, it was astonishing that he had not yet heard that a woman had died half a mile away. The police could sometimes be terribly slow if they had no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary about an accident.
The man hesitated, but just then a taxi disgorged a family with several small American noisemakers and numerous bags, and he dropped the key into my hand and turned to the harried-looking father. I made haste to disappear.
The lock on room seventeen was much used, but it showed no obvious signs of being recently forced or picked. I let myself into a perfectly ordinary room, with sagging bed, battered dressing table, and bath down the hall. Not knowing Miss Ruskin's habits, I could not know how her room might have looked when she walked out of it on Wednesday, and too, the maid would have been in to clean it. I pulled on a pair of cotton gloves and wandered over to the bed, whistling softly through my teeth— a habit that severely tries my husband, friends, and anyone working near me in a library. Nothing in the drawers next to the bed. The little travelling alarm clock on the table had stopped at 7:10, and I picked it up cautiously to give it a gentle shake. It began ticking again— it had just run down.
Comb on top of the dressing table, several white hairs in it. No cosmetics. A small jar of hand lotion, in which a probing hairpin found no hidden objects. I opened the wardrobe, and the first thing I saw was her khaki bag on a shelf inside. So she had come back here before her dinner appointment, long enough to leave her bag, if not to change her clothes. I lifted one handle and shone my pocket torch at the jumble within, but I couldn't see anything inside that looked immediately different from the glimpses I had had on Wednesday. Wait, though— both glasses cases were occupied. Of course— it had been nearly dark by the time she left the hotel for her appointment, so she would not have needed protective lenses. I let the handle fall. Clothes hanging up, nothing much in the pockets, an overcoat, another pair of shoes, lighter than her boots, but still quite sensible. Two much-travelled valises lay to one side, containing a tangle of clothes, objects, and papers that could as easily have been left in that condition by their owner as violently searched.
I went to the minuscule table next to the window. A pile of papers occupied one corner— the typed reports of a dig, along with several pages of artefact sketches and section drawings— next to three books, two on archaeological techniques and a recent one on Bible theory, and a large square magnifying glass. She would have no worry now about her cataracts, I thought, and suddenly I felt a harsh, red anger wash over me as the fact of her murder became real. I reached down and jerked open a drawer, looking blankly at its emptiness. I sat down, feeling equally empty, and stared out the window. A good woman, whom I liked a great deal and knew almost nothing about, had been carefully, deliberately, brutally murdered. Why? I took the letter from my handbag and contemplated the crime of interfering with His Majesty's postal service.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a key in the door. I stood up quickly and shoved the purloined letter into a pocket, but it was not an irate desk clerk; it was the maid, a neat young woman with shiny brown hair, mop and cleaning rags in hand. She saw me and started to back out the door.
'I'm very sorry, miss ... madam. I thought the room was empty. I'll come back later.'
'No, please, do come in. Please. Could you— do you have a minute? To answer a few questions? Would you mind closing the door? Thank you. I just was curious about my aunt, who is staying in this room. She didn't show up for a luncheon date, and I wondered if you had perhaps seen her today?'
'No, madam. I haven't seen anyone in this room for about a week. There was a nice young man here then, but no lady.'
'This would have been in the last few days. Tell me, on Wednesday, was there much of a mess? Or Thursday? The reason I ask is that she sometimes gets very untidy, and I like to give a little extra to the help then.'
She was an honest young woman, and she barely hesitated before answering.
'No, madam, not really a mess. On Tuesday, it was untidy, but nowhere near as bad as some. Wednesday, too, not as untidy. But yesterday, why, you'd barely know anyone had been in. To tell you the truth, I didn't even make up the bed yesterday, just straightened it a bit, 'cause I was in a touch of a hurry, as Nell didn't show up and we was shorthanded, like. I just straightened the bed and the papers and picked up some things from the floor.'
I couldn't think of a way to make the next question anything other than what it was.
'Had she moved many things around between Wednesday and yesterday?'
She looked at me sharply then, and I could see that she was as quick as she was honest. She studied me for a minute, and her face changed as she put together the drift of my questions with the news that the desk clerk had lacked.
'Are you— why are you asking me this? Who are you?'
'I'm a friend, not a niece. And yes, she died Wednesday night.'
The young woman sat down suddenly on the tightly made bed and stared at me.
'The old lady who was run over?' she whispered. 'I didn't know ... I never thought ... They just said an old woman....' The standard response: not someone I know.
'Yes. I saw her earlier that day, and I want to know what she was doing the rest of the day. Her family wants to know.' It was a small lie, and might even have been the truth. Fortunately, she believed me. I returned to
