by J. J. Murphy
Doyle pursed his lips but said nothing. There was a look of utter sadness and pain in his eyes. “If you only knew—” he mumbled with trembling lips. Then he turned abruptly and stalked back down the hallway toward his room.
Silently they watched him go.
Aghast and ashamed, Dorothy slapped Woollcott’s chest. “What’s the matter with you?”
He raised his chubby hands in defense, and the only harm she inflicted was to dislodge his small boutonniere of holly sprigs.
She slapped at him again anyway. “I thought you were supposed to be looking in the subbasement for Bibi’s body! Instead all you’re doing is accusing and insulting people.”
Woollcott ignored her. Wordlessly he adjusted his boutonniere, then his glasses, and then smoothed down his hair.
She turned to Lydia. “Go back to your room for now. Stay there so we know where to find you in case we need you.” Then, less severely, she added, “And get some rest, dear. God knows we all need some.”
Lydia tried to open the elevator door, but the elevator was no longer there. She pressed the call button.
“As for you, Aleck, you’re coming with me,” Dorothy said. “We’re going to the basement to finally find Bibi. And with a little luck we’ll run into Benchley while we’re at it.”
* * *
The elevator arrived on the second floor. Benchley allowed himself a little hurrah of triumph. It seemed as though he’d been trying for hours to get on one of the elevators.
“What was that cheer for?” Jane asked him as they stepped inside.
“Oh, I just find elevators very uplifting,” he said.
Maurice, snoozing quietly, still stood in the corner.
Benchley thought it best to let him sleep. “Can either of you operate this thing?” he asked.
Ruth seemed to know exactly what to do. She stepped on the release button on the floor and seized the control lever. “Easy as pie. Where to?”
He considered this. Doyle, Dr. Hurst and Jordan all had rooms on the ninth floor. But something was nagging at Benchley’s brain. . . . He couldn’t quite remember, though. . . . What was it?
“Fifth floor!” he said suddenly.
“Fifth floor it is,” Ruth said and flipped the lever up. “What’s Dorothy doing on the fifth floor?”
“Nothing,” he said. “She’s not on the fifth floor. Not that I know of, anyhow.”
Jane and Ruth exchanged a puzzled glance.
“So,” Jane asked, “why are we going to the fifth floor?”
“I nearly forgot about something.” He had almost forgotten about the men in room 520. “It’ll only take a minute. Just need to check on a pair of ruthless, thieving gangsters who have absolutely disgraceful telephone manners.”
A minute later Benchley, Jane and Ruth walked quietly along the fifth-floor hallway and stopped in front of the door marked 520.
Jane looked askance at Benchley. “Did you say ‘ruthless, thieving gangsters’?”
He nodded. “A pair of them, yes.”
Ruth cocked an eyebrow. “And why do you want to check on them?”
“I want to get a good look at them. I believe they have the item at the center of this whole mystery.”
“And what item is that?” Ruth asked.
“I call it Ted.”
He knocked on the door. He had absolutely no intention of confronting the gruff-voiced man and his partner in crime, of course. He would merely get a look at them and then quickly mutter an apology: Sorry, wrong room. He would be careful to disguise his voice so they wouldn’t recognize it from the telephone.
But there was no answer. Benchley knocked again, harder this time. Still no answer.
He bit his lip. Surely the thieves hadn’t made their escape already? They had said they would leave at first light . . . but, then again, that Mr. Caesar had been so demanding. Maybe they had left—before Benchley or anyone else could identify them!
He reached to knock again.
Jane said, “Just try the door.” She reached out and turned the knob, but it was locked.
Ruth said, “Let me have a try.” She was a tall, strong, forceful woman.
Jane gently pushed Benchley aside. Ruth gripped the knob with her large hand.
“You don’t expect to break it down, do you?” he asked skeptically.
Ruth looked at him with a scowl. She withdrew a letter opener from her purse. “Certainly not. I’ll use this.” She put the pointy end of the letter opener into the keyhole and delicately manipulated it.
“Dare I ask why you carry a letter opener in your purse?”
“For protection,” she said. “On the subway.”
“Are you frequently attacked by envelopes on the subway?” he asked lightheartedly.
“Not since carrying this,” she said coolly.
With a smile, she pulled the letter opener out of the keyhole and turned the knob. The door opened easily.
“Astounding,” he said. “Do you use a house key to open your letters?”
Ruth smirked and entered the darkened room. She flicked on the lights.
It was an ordinary Algonquin hotel room. There were two twin beds, with a small washstand in between. The beds were still made, but someone had evidently sat on the nearest one. Against the opposite wall stood an identical pair of dressers. A framed print of a blue jay from Audubon’s Birds of America hung on one wall.
Ruth went to the first dresser and opened the top drawer. She pulled out a large men’s nightshirt.
“Don’t do that,” Benchley said anxiously. Out in the hallway he had been full of confidence. But entering the room was a different story.
She dropped the nightshirt back into the drawer. Then she pulled out a thick, well-worn leather wallet. “Who walks out of his hotel room without his wallet?”
Jane opened the top drawer of the next bureau. She, too, pulled out a wallet. She opened it. “Well, it is the wee hours of the morning in a quarantined hotel. Why would they need their wallets?” She pulled out a small photograph.
“Really,” Benchley said, grabbing the wallets from them. “I think we should leave.” He threw the wallets back into the drawers.
“Look at this. . . .” Jane said, scrutinizing the photo. Ruth leaned over her shoulder to see. “Do these two men look familiar to you?”
Ruth took the photo and extended her arm. “Too blurry for me without my reading glasses. Who are they?”
Benchley snatched the photo. “All right, ladies. You’ve had your fun. Now let’s—”
“Just a minute,” Jane said. “Look at it first. Then we’ll go.”
He glanced at the photo. It pictured two men standing on the bank of a river with fishing poles in their hands. One man was taller and of medium build, while the other was shorter and more heavyset. The taller man had a smile of success and held up a fish the length of his forearm.
“Well?” Jane asked.
“So what?” he said. “It’s a big trout.”
“Not that. Do you recognize those men?”
Benchley took another look at the men’s faces. Jane was right. “Now that you mention it . . . But I can’t remember where I’ve seen them.”
Jane grabbed back the photo. “I think they were at Fairbanks’ party last evening.”
Ruth snickered. “Everyone in the whole hotel was there. What makes these men memorable?”
Just then the door flew open. A man wearing pajamas and a wild expression burst into the room.
Chapter 33
Dorothy and Woollcott stepped onto the elevator. She nudged the sleeping Maurice. “Second floor, please,” she whispered to him.
Somehow, still snoring lightly, the elderly elevator operator reached out and flipped the lever. The elevat
or descended.
She nodded contentedly. Perhaps things were finally going her way for once. Even the air of the elevator smelled pleasant. . . . Is that . . . ?
She sniffed at the familiar smell. It was the scent of Mr. Benchley’s hair tonic, wasn’t it? Had Benchley just been on this elevator? She turned to Maurice. But the old man’s eyes were shut tight.
She couldn’t very well ask Woollcott for confirmation of the smell. Not after she just slapped and berated him. She felt suddenly sick at heart.
Fred, where are you? We were supposed to be spending this night in each other’s company. Yet here she was with surly Woollcott.
The elevator stopped on the second floor, and they got out. The door closed behind them.
“Well?” Woollcott asked.
“Well, what?”
“What are we doing here? I thought we were going to the basement to look for Bibi.”
“We need Woody,” she said. “For protection.”
He snorted. “That ugly little beast can’t protect itself from the tiniest flea. What sort of protection can it provide for us?”
“For one thing, Woody isn’t afraid to sniff around the basement—unlike some lowly creatures around here.”
Woollcott lifted his nose in the air but responded only with an offended grunt.
She retrieved the dog from her room and carried him in her arms. They went down the stairs to the lobby. As she had sensed earlier, the hotel was waking up—but not altogether pleasantly. Two of the bellhops, grumbling as they worked, were halfheartedly straightening things up in the lobby. Most of the furniture was still pushed against the walls. The whole place had accumulated confetti, half-empty champagne glasses and plenty of cigarette butts from the revelry the night before. A few guests had wandered down and sat or stood about in an aimless, agitated mood. However, Harpo still slept soundly on one of the comfy couches.
Dorothy and Woollcott hurried through the lobby and into the dining room. They strolled past their famous Round Table and entered the double swinging doors of the kitchen. The room was brightly lit and a complete disaster.
“What the devil happened in here?” Woollcott said, aghast.
Their eyes scanned the room. The floor was covered with every kind of cooking item. Metal pots, pans and lids surrounded their feet. Their shoes crunched the shards of broken bowls and plates. In the middle of the room, a tea cart was turned on its side—and several feet away the teapot, saucers, cups and spoons were scattered in a wide arc across the floor. Below the sink was an array of forks, knives, spoons and innumerable ball bearings, all of them swimming in pools of the blue cleansing liquid.
Something glimmered in the corner of Dorothy’s eye. She turned to see a long carving knife stuck into the back of one of the doors.
Benchley! He had been here; she knew it. He had been in danger. Maybe he still is.
“Don’t just stand there,” she snapped at Woollcott. “Let’s go.”
Clutching the dog to her chest, she carefully navigated through the debris while making sure not to step into one of the blue puddles. Woollcott huffed but followed after her.
She made it across the room to the stairway that led down to the basement, and suddenly found herself face-to-face with one of the waiters, who was trudging up the stairs. She recognized the man’s face, but she couldn’t remember his name.
“What happened in here?” she demanded.
The man shook his head and shrugged his shoulders; then he stepped past her.
No tip for him next time, she thought. Then she remembered somewhat guiltily that she rarely had a spare coin to tip any of the waiters. She made a mental note to carry more coins. No wonder they hardly gave her the time of day.
She scurried down the stairs to the basement and stopped at the bottom. Now, where is Benchley?
Woollcott arrived at her side. “If I were Bibi, dead and in a wheelchair, where would I be?”
Oh, right. They were here to find Bibi, not Benchley. But now she hoped she would find them both.
“The subbasement,” she said grimly. Woollcott nodded equally dourly.
They turned down the corridor on the left, then turned another left, which led to a darker corridor. The stairs to the subbasement were here. The small dog wriggled slightly in Dorothy’s arms and nuzzled close to her. She clutched him more tightly.
Woollcott sneered at Woody. “Some guard dog.”
She ignored him, gathered her courage and descended the concrete stairs to the subbasement.
It was darker down here. Colder, too. The corridor itself was narrower, making her feel closed in. The air seemed both humid and musty. It was eerily quiet, as though sound were swallowed in this place.
“Which way?” Woollcott asked hesitantly.
“You make it your business to know this hotel,” she said archly. “So you can lead the way.”
“You’re the one with the guard dog. You lead the way.”
She sucked in a breath of the stale, clammy air and moved cautiously forward. Within a few paces the corridor took a right. As she rounded the dark corner, Woody whined and squirmed in her arms. Something’s there!
Instinctively she jumped back and bumped hard into Woollcott, who tumbled over with a yelp of fright.
“Mrs. Parker! Mr. Woollcott!” said Frank Case, emerging from the shadows. Luigi the waiter stood next to him. “Whatever are you doing down here?”
Woollcott rolled his pudgy body and scrambled to his feet. “Getting scared out of our wits by you two, that’s what!”
* * *
The man in pajamas held a plunger over his head and appeared ready to strike with it. “Stop right there! Don’t move a muscle.”
Benchley, Jane and Ruth had no intention of moving. They were too stunned by the odd sight of the intruder to move any body part whatsoever.
The man appeared to be in his early thirties. His thinning sandy-colored hair was mussed, with parts of it sticking straight up, as though he’d spent a sleepless night. His powder blue pajamas hung loose on his thin frame. But his strangest feature, other than the plunger clutched in his hands, was the rash of pinpoint red dots all over his face and neck.
“You people don’t belong in here,” the man said. “This isn’t your room!”
Benchley didn’t think it wise to point out to the man that he didn’t seem to belong in this room either. “How right you are,” he said with a friendly smile. “I think we must have stumbled into the wrong room. We’ll just be going, won’t we, ladies?”
Jane and Ruth nodded agreeably. But the man blocked their way.
“Nothing doing,” he said. “I saw you through my peephole from across the hall. You didn’t stumble in by accident. You jimmied the door and broke in here.”
Benchley wore a cheerful smile. “It’s all right. Not to worry. This is my friend George’s room—”
“No, it’s not.” The man narrowed his eyes. “There’s no George in this room.”
“Well, not now there isn’t,” Benchley said, looking around. “He must be down in the lobby, I suppose. So, if you don’t mind, we’ll just—”
“I do mind,” the man said. “I’m calling the manager. There’s no man staying in here. This room is taken by two nuns.”
They stood for a moment just looking at the strange fellow in pajamas. Then, unable to control himself, Benchley burst out laughing. Jane and Ruth laughed, too. And not just a chuckle. A full, uproarious belly laugh.
The man kept the plunger over his head but didn’t hold it so threateningly now. He was confused by their laughter, and that somehow made him seem even funnier, and they laughed all the louder. A moment ago he had appeared to be a dangerous, wild man. Now he was just a funny guy in pajamas, with a plunger in his hand and red pockmarks on his face. And he believed the ro
om was occupied by nuns. He was perfectly ridiculous, the poor old boy!
Benchley, still giggling, reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “You can lower your weapon, my friend. The only thing clogging up the works is you.”
Jane and Ruth laughed even harder at this.
The man was crestfallen. “What’s so funny? I don’t get it.”
“You’re mistaken. There aren’t two nuns staying in this room,” Benchley said. He opened the drawers and showed him the nightshirts and wallets. “It’s occupied by two men.”
The man narrowed his eyes at the nightshirts and the wallets. Mystified, he shook his head. “Nah, I don’t believe it. I saw two nuns enter and leave this room. They even blessed me once when I passed them in the hallway.”
Benchley shrugged. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t embarrass the man even more.
The man seemed to make up his mind. “Well, there’s only one sure way to find out. Let’s go find them.”
Now Benchley shook his head. “Not in your condition, my friend. You should be holed up in your room. We’ll go find them.”
The man spoke piteously. “Mister, I’ve been cooped up with an angry wife and two screaming kids for the past twelve hours. This was supposed to be our winter vacation. But what did I get? I wasted my entire Christmas bonus on this trip only to be locked up like an inmate in a loony bin.” He looked at Benchley imploringly. “Can you understand why I want to go even just to the lobby?”
Benchley nodded. “Come along, then. Let’s go find these men. And bring your plunger with you.”
* * *
“We’re looking for Bibi’s body,” Dorothy explained to the hotel manager.
“You won’t find her down here,” Case said with a glance around the dark, dank subbasement. Luigi the waiter, trying not to look fearful, stood close to him. “As a matter of fact, you won’t find anyone.”
“We found you, didn’t we?” Woollcott said harshly, dusting himself off. “What do you think you’re doing lurking down here and jumping out of the shadows?”
