Stab in the Dark (9 page)

Cora Deane lay on his bed, fully clothed except for her shoes. She was sound asleep.

K
NOX
turned off the overhead light and switched on a lamp away from the bed. Only the edge of the light reached Cora Deane, but it was enough for Knox to make out the softness of her profile in sleep, the steady rise and fall of her full breast, the outline of her full thigh and long leg.

He turned away, took his pajamas and robe from the closet, and went into the bath. A quick view in the mirror there showed that his suit badly needed cleaning and pressing and that there was a little rehabilitation to be done on his face. He removed the morning stubble with the electric razor and then stood under a warm shower until the tension and some of the bruises Toll had given him began to be less painful. As he dried, he studied himself again in the mirror. There was one dark spot on his ribs, a pair of lumps on his head, a cut on his lip, and two small bruises left on his cheek. All in all it was not too bad. It could have been a good deal worse.

Robe and pajamas on, he returned to the bedroom. The girl was still sleeping. Knox lit a cigaret and stretched out beside her. She had her head on one pillow and a piece of the other gripped in her hand. This he pried free and slipped behind his head. The movement caused her to stir.

“Don’t hog everything,” Knox said cheerfully. “A guest should always be as considerate as she would wish her own guests to be. Emily Post.”

She came awake. Her eyes opened wide. Her head came off the pillow. “Morning,” she said in a fuzzy voice.

“Been waiting long?” Knox asked.

She said surprisingly, “Since the cat had kittens.” Her voice was no longer fuzzy.

Knox said gravely, “What color were they?”

“Two black, one calico.”

Knox blew a smoke ring, letting it float away undisturbed. “I had that half figured out when I got involved in something else. When I saw you here, I was pretty sure that I was right.’

“It had to be you,” she said. “I knew that Auffer wasn’t the end of it and no one else made sense. But I couldn’t be sure that you weren’t just sent by World-Circle on a Missing Persons.”

“You still can’t,” Knox said. “Not until we check.”

Rising, he got his billfold and brought out his World-Circle card. Taking her purse from the floor beside the bed, she handed him a card similar to his own. He snapped on the reading lamp over the bed and for a moment both were gravely involved in testing the other. She was definitely D-13.

When his card was back in his billfold and hers in her purse, he stretched out on the bed again. “Did you have to come to my room like this?”

“I learned,” she said, “that suite eight-o-eight is empty. That was Leo Auffer’s room. It frightened me, that and …”

Knox interrupted, “Is that so strange?”

She looked oddly at him. “Don’t you see. He hasn’t been around since the murder. If his room is vacant, where did he go? He wouldn’t have left without contacting me.”

Knox realized that she didn’t know Auffer was dead. The police had not revealed the fact during their questioning. He said, “Maybe Auffer was the man you saw dead.”

“Heaven’s no! He wouldn’t have been caught—dead in the suit that man was wearing. Anyway, the man was bigger and heavier.”

“Then you know Leo?”

She rose from the bed and went into the bathroom. She left the door open while she combed her hair and put lipstick on. “I knew him, of course. I’ve been here a month.”

“And yesterday was the contact?”

“I had orders to meet him yesterday. When I was supposed to be through. That’s why I went downstairs, to meet him.”

Knox couldn’t understand it. If Auffer had been here two weeks, why had he chosen such a place as the storeroom for their meeting? But then, he remembered, Auffer often had tended to be overly careful. He shook his head. This explained Cora Deane’s lies of yesterday but it didn’t explain Auffer’s action too well.

He said, “What were you working on?”

“Tom Catlin and the Tinsleys,” she said. She came back to the bed and sat on the edge, smoothing her skirt over her knees. “When I first came, my orders were just to play the stenographer and keep my eyes open. The Tinsleys seemed a good bet and I worked on them. Then he came and told me to concentrate on Catlin.”

She gave him a quick smile. “That was easy enough. He’d been hanging around and giving me a lot of stenographic work that wasn’t really necessary.”

Knox let her go on as she told him what she had found out about the Tinsleys. It checked with Beeker’s information and, unfortunately, added nothing to it. She said finally, “I really have so little information to give Auffer. But maybe he can make some use out of it.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Knox said somberly. “He’s dead.”

She was reaching for his cigarets on the nightstand when he spoke. Her hand stopped and slowly her head came around so that she was looking at him. It seemed to take her some time to comprehend his meaning. “Dead?” she said finally. “How?”

He gave her the cigaret and lit it for her. Then he gave her the story. He told her about Jock. She was silent for some time.

“But what does it mean?”

“Maybe that he was working on an angle neither of us know about,” Knox said. “And I may have a lead.” He told her of his encounter with Binks and Toll.

She nodded at his description of Toll. “I’ve seen him around. But I never noticed the other one—Binks.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Knox said. “He’s hard to see unless you’re looking for him.”

She was wide-eyed. “Do you think they’ll go after us as they did Leo Auffer?”

“Why did they go after him—if they did? Is there a leak in the company?”

The idea seemed to horrify her. “Oh, no. There hasn’t been since the war.”

“Not as far as we know,” Knox agreed. “But I’m taking no chances. Until we’re both clear-headed enough to think this through, I’m keeping you in sight.”

Color flared into her cheeks. “Are you insinuating that I …”

Knox realized that the words had had a double meaning. He grinned apologetically. “I’m too tired to think straight. I mean, I’m keeping you in sight so the same thing that happened to Leo won’t happen to you.”

“Or you,” she said. She smiled. “I guess I’m tired too. I’m sorry I got mad.”

Knox looked at his watch. It was past eight. “Can you break that ten o’clock appointment with Tom Catlin?”

“It wasn’t vital,” she said.

“Then you’d better call and break it. Unless you’re less tired than you look, you wouldn’t be able to handle him anyway.”

She had to grin. “He handles easily enough. I’ve had two propositions and a hand on my knee. But that’s as far as he’s gone.” She yawned. “But you’re right.” She looked longingly at the softness of the bed. “Where do I sleep?”

“Right here. It’s a double bed.” He saw the expression on her face. “Wear my robe. Put a dresser drawer between us if you think you need it. Me, I’m going to sleep. Do I have to spell out the word?”

She flushed. “I’m sorry.”

He took the robe and handed it to her and crawled beneath the covers. She went into the bath. Knox had a vague, half asleep memory of her coming out, engulfed by the robe, and of her setting his traveling alarm clock before turning out the light and climbing in beside him. Later he thought he heard her rise and go to the telephone, but he wasn’t sure. He slept as if he were trying to cram two nights’ worth into a few hours.

• • •

When Knox awoke, his first conscious thought was that he was not alone. He sat up quickly, the glaze of sleep gone from his eyes. There was no one visible in the room. The shades were drawn so that only a little of the still foggy daylight crept in around them, but it was enough to relieve the dimness and show him that only the furniture stood about. He turned his head toward the night stand. His clock said that it was just past noon. Then he looked down.

Cora Deane slept with the covers thrown back, his robe having been warmth enough. She lay twisted, her hair spread over the pillow, her face soft in repose. The robe had come apart during the night, exposing one shoulder and her full, deeply cleft breasts. Down in the cleft, holding her breasts slightly apart, he could see the soft leather sheathe that held the slim, sharp weapon World-Circle issued to all its feminine employees. The company also provided training in its usage.

Knox could not resist a grin. Most of the women of World Circle that he knew wore their sheathe on their leg or under their arm. But then Cora Deane was particularly well endowed to conceal hers where she wore it now. He could not help wondering if she had thought him such a danger to her virtue that she had kept it on.

Remembering her embarrassment of the day before, he reached over and tried to draw her robe together. The movement brought her eyes open. She was smiling as if she had been having a pleasant dream. Knox remained motionless, his hand on the robe.

“Good morning,” she murmured.

“I—you needed fixing,” he said lamely. He was embarrassed not for himself but for her.

But a few hours sharing a bed with a man seemed to have given her a different attitude. She laughed softly and stretched. Knox let loose of the robe and turned to get out of bed.

Cora Deane pulled the robe around herself and giggled. Knox looked at her with a half scowl. “What’s so funny?”

She said innocently, “Doesn’t World Circle’s motto translate as Ethical In All Ways?”

“That’s the way I read it.”

She giggled again. “Yesterday when you were questioning me about my lingerie, I was beginning to doubt it. Now I’m quite sure that it’s right.”

Knox stalked off to the bath, embarrassed now for an entirely different reason.

K
NOX
ordered a double breakfast sent up. He stressed the fact that it was for one person, not wanting to have McEwen snooping around to see whom he was keeping in his room. While he waited, he went into the bath and shaved and bathed. Still wearing his pajamas, he returned to the other room in time to intercept Cora as she started for the door to answer the bellhop’s knock.

“In there,” he said, indicating the bathroom. As she disappeared, he opened the door. Carl, the wizened bellhop, was there with the breakfast cart.

Knox glanced around and saw the two crushed pillows on the bed, one with a smear of lipstick on it. Casually he went to the bed and flipped up the covers. He sat down, watching Carl wheel in the tray and set it up by the window. His eyes fell on a cigaret Cora had been smoking. It was in an ashtray on the dresser. There was lipstick on it too. Cursing women who wore make-up to bed, Knox jumped up, got the cigaret, and put it in his mouth. Smoking on an empty stomach made him slightly dizzy and so he sat down again.

If Carl noticed anything amiss, he kept the knowledge from his expression. It was blank as he looked at Knox. “Anything else, sir?”

Knox said, “Who’d you tell that I wanted into the workroom yesterday?”

“Nobody,” Carl said earnestly. “Why would I?”

“Maybe to get a bigger tip than I gave you,” Knox said sourly.

“I swear I didn’t.”

“Someone,” Knox said, “knew I was there. He came down and clipped me on the head.”

“Jeez!”

It sounded as false as a stuffed brassiere. But one look at Carl told Knox he wouldn’t get anywhere. He said, “Okay, maybe I was followed.”

“I had my eye on the corridor,” Carl said. “I didn’t see anyone go down.”

“Unless they went through the men’s room,” Knox pointed out.

“That could be. I’m sorry as hell, Mr. Knox …”

Knox rubbed the still slightly sore bump on his head. “So am I,” he said. He rose and went to his coat for his billfold. He signed for the breakfast and gave Carl his usual fat tip. “I suppose,” he said casually, “the Tinsleys have already gone.”

This was one Carl could answer. “No, sir. They decided not to go. I just took coffee up a little before I came here.”

“Good,” Knox said. He watched Carl start for the door. If the man was conscious of a woman’s presence, he still gave no sign.

Carl said, “If there’s anything else I can do for you, sir.”

Knox made himself look slightly embarrassed. “Well, it’s Friday night. If there’s anything interesting going on …” He let it hang, planning to follow it up later.

Carl grinned, gave a grotesque half wink, and went out. Knox locked the door, hearing the shower start up as he did so. Stubbing out the cigaret, he surveyed the food. It was exactly what he had ordered—orange juice, bacon and scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, all of it in double proportion. He was still trying to figure out how to divide it for two people when there was only service for one when Cora Deane came out of the bath. She had her hair pinned in an upswept hairdo that was attractive if a bit ragged from haste. She wore his robe but now when it parted, he could see her slip under it.

“Here, let me,” she said. Taking a water glass, she put a knife in it and then poured in coffee. She pushed the toast onto the bacon plate, put half the scrambled eggs on the toast plate, poured coffee in the cup for Knox, used another water glass for half the orange juice, sat down and began to eat.

“I’m not the domestic type,” Knox said. He joined her. Since she took the water glass of coffee, he gave her the fork and took the spoon for his eggs. He felt much better when his plate was empty. Dividing the last of the coffee, he lit a cigaret and leaned back with a sigh.

“It’s one o’clock,” he told her.

She nodded. “I got up just before ten and phoned. I hope you didn’t hear me. I took it in the closet to keep from waking you. I didn’t have much sleep but I feel rested.”

“Same,” he said laconically. He flicked ash from his cigaret. “By the way,” he began casually, “I went down and examined that chair last night. What did you gouge the hole with?”

She smiled. “You’re determined, aren’t you? I used a knife.”

“You didn’t happen to want to hide that little job?”

“Hide it?” Then she stopped smiling. “Oh, you mean what you said to Carl. Do you think I hit you?”

“Someone with an interest in the chair did,” Knox said. He told her about the attack and the substitution.

She shook her head, her expression uncomprehending. “I can’t imagine. I’d forgotten all about it, to tell you the truth. The trick seemed to work. That was all that concerned me.”

“It’s just one of a number of things that don’t make sense,” Knox said. “That and Jock being killed—and why Toll is so interested in me. Why they were interested in you—enough to have you shadowed.”

“I don’t like that,” she said. “I thought I was doing a good job.”

“I doubt if they know you’re World-Circle,” he said. “But if you showed an extra interest in someone, they just might want to know why.”

“No one but the Tinsleys and Catlin.” She smiled. “Of course, if suspicions are correct, that’s enough, isn’t it?”

He agreed that it was. “By the way, how about Catlin?”

“He seems to be just what he claims—an insurance inspector. He’s quite thick with the Tinsleys. As for background, he seems straight enough. Eastern college, insurance through fraternity connections, worked his way up. Unmarried.”

Knox rubbed a hand over his freshly shaven jaw. “How about the letters you did for him and the Tinsleys?”

“Strictly business, all of them.” She frowned. “Really, I feel like I’m cheating the company. I found out so little.”

“It might be little to us,” he said. “It might have been a lot to Leo Auffer.” He swore feelingly. “Our one hope seems to hinge on Auffer’s having sent in a report to the home office.”

“And if he didn’t?”

“Then we’re back at the beginning, aren’t we?” Knox stubbed out his cigaret and lit a fresh one. “We’ll have to find out who the dead man you saw was, who dragged you across the hall, the meaning of that panties-whiskey bottle routine …”

“Who’s at Merkle 3-4220,” she added.

“Who really owns that converted fishing boat,” Knox went on. “And where Binks is. The rest of the day we can relax.”

“And where do I fit into this?”

“You,” Knox said, “had better stay right here.”

She looked stubborn. “What good am I here? Two of us on this are better than one, especially if Leo Auffer did not send in a report.”

“I doubt it,” he said morosely. “Right now I have the feeling that we’re about as secret as last week’s football scores. And after what happened to Jock and Leo, I don’t want to take any chances with you.”

“Taking chances is my job.”

Knox growled at her but he knew that he was wasting his breath. Short of tying her into a package and mailing her to the home office, he knew that he would not get rid of her. He had met determined feminine operatives before. Then she surprised him.

“I can pack up and leave, of course.”

“Good.”

She laughed at him. “Ostensibly, that is. Then when I come back, I’ll have a free hand.”

Knox said that he didn’t get it. “You’ll see,” she told him. Going into the bath, she finished dressing and then returned. Picking up her purse, she went to the door.

“I’ll go down the back way, pack, and leave. I’ll call the hotel from the bus depot.”

He didn’t like it but he didn’t have time to play nursemaid to her right now either. He said, “Call me when you get to your room and when you’re ready to leave. And from the depot.”

Before she could get the door open, the telephone rang. Knox lifted the receiver. “Knox speaking.”

“Knox, this is Merkle 3-4220.” The voice was cultivated and obviously being strained through a thin cloth as a disguise. It had that fuzzy sound.

“Howdy, Mitch.”

There was a moment of silence at the other end. Then the voice said, “I called to suggest you go somewhere else and enjoy the scenery. This is a bad time of year here.”

“How’re Binks and Toll?” Knox wanted to know.

“You’re much too soft,” the voice said.

Knox settled in a chair as if for a long conversation. “By the way, who was that you killed here yesterday?” He could see Cora standing, still poised, her eyes fixed on him, her expression one of wonder.

“I
heard
Leo Auffer got killed.”

“I mean the one before Auffer.”

There was silence again. Then, “If anyone but Auffer got killed in that hotel, Auffer did it, not us. Now be a smart boy, Knox, and go play somewhere else. You aren’t close to anything and before you get close, it’ll be over. Save yourself some trouble and go away.”

“Not until I’ve seen tomorrow’s football game,” Knox said.

“It’s your neck.”

“That’s right,” Knox said amiably, “and I’ll see that you don’t get a chance to stick an ice pick into it.”

The connection was broken at the other end. Knox hung up and turned to Cora Deane. “That,” he said, “was old familiar—the anonymous warning given by the disguised voice.”

She nodded, swallowing as if her throat were very dry. “I know. I got one early this morning. That’s the main reason I came to your room.”

“What time did you get the phone call?”

She seemed to be trying to recall the exact time. “I was in a sound sleep,” she said, “but I don’t think it was over forty minutes before you came.”

That checked with what he had suspected. It had been time enough for Binks to have called the Merkle number after he had got free. But that didn’t explain how Mitch—as Knox had dubbed the suave voice—knew that Cora Deane was connected with the case. His own usefulness and hers were both obviously more limited than ever now. Mitch was probably right. He should go somewhere else, have the company send in another operative.

But there was a stubborn streak in Knox. It had nearly cost him his life more than once. It probably would again—this time, he thought, if he weren’t careful.

He said, “You’d better go, Cora. And don’t come back.”

“I don’t intend to,” she assured him. “Not as Cora Deane.”