Aline didn’t faint at sight of the dead man. She swayed sideways against the door frame and closed her eyes tightly. She kept them closed, and tottered backward until her legs encountered the edge of the bed.
She sat down and let her eyes open. The back of the man’s head was toward her and she couldn’t see his features. There was a tiny round bald spot in the thinning brown hair. She stared at the bald spot in growing panic, and knew he was a complete stranger. He wore a light tropical suit.
Aline made her eyes stay open, but they kept sliding away from the body. She fought against utter retching misery and tried to force her thoughts into a coherent pattern.
She looked down fearfully at her hands and wrinkled white slip, but saw no sign of blood. She didn’t know yet how the man had been killed. She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know…
God, oh God! Oh, God.
She buried her face in her hands and sank sideways on the bed and sobbed again, convulsively. When the tears stopped, she was physically exhausted, but her mind was alert and she knew what she had to do.
Get out of that room for one thing, and trust in God that no one had seen her and recognized her coming in. But before that she must make certain there was nothing left behind that would point to her.
The only thing missing was her handbag. The only place she hadn’t searched was the bathroom. She couldn’t. But she knew she had to.
The drive of utter desperation brings a queer sort of strength sometimes. She sat up and took her hands from her face. She reached down with shaking fingers, pulled up the stocking that was loose around her ankle and rolled it above the knee. She picked up her discarded panties and stepped into them with a feeling of repugnance, smoothed her slip and then pulled the print dress over her head.
She kept her eyes carefully averted from the open bathroom door as she went to the mirror and looked unhappily at her disordered hair, her ravaged and tear-stained face, and wished desperately for a comb and compact. Her purse! If she could find it in the bathroom…
She couldn’t waste time now. She stepped into her pumps and walked steadily to the bathroom door. She didn’t look at the body until she found the light switch and clicked it.
She studied the man’s left profile. His face was pallid and waxlike, curiously pinched and shrunken. He was clean-shaven, between thirty and forty years of age, and in death his features gave the unpleasant impression of feral cunning. She would never know, she told herself dully, whether that look had come with death or had been there when she came to the hotel room with him.
The cause of death was now clearly evident. There was a great, gaping wound in his throat that had been inflicted by a very sharp knife or a razor.
She jerked her gaze away and searched the room from the doorway. The tub was empty, and the only two possible places where her bag might be concealed were the closed medicine cabinet and the floor space covered by his body. By holding tightly to the doorframe and leaning inward, Aline was able to open the cabinet. It was empty.
Almost, then, she gave up the search. But the instinct of self-preservation was alive in her, and strength surged up from some depth of her being which made it possible for her to reach down with both hands, get a firm grip on the back of the dead man’s coat between the shoulderblades and drag his body over the sill and into the bedroom.
There was no purse in sight. Only a curious half-outline of his body, where blood had crept along the floor and congealed on the tiles.
But he had pockets, and Aline knew she must go through them. The bag was small enough to fit in a man’s outer jacket pocket. Besides, she had to do everything she could to discover his identity before leaving him. If she could learn who he was… if she could start backtracking through the night at once… before the police started… it was barely possible she might be able to destroy all traces that would point to her as his companion at the death scene.
There was a book of matches in his left side pocket, and a few loose coins in the right. The inner jacket pocket yielded nothing. She knelt beside him with averted face and forced her hand into each of his four trouser pockets, half turning his body to do it.
There was nothing. No keys and no wallet. Not a scrap of paper to identify him.
He had come out of the unknown, a stranger to her… and now he would be a stranger forever.
And she? She had become a stranger to herself. Somehow she must go on living… forever haunted by the fear that she might have killed him.
Not that! She couldn’t kill. The last few minutes had proved that she was capable of much she would not have believed possible. But not murder… Besides, if she had murdered him during a blackout, how had she disposed of the murder weapon? And the missing handbag?
Of course, it was possible she had left the bag somewhere or lost it along the way before reaching the hotel room. But the murder weapon had been in the room. And now it wasn’t. Wouldn’t the police accept that fact as evidence that another person had been in the room while she was blacked out?
They wouldn’t. For they would never know, as she did, that the knife was not in the room when she woke. The police would have only her word that she hadn’t wakened to find it clutched in her hand, and then disposed of it.
She must be very careful from this point on. She must take nothing for granted. Nothing! Once it was known that she had been the dead man’s companion, every single word she spoke would be suspect.
How could she prove, for instance, that she had actually blacked out and didn’t know what had happened? There was no proof. Only her word. And to give the lie to that would be the testimony of the hotel clerk, the bell-boy and elevator operator who had doubtless seen her come in. Because when she had blacked out like this in the past, there was practically no outward evidence. Even her closest friends were never quite sure. They had laughed about it in the past, and she had laughed with them. Her coordination was scarcely impaired at all. She had been told that there was a slight thickness in her speech, but no more than in most persons after several cocktails.
Anyone who did not know her intimately and who had seen her last night would swear on the witness stand that she might have been a little tight, but certainly in full possession of her faculties.
The dead man must have believed that. He would have had no way of knowing the truth Even the murderer must have been unaware that she was unconscious when the murder was committed.
Why, then, had he gone away leaving her alive to bear witness against him? Of course if he had arrived at the scene after she fell into a coma on the bed, he would know he had nothing to fear from her.
She dragged her thoughts back from useless speculations. The important thing now was to destroy all evidence she had been in the room, and then leave the hotel without being seen.
She stripped the case from one of the pillows and methodically wiped fingerprints from every surface she might have touched. Then she went to the mirror to smooth her hair as best she could with shaking fingers.
At the door, she hesitated, realizing that she was probably destroying the murderer’s fingerprints as well. But what else could she do? She wiped the knob clean and turned it cautiously, inching the door open, and testing the outer knob. It was on the night-latch. The murderer had simply walked out and pulled it shut.
She paused, an instant, undecided whether to wipe the outer knob clean, then suddenly scrubbed it as hard as she could.
Holding the outer knob with the pillow case, she hesitated again, gathering all her strength and courage before stepping out and closing the door. That was the irrevocable step. Once she closed the door she was locked away from her last chance to call the police, tell them the simple truth, and hope they would believe her.
For a moment she was desperately tempted to do that. Wasn’t it what any innocent, law-abiding person would do? Wasn’t running away practically an admission of guilt?
Probably it was. She didn’t care. She couldn’t face it. This way, she had a chance. The other way? Who would believe her story, she asked herself scornfully.
She closed the door firmly with the pillowslip covering her hand, and stood for a moment memorizing the room number, 318. She would have to wait until she was outside to learn the name of the hotel.
She turned and went left toward a small red bulb illuminating a sign that said STAIRS. There was a door which she opened, and, with the cunning of the hunted, she took the upward flight of stairs. She remembered reading a book where a suspect had been trapped by walking down a flight instead of up. When he took the elevator from the floor below, the detective had known instantly that he had walked down one flight, and promptly arrested him. The author of the book had pointed out that in panic one invariably takes the easier path, and that if he had walked up instead of down he would never have been suspected.
So Aline walked up. Not one flight. Not just two flights, but three. That put her on the sixth floor and should be as safe as any. She wadded up the pillowslip as she climbed and dropped it in a dark corner on the fifth floor landing.
The sixth-floor corridor was dimly lit and deserted. She walked down it with her heart thumping, past closed doors behind which human beings slept in peace. Some of them snored, and the sound came faintly through open transoms.
She found double elevator doors and pressed the DOWN button. She had not the slightest idea what hour of the night it was, but was sure it was much too late for a respectable woman to be leaving a hotel with no wrap and no make-up, no handbag and her hair in disorder.
Anyone who saw her would think only one thing. Well, let them. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly when the elevator cables began creaking to bring the car up. She was a floosie, she reminded herself bitterly. A two-dollar whore. So why should she be ashamed or even annoyed if an elevator man and desk clerk took her for a call girl going home from some guest’s room after a late party?
The elevator stopped and the door slid open. The operator was a wizened and aged Negro man wearing a blue uniform with scarlet piping. So far as Aline could tell, he didn’t look at her when she stepped inside.
The door closed and they descended to a small lobby lighted with only two floor lamps. Aline stepped from the car with her chin still high, and her heels clacked on the bare floor toward the safety of a revolving door. She glanced at the desk, but the clerk was not there. A big clock on the wall pointed to 2:50.
Aline went through the revolving door and out onto a deserted sidewalk where a breeze cooled her hot cheeks. She looked at the sign above the hotel. It read, HOTEL HALCYON.
She would remember that, and she would remember a room number. She had not the vaguest idea what part of the city she was in. There were smart apartment houses here, and small specialty shops. She walked toward the nearest corner and discovered she was on Madison Avenue, far uptown from her normal haunts.
Looking up and down the Avenue she saw the welcome UNOCCUPIED lights of a roving taxi going south. She waved it to the curb, and before getting in she said:
“I’ll have to warn you, driver, that I don’t have any money with me. I lost my bag. If you’re willing to drive me to my place on East Twenty-Sixth Street, I’ll be glad to have you come in with me while I get some money to pay you.”
“Hop in, Lady,” he said wearily. “Where’d we all be in this world if none of us never trusted nobody else?” He opened the door, and when Aline got in he pulled away on the almost deserted avenue, leaning back to continue confidentially:
“Take it from me, that’s one of the troubles with this city. New York! Nobody speaks to a man on the street. Nobody’s got a helping hand for them that’s in trouble. Man can die right on a busy street and you’ll see the crowds hurrying by and turning their faces like they’re scared they’ll get contaminated.”
Aline Ferris leaned back against the cushion and closed her eyes and let the driver ramble on. She was really getting good at this business, she congratulated herself. Back there, when she started to get into the cab, it had just come out subconsciously. She hadn’t planned it. But in a flash she had realized that a driver might recall the peculiar circumstances-picking up a penniless female fare, at three-thirty in the morning less than a block from a hotel where a murder had been committed that night, and he would have her address in his logbook.
So she had given him Doris’ address-East 26th Street, — instead of her own. She could borrow money from Doris, and talking with Doris would be a good place to start going back. Doris had been at Bart’s party. She and Jim Cochran had been necking at the bar when Aline allowed the third and fatal martini to be poured into her glass. Doris was the perfect solution to her problem and it had come to her with no planning or forethought whatever. Stopping in to borrow taxi fare was the perfect excuse for waking Doris and having a heart-to-heart talk without waiting until morning.
She broke into the driver’s monologue and gave him Doris’ street number, then relaxed until they reached it.
Doris had what New York calls a “garden apartment” in an old remodeled brownstone, and it was reached by stairs leading down from the sidewalk. When the cab stopped, Aline stepped out and said to the driver, “Wouldn’t you like to come with me to be sure I don’t run out on you?”
“If you wanta run, lady, you run,” he answered broodingly. “Ninety cents on the meter ain’t going to break nobody.”
Aline went down the short flight of steps and rang the bell. It was dark inside, and she kept her finger on the bell for a long time and nothing happened. Then a light showed in the rear, and presently a window beside the door was opened a trifle and Doris’ frightened voice asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s Aline Ferris. I lost my bag and haven’t a penny to pay my taxi fare. I want to borrow a couple of dollars.”
“Aline!” There was an odd breathlessness in Doris’ voice, and she hesitated a moment. Then she said effusively, “Of course, darling. Wait right there until I get my purse. Sure two dollars will be enough?”
“Plenty. The fare’s only ninety, but I want to give him a good tip because he was nice and trusted me.”
“Just a second.” Doris left the window, but, curiously, no more lights were turned on inside. She was back in a moment and thrust the bills through the open window. “You better hurry on home for a few winks, and I’ll be dying to hear all about it tomorrow. Darling, who was that character you were smooching with such abandon just before you left the party?”
“How about inviting me in for a drink now so we can talk?”
“Honestly, darling, I’m dead.” Doris stifled an elaborate yawn and started to close the window. “See you tomorrow.”
Aline said all right and thoughtfully climbed up the stairs. She handed the driver the bills and asked him for half a dollar in return.
She let him drive away because she wanted him to list this as her address. As she stepped back onto the sidewalk, she recognized Ralph’s familiar Mercury convertible parked just beyond Doris’ entrance.
Dull anger tore at her. That was it. That was why Doris was determined to get rid of her. Ralph and Doris!
She went down the stairs again and put her finger firmly on the bell. The dim light was still on in the rear, and Aline didn’t have to wait so long this time. There was a rustle of movement inside, and the window near the door opened cautiously.
“Aline?” Doris sounded frightened and a little angry. “I told you I was too tired and sleepy…”
“I want to come in and talk to you,” Aline broke in firmly. “Unlock the door.”
“I shan’t. You must be drunk.”
“I’m cold stone sober,” Aline said flatly, “which is probably more than you are. I sent the taxi on and I’m coming in to talk to you.”
“You’re not! Go away. I won’t let you in.”
“I’ll stand here and ring your bell until you do, if it takes the rest of the night.”
“Ring it, then. Go ahead and ring it.” Doris’ voice rose hysterically. “I’m going back to sleep.” She closed the window with a thud.
Aline compressed her lips and put her finger on the bell and held it there. She couldn’t hear the bell ringing, but knew that it was. She couldn’t hear anything else, either, and the dim light in the rear went out, but she could imagine with grim amusement the frightened and whispered colloquy that must be going on in Aline’s bedroom.
Ralph and Doris!
“What are we going to do, Ralph?”
“Damn it, why didn’t you let her in and give her a drink and get rid of her?”
“I was afraid to. Suppose she’d insisted on coming into the bedroom for something? Besides, I thought she’d go on home. What are we going to do? I can’t stand that bell going on and on.”
Well, it was going on and on, Aline told herself angrily. On and on and on until Doris opened the door and let her in.
Was there any other way out of the apartment for Ralph? She didn’t think so. Possibly a rear window. But she vaguely recalled that the bedroom was jammed close to the brick wall of another building, and she didn’t believe there was room for him to squeeze through.
Why didn’t they just give up and let her in and face it out? After all, she didn’t have any real strings on Ralph. He could sleep with anyone he desired. She wasn’t jealous. She was just mad. And terribly frightened by what had happened, and determined to talk to Doris at once and learn as much as she could about events at the party after she had blacked out.
Doris would be able to tell her a lot. Ralph, too, if she could convince him that she didn’t care if he was with Doris and that all she wanted to find out was what had happened at Bart’s tonight. She recalled what Doris had said a few minutes ago.
“Who was that man you were smooching so hard just before you left the party?”
Aline didn’t remember any special man nor any special smooching. There had just been the regular gang around before she drank that third martini. Just the normal, light-hearted kisses and laughing innuendos.
Could it have been the dead man in the bathroom? If he had come to the party after she blacked out, and if she had gone for him the way Doris implied, then that might be the answer, or, at least, part of the answer.
She did do that sort of thing sometimes, Aline thought ruefully, as her right forefinger grew numb from determined pressure on the bell. Usually with strange men, and always when she was blacked out. Alcohol stripped away all her civilized inhibitions and released animal instincts that demanded sex. Curiously she always seemed to pick men who would be repulsive to her in her sane moments. Like the dead man. She shuddered involuntarily. He was one she wouldn’t have given a second glance when she was sober.
Would Doris never come to the door? She had to. I should have told her in the beginning that I knew Ralph was in there, thought Aline. Then they would have realized that nothing would be gained by keeping me out. I should have made her understand that I didn’t care a hoot in hell about Ralph. I can’t tell her why I want to know about tonight, of course. I can’t admit I was completely blacked out and don’t know anything at all that happened. I can’t admit that to anyone. Not yet. Not until I learn a lot more than I know now.
When a bright light came on in the living room, Aline took her finger off the bell. She heard the door-latch being released, and then the door opened.
“All right,” Doris said. “I give up. Come on in and stop that infernal racket.”
Doris was a short, plump blonde with rounded features that normally wore an all-embracing smile for the world to see. Now, her eyes were stormy, her full lips compressed with anger. She wore a blue robe belted tightly around her waist, and pink satin mules.
Aline stepped inside and said swiftly, “I’m sorry, Doris. Truly I am. But I had to talk to you. Look, if you’ve got a man in your bedroom, don’t mind me. I’m not on the vice squad, and God knows I’m not interested in your morals.”
Color flamed in Doris’ cheeks. “What a horrible thing to say. What ever made you think that?”
Aline shrugged and looked around the small, disordered sitting room. “I couldn’t think of any other reason why you kept me locked out.”
“I told you I’ve got a hangover and am dying for sleep,” wailed Doris. “Can’t you wait till morning?”
“No. This can’t wait.” Aline twisted her hands and her eyes were forlorn. “I’m frightened. I did it again tonight at Bart’s. Sort of. Passed out, you know. Not completely, but there are a few blank spots. I want to know everything I did. Was I pretty awful towards the end?”
Doris sighed and sat down at one end of the shabby studio couch and motioned Aline to a chair nearby. “Not too awful, I guess,” she said judicially. “How much do you remember? Having the fight with Ralph?”
Aline looked at her sharply, wondering whether Doris suspected that she knew Ralph was in the bedroom listening. Or didn’t she realize that Aline had recognized his car parked outside?
After carefully considering several responses, Aline said weakly, “A fight with Ralph? What did we fight about? I don’t remember it at all.”
“About you and Dirk, I guess.” Doris’ voice was barbed. “You certainly remember Dirk being there.”
Oh, yes. Aline remembered Dirk, big and blond and boyishly handsome. It was the first time she had seen him at a party without his wife. She remembered sitting on a window seat with him, a little removed from the others, who milled around with drinks in their hands. She recalled Dirk’s twisted smile as he explained that he was a misunderstood husband who needed comforting. So, she had comforted him a little. It hadn’t been anything important. Pleasant at the time, but not important. Dirk kissed easily and well, and his big hands were gentle and knowing in their caresses.
She said, wonderingly, “Why would Ralph want to fight with me about Dirk? He doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Doris shrugged. “You’d better ask Ralph that. I’m sure I don’t know why he’d be upset.”
Anger stirred in Aline and her eyes narrowed. “All right,” she said viciously. “I will ask him, since you suggest it.” She came to her feet in one lithe movement and swung out through the hall leading to the closed bedroom door before Doris could stop her.
With a choked cry of protest, Doris ran after her, caught her just as she started to turn the doorknob. She twined her fingers in Aline’s brown curls and jerked her back before she could open the door, sobbing hysterically.
“You stay out of there. You’re crazy. I won’t let you…”
Aline twisted around and slapped the pudgy, tear-wet face resoundingly. Doris released her hair and fell backward against the wall, her lips working in and out soundlessly, her eyes round with fear and surprise.
The bedroom door opened. Fully dressed and completely unruffled, Ralph smiled quizzically and said in his quiet, rich voice:
“Now, now, girls. Mustn’t fight over me. I’m really not worth it, you know.”
Aline faced him, stiffly erect and her eyes filled with scorn. She said bitingly, “I couldn’t agree more. Why don’t you come in and be cozy instead of skulking in the bedroom?”
Ralph smiled at her. He had dark wavy hair and the blandly handsome features of a man of small intellect. He said smoothly, “Just doing the gentlemanly thing, my dear Aline. Now you’ve discovered our little secret, we will be cozy.”
Doris was still leaning against the wall, sobbing. Ralph went over and put an arm around her shaking shoulders, drew her close and kissed her lips, then turned her to follow Aline who had stalked back to the living room.
Ralph soothed Doris: “Don’t take it so hard, my sweet. I’ve told you over and over that Aline has no reason in the world to care what you and I do together. Isn’t that right, Aline dear?”
“Perfectly right.” She sat stiffly erect in her chair and watched Ralph lead Doris to the couch and settle her beside him with a protecting arm around her shoulder and her face snuggled against his chest.
How could she ever have been taken in by him, Aline wondered bitterly? How could she have thought him charming and sophisticated?
“So why,” she demanded, “did you give one little damn what Dirk and I did at Bart’s party?”
“But I didn’t,” he protested. “What on earth gave you that idea? Were you so tight you don’t remember?”
“All right, so I was tight. Doris told me that you and I fought about Dirk.”
“Dear Doris,” he murmured, smiling down at the blonde head against his chest. “She invariably gets things wrong. I told her I wasn’t in the least concerned about whom you played around with. You started the ruckus, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” she snapped. “I’ve admitted I was tight. I’m just trying to make some sense out of what happened at Bart’s. When did I leave the party? Where did I go?”
“Oh, oh.” Ralph’s tone was smug, knowing. “You mean you pulled another of your famous blackouts?”
“Not exactly. Not like last time.” Did Doris know all about last time, she wondered? She knew about it, of course, but she was aware that Ralph was the man Aline had waked up in bed with the next morning? Aline didn’t think so. But Doris might have heard rumors… might have guessed the truth.
“I was drunk,” Aline went on candidly. “I vaguely remember all sorts of things. Like our fight, but I haven’t the foggiest idea how it began… or ended.”
“Then I shan’t disillusion you,” Ralph told her heartily. He was making like a big brother now. “It really wasn’t important and you’re better off not remembering too much. What else comes through?” he ended with a sharpened note in his voice.
“There was some man,” Aline faltered. “Someone I’d never seen before.”
“There was, indeed. A Mr. Torn, wasn’t it? Didn’t I hear him being introduced as Vincent Torn?”
“I don’t know. Describe him.”
Ralph chuckled. “After all, my dear Aline, who should be better able to describe him than you?”
“But I tell you there are gaps.”
Ralph shrugged his broad shoulders. “He wasn’t the type who lends himself to description. Mediocre, that’s it. Nondescript. What you can see in a fellow like that…” He shook his head sadly over the vagaries of women.
“Did I leave the party with him?” Aline asked fearfully.
“I’m not sure, but I’m positive you did if you were able to drag him away.” Ralph put two fingers under Doris’ chin and lifted her face. “Did you see Aline leave, sweet?”
“I thought she went with you.” Doris’ voice was husky. She cleared her throat and added, “You both disappeared about the same time.”
“But you can’t be positive?” Aline asked her.
“No, but I asked two or three people and they told me not to worry about you… that Ralph could be trusted to take good care of you,” Doris gave a short, harsh laugh.
Ralph smiled indulgently. “Which I could be, of course, if I had escorted you home, Aline. But I left the party alone, while you were still there. You can ask Bart,” he went on swiftly. “He argued about my leaving so early. I couldn’t tell him that you and I,” he gave Doris a squeeze, “had plans for later on.”
“But we didn’t,” Doris protested. She sat erect, and her eyes were round and guileless. “I was never so surprised in my life when you turned up on my doorstep.”
“As if you hadn’t known I was coming… and arrayed yourself in your most beguiling negligee. And I loved you for it.” He bent his head and kissed Doris tenderly on the lips. Her arms went around his neck.
Aline stood up. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds now,” she said in a thin voice. “Sorry I interrupted, but I did want to get a line on last evening.”
“Oh, no.” Ralph hastily released Doris and came to his feet. “It’s almost daylight. I have to consider Doris’ reputation and not stay too late. My car’s parked just outside. I’ll run you home.”
“You needn’t bother,” Aline said stiffly, turning to the door. “I can walk.”
“No bother at all. I’m sure Doris wishes we’d both go and let her get her beauty sleep.”
He was directly behind Aline as she stepped out, and for a brief moment she felt a chill sense of fear course up her spine. It was silly, of course. She knew it was silly. But she wished desperately that Doris would call him back.
Ralph closed the door firmly and took Aline’s arm to help her up the stairs, muttering in a low voice, “Thank God for small favors. I thought I was never going to be able to break away from that empty-headed little fool.”
“A fine thing to say about a girl,” Aline retorted. “Particularly after you’ve just spent the night with her.”
“Exactly the time one would say it about Doris,” he told her cheerfully. They reached the street level and he led her toward his parked convertible.
“What did you say about me after that last time?”
“The truth, of course. Not all the truth,” he amended hastily, opening the door for Aline. “No one in the world knows anything about that night except that you passed out and I took you home and tucked you in.” He patted her hand, closed the door, and went round to the other side to slide under the wheel.
As Aline settled back against the cushion she felt something hard against her right hip. Twisting around slightly, she put her hand down to discover a small leather handbag wedged between the seat cushion and the back.
It had a familiar shape and feel as she drew it half way out. Covertly she glanced down at it in the light from a street lamp and shuddered. It was her own alligator bag. The one she had carried to Bart’s last night. The one that had been missing from the hotel room. The one she had searched for so zealously.
Ralph had turned on the ignition. He was pressing the starter button, his eyes on the road. The motor whirred and took life.
“How did my handbag get here, Ralph?” Aline scarcely recognized her own fear-distorted voice. “In your car… slipped down behind the cushion.”
“May have been there for days,” he said genially, rolling forward on the empty street. “Let’s see. I drove you home from the office last Wednesday.”
“This is the bag I had at Bart’s party tonight,” she told him in a flat voice.
“Oh?” He hesitated, glancing aside at her tight face and wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Then you were blacked out, weren’t you? I wondered. It’s so hard to tell with you. Don’t you remember anything at all about my taking you home?”
“But you told Doris you left alone. That I was still there when you left.”
“Pride, my dear. I didn’t want to confess to her that you kicked me out after we got to your place. She’d have felt she was second choice. Which she was, of course. You must have left your bag when you got out, and I didn’t notice it.”
“Ralph! You’ve got to tell me. What did happen. Did you drive me home?”
“Right to your doorstep,” he assured her cheerfully. “You were sweet enough in the car, but you turned nasty as hell when I suggested coming up. I didn’t know just how tight you were,” he went on thoughtfully. “That other time you blacked out you were glad enough to have my company. So, I thought you knew what you were doing and wanted to be alone as you said. I don’t like street scenes, damn it. And I knew Doris would be receptive.”
“And you left me standing outside?” Aline asked in a shaky voice.
“You were going up the steps to the door when I drove away.”
“Without my handbag?” She shuddered. “And without my keys? I couldn’t have got in the front door. What did I do? My God, Ralph, what do you suppose I did?”
Ralph had been driving east on 26th. Now, he turned north and pulled to the curb in front of the canopied entrance to a six-story apartment building. “You went back to the party, maybe… or called someone up,” he suggested. “Where were you when you came to this time?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” she said defiantly.
“No reason why you should,” he agreed. He cut his motor and leaned past her to open the door on her side. “Be sure you’ve got your key this time. I’ll sit right here until you go inside.”
“Please, Ralph.” Aline put a trembling hand on his arm. “Come up with me. I’m frightened. I’ve got to talk. Try to figure out what happened. Don’t you see that without my bag I didn’t have taxi fare? Not even a dime to telephone with. I was locked out here on the street, and then what?”
“You poor kid.” Ralph lifted her hand from his arm and kissed it. “Of course I’ll come up with you. Might as well make a night of it now.” He slid along the cushion and got out on her side of the car, went up the short flight of stone steps with her, and through swinging doors to an entry-way lined with mail boxes.
Aline took a leather key-holder from her purse. Beside the lock on the inner door there was a bell with a brass plate beneath it that read SUPERINTENDENT.
Ralph gestured to it and said, “Perhaps you rang the super and he let you in last night. That would be the normal thing. It wasn’t terribly late”
“How late?” She put a key in the lock and turned it, opened the door onto a small, attractive lobby with two self-service elevators at the rear.
“About midnight,” Ralph told her on the way to the elevators. One was waiting and he opened the door and followed her in. Aline pressed the button for the fourth floor and it began to rise easily. She stood silent, waiting for him to go on.
“I stopped at a bar for a couple of drinks after leaving you,” Ralph continued, “to give Doris time to break away from the party and get home. I got to her place about twelve-thirty. So it couldn’t have been past midnight when I left you.”
The elevator stopped and they went down a short length of carpeted hallway to a door which she unlocked. She went in ahead of him to turn on a light in the living room, took a quick look about and shook her head despairingly.
“I don’t believe I was back here after the party at all. It’s exactly the way I remember leaving it.” She went toward the small dressing alcove off the bathroom, saying, “I know I look like the wrath of God. Make yourself a drink while I fix my face a little and comb my hair.” She went in and closed the door.
Ralph went to the low, glass-topped bar in front of the studio couch, opened it and took out a flagon of rye and a large shot glass. He filled it and settled back on the couch, his face bland and uncommunicative as he waited for Aline to return.
It took her ten minutes. Her features were still tight and ravaged, but rouge and powder and a hairbrush had done much to improve her appearance. She sat down beside him, shook her head and shuddered when he lifted his glass and gestured toward its mate with the dregs of a drink she had left before leaving for Bart’s party.
“Not for me,” she said flatly. “Never again. I swear it. What do you think could have happened after you left me here without a key?”
“I still think the normal thing would have been for you to ring the superintendent.” He glanced at the speaking tube near the door. “Why not call him and find out, if it’ll set your mind at rest?”
“And wake him up at this time to ask him that?” she protested. “He’d think I’d lost my mind. Besides, if I did come up, I didn’t stay.”
“I gather,” said Ralph drily, “that you didn’t stay. However, it would be a starting point if you’re determined to backtrack. Up here, you could have telephoned anyone you liked without dimes. Go ahead and buzz him on the speaking tube. What are janitors for?”
“I’d be ashamed to ask him. If he didn’t think I was crazy, then he’d know I was too drunk to know what I did.”
“All right, then,” said Ralph amiably, “I’ll buzz him, and talk to him on the speaking tube.” He hesitated a moment, then added reflectively. “Better still, to save you embarrassment, I’ll telephone him, and let him think it’s an outside call. I’ll say I’m a friend who knows you came home about midnight without a key and am worried. I’ll ask if he let you in, and that won’t give anything away. Know his number?”
“No. But it’s listed under ‘Superintendent’ in the black book there on the telephone stand.” She started to get up, but Ralph caught her arm.
“You just sit here nice and comfy. I’ll find it.” He went to the telephone and flipped the pages of her private listing, dialed the number and waited.
The phone rang a long time before a sleepy voice demanded: “Yeh? Who you calling?”
“Are you the superintendent at the Maidstone?”
“Yeh. What you want?”
“I’m a friend of Miss Aline Ferris in Apartment 4-F. We’ve just discovered that she left her handbag with her keys here when she went home about midnight, and we’re a little worried. Her phone doesn’t answer. Did she ring you about midnight to let her in?”
“No. Haven’t see Miss Ferris for days.” He slammed the receiver down hard.
Ralph replaced his receiver and turned to Aline. “That’s not the answer. Let’s see, now.” He crossed over and sat down beside her and stretched his long legs out comfortably. “There you were about midnight on your own doorstep and operating under your own power, but actually passed out mentally. You had no key and no money to telephone. I had driven away thinking you were safely inside. What happened then?”
“Oh, I don’t know… I don’t know,” Aline cried out. “But I’ve just got to find out.”
“U-m-m. It would be lots easier to figure out if I knew where you were when you finally came to. Didn’t you ask anyone how you got there?”
“There wasn’t anyone to ask,” she told him. “I was alone. It doesn’t matter exactly where. In a hotel room, if that helps any. But how did I get there?” Her voice was shrill, close to hysteria.
“Take it easy,” Ralph said calmly. “There are dozens of possible explanations. Let’s reason it out together. From the way you acted last time, I know you’re outwardly rational when you’re passed out, but… less inhibited than when you’re sober, let us say. The real you takes charge of your body. You remain perfectly logical and self-possessed. Now: What would you have done under those same circumstances if you had been sober?”
“I… don’t know. Get the superintendent to let me in, probably.”
“But we know you didn’t do that. And I’m not sure you would have tried. Remember your aversion to waking him just a few minutes ago? You were ashamed to let him know you were so drunk you didn’t remember. In your condition at midnight some part of your mind realized that you were damned tight, and you didn’t want him to see you like that. So, what?”
Aline’s face brightened and she caught Ralph’s wrist in a tight grasp. “I know! The cocktail lounge just down the street. It stays open until four, and I often drop in for a drink after work. The night bartender knows me, and I wouldn’t have minded at all going in and telling him I’d mislaid my bag and needed a dime for the telephone. I’ve left enough in tips, goodness knows. He wouldn’t think anything of it. I must have gone there.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Ralph agreed. He smiled genially and put a big hand over hers.
“But whom did I call… if I did telephone?”
“First thing to find out is whether you made any call at all. It’s possible he might have seen you dialing… or helped you look up a number. He’d remember an incident like that.” Ralph swung to his feet and glanced at his watch. “It’s not quite four. What’s the name of the joint?”
“Gosh, I… I don’t know. I’ve been in dozens of times, but I guess I just never noticed.”
“We can go down and ask him, if you really want to try and clear this up.”
“You go, Ralph,” she said impulsively. “Please. His name is Joe. Just ask him if Miss Ferris was in to use the telephone. Please, Ralph. I just don’t feel up to it.”
“Sure. You must be shot. Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
She said, “You’re sweet,” and was suddenly listless. She stood up and let him kiss her, then drew away when he tried to become more ardent. “Ring my bell and I’ll let you in.”
“Not jealous of Doris, are you?” he asked, smiling.
“No. I don’t think so. I’m just not at my best tonight.” She watched him go out, then sank down on the couch and buried her throbbing head in her hands.
“Dear God,” she moaned softly, “let me get out of this. Just this one time, please help me. I’ve learned my lesson tonight. I swear I have. I’ll never, never, take another drink as long as I live.”
Once more, tears of self-pity wet her face. She was stretched out on the couch, still sobbing, fifteen minutes later when her buzzer sounded. She dragged herself up and pressed the button that released the catch on the door to the building downstairs.
She was standing in the open doorway of her apartment, dabbing at reddened eyes with a cool, damp washcloth, when Ralph stepped from the elevator. He frowned unhappily when he saw that she had not changed into a negligee in his absence, but nodded as he approached, saying, “We hit it on the head, darling. I caught Joe just as he was closing the joint, and he said that’s exactly what you did.”
Aline stepped back to let him enter, her breathing tremulous and irregular. “Then I did go there to telephone?”
“That’s right. Joe remembered right away. Said you sort of acted strange when you came in just after midnight. Said you walked straight enough, but your eyes had a glassy look he’d seen often enough when people were passed out.” Ralph took her hand and led her to the couch where they sat down and he linked his arm in hers as he continued:
“Joe said you walked right up to him and told him you had lost your purse and needed a dime to telephone. He didn’t care about the dime, but he was a little worried. Thought you ought to go home in your condition, and told you so. But you blazed away at him and said you could take care of yourself, and what you needed was a man. You told him to give you the dime and stop his yapping.” He paused, squeezed her arm, and looked down at her for approval.
Aline’s face was pale and her voice was sick with shame as she breathed, “How awful! I’ll never be able to look him in the face again. I can’t believe I’d say such things.” She drew her arm from his and leaned away from him.
Ralph poured himself another drink, crossed his legs, and settled back against the cushions. “You toss off a lot of inhibitions when you get that way, my sweet. Like the other time with me. God, if you could just remember…”
“Don’t… please,” Aline pleaded, her cheeks scarlet. “Maybe I’m just a two-dollar whore at heart, but don’t rub it in. Tell me what else Joe said.”
“Well, he gave you the dime and you went to the telephone book and looked up a number. When you found it, you asked him if he had a pencil and would he write it down for you. You know, the phone booth is across the room and I guess you were afraid you’d forget it before you could dial it.”
“Did he write it down?” She asked fearfully.
“Yes. On one of the business cards advertising the place. You called it out to him, went over and took the card, then went back to the booth and closed the door.”
Aline nerved herself to ask, “Does Joe remember the number?”
“No. He thought it was a Butterfield number, but wasn’t positive. He says you stayed in the booth awhile, then came out and marched out without saying a word or even looking at him. And that’s all Joe knows.”
Aline was quiet for a moment, racking her tortured mind for a glimpse of remembrance that would not come. “If I only knew who I called,” she moaned.
“At least we know you didn’t call me,” Ralph said ruefully. “Even though you wanted a man, you had given me to understand quite clearly that I wasn’t the one you wanted. Try to think of someone else,” he went on calmly, glancing aside at her with lowered lids, “whom you felt a yen for when you were sober, but didn’t quite have the nerve to approach.”
“I can’t think,” she murmured, and then her voice rose angrily as she declared, “The hell of it is that I’m not the bitch I seem to become when I’m drunk. So how do I know what man I had a yen for? If Joe had only remembered that number!”
“Well,” said Ralph smugly, “it just happens that I’m not so bad when it comes to playing detective. I bought Joe a drink for his trouble, and over-tipped him, so you needn’t bother to give him back his dime. Then I went over to the phone booth and looked around inside. I found this lying on the floor.”
Ralph dramatically handed her a crumpled business card which he had taken from his pocket. Scrawled on the back, in pencil, were the letters BU, followed by five digits.
“I can’t swear that’s the number you called,” he pointed out judicially, “but I think it is. You didn’t have a handbag to put it in, and no pockets in your dress. You probably just crumpled it up and threw it on the floor after you’d reached your party.”
Aline took the card. Her eyes were round and frightened as she repeated the numbers aloud, and her head moved slowly from side to side. “It doesn’t sound even remotely familiar,” she told him. “Does it to you?”
“No. But I don’t know all your men friends. Sure you can’t remember?”
“I haven’t even the ghost of an idea,” she acknowledged, absently turning the card over and over with her fingers. “But isn’t there some way to get a person’s name from a number? Doesn’t the Telephone Company have a cross index… or something?”
“Of course. But I don’t think they give out information like that, as a rule, unless it’s requested by the police.” He finished his drink, put an arm around her and nuzzled his lips against her ear. “How about forgetting the whole thing for tonight? Let’s go to bed and get a couple of hours sleep. Everything will be bright and rosy tomorrow.”
“Ralph… don’t!” Her voice lashed out at him She struggled against his embrace, broke free and pushed him away. Then, seeing the strange expression on his face she managed a wan smile and said, “You’ve been sweet to try and help me, Ralph, and you have helped a lot. Now I know, at least, that I didn’t just pick up some complete stranger on the street at midnight. I feel more decent knowing that I looked up a number and telephoned.”
“Sure,” he said in a soothing tone. “And after you’ve had a good sleep, maybe you’ll remember a name to fit the number.” He stood up. “Okay, sweet. If you want to be alone, far be it from me to intrude. Bye now.” He turned and strode out.