by John Schou
assistance transporting your new wardrobes to our rooms.”
That proved unexpectedly easy. No identity check prolonged the execution of these issues. A mature-aged piccolo joined us with the key, with all the sales packages stored on a luggage wagon. On ascending the 25th floor, some instinct told me that it would be better to secure these in our room before the truth from room 2541 was revealed. So while the clerk knocked a first time on that door, I opened ours and asked Alice to take care of the luggage immediately without asking any questions.
There was no answer to the door, so the piccolo opened it with general key. On the bed lay George, fully dressed and even with shoes on. Everything else seemed orderly, except that he was dead.
That order was also fast destroyed. A couple of minutes later, a slightly adipose man with gold-rimmed glasses and glittery black hair entered the room. He went straight ahead to George, felt the missing pulse at the neck and exclaimed “Cardiac arrest – call for an ambulance immediately!”
The piccolo took the phone and asked the reception to call for one, adding that Mr. Osborne had been found lifelessly here.
“Tell them also that Dr. Nielsen is present and that I have started a cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” the laborious doctor told, while he made some gymnastic which should mimic heart massage. “Hey, you,” he continued at us, “please leave the room.”
“We have no intention of leaving our room,” I said on behalf of Jeannine. “Neither do we assist any desecration procedures on the late Mr. Osborne.”
“Are you a doctor, capable of determining death?”
“Are you one, incapable of doing so?” I answered.
“Piccolo, throw these people out while I fight for the patient’s life.”
“We are leaving by our own,” Jeannine suddenly interrupted.
Back in room 2543, I asked her, “Why did you do that?”
“But if there is still hope for poor George, let the doctor try everything.”
“I doubt that he is a doctor and I wonder, what the purpose of this circus is, with poor George perhaps being dead for more than two hours. Who has called him? Hardly had we opened the door, was he already there. Let’s start finding out about this Dr. Nielsen.”
Indeed, there was a Dr. Nielsen, who had a practice just across the street, which was definitely closed by now, Friday evening after 8 p.m. I decided to have a small chat with his telephone receiver.
“Practice Dr. Nielsen,” a female voice said.
“Can I talk to Dr. Nielsen?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, he has been called to an emergency. Can I help you?”
“It’s concerning an emergency at Shepherd’s Hotel.”
“But that is exactly from where he was called.”
“Thanks, he is coming now.” I hung up.
Noise from the corridor signalised that the ambulance staff had arrived. Without telling the ladies about the real reason for my absence, I went to the toilet, collected my debugging device and listened to an angry conversation from the neighbouring room. One of the paramedics talked about “Ritual desuscitation rather than resuscitation” and “intimate heart massage,” while the other criticized a “brief” heart massage without ventilation. Dr. Nielsen argued that the ambulance was there very fast, now they should assist him in performing an endotracheal intubation. Doing so was rather silent, and the tube was introduced into one of the two holes in the throat – which ever of them did not matter to the fate of Mr. Osborne.
“No, no IV line and no drugs, just get off to the hospital,” Dr. Nielsen was heard saying.”
“Are you not joining us?”
“One to drive, the ventilator to breathe and one for heart massage. I feel superfluous in the company,” Nielsen concluded. The paramedics agreed and the life-savers went off with their pray. I let water in the closet and emerged from the toilet, just as it knocked at the door. It was the piccolo from before.
“Due to the tragically circumstances, the hotel management has decided to put room 2545 at Mrs. Dumont’s disposition. Here is the electronic key for the room. May I help you to transfer your luggage?”
The women had taken all their new possessions away but the luggage trolley was still standing in the middle of the room. Now, with the help of the piccolo, they removed the entire luggage. The room service impatiently waited in front of the closed door. Wait a minute: first a man had been murdered; the body was removed; now luggage was taken away and in a minute, vacuum cleaners and humid towels would eliminate the last traces at the scene. I had to stop it. I knocked at the door of 2541. The piccolo opened.
“A man has died under mysterious circumstances,” I began.
“Dr. Nielsen said it was a heart attack,” he interrupted. “The room must be cleaned as fast as possible.”
“I bet you are in a hurry, with all these guests living here.” I decided to let all safety precautions fall. To the girls, I said in French that they should not hurry but keep their activities for at least another quarter of an hour, and then I went to our own room, from where I called Chief Inspector Gösta Erlandsson directly from my mobile phone.
“In Copenhagen, a man has probably been murdered, his body was removed to a hospital under cover of pseudo-resuscitation, and now cleaning troops are standing for the door as vultures over a dying animal, ready to eliminate the last traces – unless you act in the next ten minutes.”
“One minute suffices,” he said energetically. ”Where is it?”
“Room 25-41, Shepherd’s Hotel.” I could hear him lose the pen.
“But isn’t it where the 100 James Bonds are having a meeting at the state’s expenses?”
“Exactly. One of them may have found it suitable to test his licence to kill.”
“There isn’t such a permission to be found in Denmark!”
“Then come and prove it.”
Erlandsson coughed nervously. “It can cost me lots of trouble.” Maybe, after all, there is such a licence, also here?”
“You can excuse yourself later, but you cannot recover the tracks that are going to be destroyed in a few minutes.”
“OK, can you just give me the phone number of the hotel. I’ll call them first and then show up right away. You shall please prevent this cleaning action until I come.” I gave him the number and he hung up without goodbye, just like Mr. Smith used to do.
You may not quite accept the next step I made. I was supposed to stop any destruction of potentially available tracks. I meant the ones on the bed, on the carpet and in the bathroom, but certainly not among Jeannine’s luggage. Call me a hypocrite, but I wanted to get that out before closing the door. It was fairly easy: I just opened the door to the room, told the ladies to come out, followed by the piccolo with the luggage trolley. Then, after the three had disappeared into room 2545, I closed the door and told the cleaning brigade that, according to orders by the police, who would turn up shortly, the room was sealed and any further entering was prohibited. To make sure that the order was kept upright, I remained in front of the door.
Alice came out to see where I was staying, not yet understanding the situation. It was a welcome occasion to ask her, in French, of course, to send the piccolo away and search George’s luggage for documents, before the police might do the same. We should do that more often: in Denmark, very few people speak French whereas the English and American people have no secrets when speaking in the presence of the natives.
I had still no occasion to call Mr. Smith and inform him about the new occurrences. Now Mr. Erlandsson turned up. He showed his identity papers to the still waiting cleaning brigade, and then I brought him into room 2541.
“This is where the dead body of Mr. George Osborne was found at 20:17. Three hours earlier, the room was empty. He was accompanied in Copenhagen by Mrs. Jeannine Dumont, a friend of my Girlfriend; they are both waiting in room 2545. However, I recommend you first of all to care about the body of Mr. Osborne, which was taken away by ambulance pretending resuscitation efforts initiated
by a Dr. Nielsen, whose telephone number I found here. It is a mystery how Dr. Nielsen could be here less than 2 minutes after we found Mr. Osborne and why he insisted on bringing the body away. Perhaps the reception can inform you further?”
“Thanks for telling me, what to do. Incidentally, it is just what I intend to do, once a police constable arrives to guard the room – oh, there he is.”
A young policeman in uniform had arrived. Erlandsson indicated that I was currently not needed, if not to say disturbing with my presence. “Where can I later find you and Mrs. Dumont?” I told him again about room 2545, as if she was sleeping separately there, but then headed myself for that room.
“There were no documents from this conference among George’s possessions,” Alice said.
It is strange, because I have seen George working on small booklets,” Jeannine added.
“It is not at all strange,” I responded. “The killer must have had ample time to steal whatever should not be found. My hope is that he overlooked something, e.g. a single piece of paper in his coat or another jacket.”
The girls searched remaining pockets with new energy. “Maybe that is of interest?” Jeannine exclaimed, having found a piece of paper in a pocket of George’s spare trousers. I looked at it: A list of participants in this symposium. In the meantime, I was convinced that also this room was bugged. I wrote a warning on a piece of paper and loudly said: “No, it is just a calculation of expenses.” Hoping that there were no video bugs, I took out my mobile and indicated that I was going for a call.
That proved not to be an easy errand, since Mr. Erlandsson was active in the reception and there were no guests in the lobby. I decided to wait in disguise until he left. Instead, something else unexpectedly happened: The four buses had suddenly returned full of guests in a high mood – and a single guest suddenly emerged from within, giving an elderly man among the guests a brief report. I decided that this person, if not the murderer, probably had something mysterious to hide. I tried to get somewhat closer for registering any characteristics. His hair was indeed spectacular, platinum blond, he could therefore not be the person disappearing from George’s room. He had blue eyes, the lips were narrow. He was my height but very much slimmer, wearing a light brown jacket and corresponding trousers. The light blue tie mirrored the colour of his eyes but did not really match his clothes. As I approached, the two men suddenly muted and stared at me.
“Mr. Gusto,” somebody suddenly exclaimed, giving the two men information I had desired about them. No, it was not Erlandsson, he had disappeared; it was Robert, at the reception. I went to him, out of hearing distance from the others in the lobby. “There is a message for you,” he said, giving me a thick envelope. “The man who gave it asked that you did not open it here.”
“Was it a blonde man, like the one standing over there?”
“Yes, I believe he was it.”
“Thanks,” and I went out of the hotel, immediately throwing the envelope in a bush in front. The buses had left, the doorman had entered the lobby, and there was quite a distance out to the street. I did not go far before an explosion shattered the street. Everybody passing looked up but then decided that it had been a premature New Year’s celebration. Actually, it would only have been deadly if I had carried it in one of my pockets, so I proceeded to the telephone booth I had used already once before.
“Yes,” said Mr. Smith.
“Mission accomplished. George has been killed, I was the supposed victim of an assault and the ladies are well. We want to break off the mission here and give full report tomorrow at 10 a.m.”
“Permission granted.” He was not even curious about further details; he just wanted his car, and perhaps the insiders, undamaged back. Now it was my turn to hang up the
