  Bill stepped out of the elevator and turned left as the clerk had directed. He passed along the corridor until he came to a door marked “49.” He stopped and knocked. For a moment he waited, marshalling his thoughts, then the door swung inwards and he was confronted by a low-browed gorilla of a man who held an automatic in his hand. “Is this Mr. Johnson’s room?” Bill inquired. “Who wants to know?” the man rasped. “The name is Bolton,” snapped Bill. “I’ve flown down here from Clayton, Maine, especially to see him if that means anything to you.” “Let’s hear your business if you’ve got any.” The man continued to point the revolver at Bill’s chest. “My business,” he said evenly, “is with Mr. Johnson. If you work for the man who sent me here I advise you to tell that to Mr. Johnson—and tell it pronto.” “Cut the spiel and let him in, Jake!” called a soft voice whose owner was hidden by the half open door. Jake muttered a surly curse, but he stepped aside and Bill walked into the room. The door slammed behind him and he heard the key turn in the lock. He was surprised to find himself in a large and handsomely furnished sitting room. Thick hangings of gold brocade were drawn over the windows, shutting out the night and with it the air. The room was close and filled with tobacco smoke. Two massive couches upholstered in brocade were set back to back in the center of the room. One end of the sitting room was filled by a huge mahogany sideboard, loaded with bottles and glasses. At the other end stood a round card table covered with dark green felt. A number of heavily upholstered arm chairs lined the walls, and the polished floor was almost completely covered with handsome Oriental rugs. The walls were hung with a number of really good hunting prints. Bill glimpsed a door behind the card table, but almost immediately his eyes focussed on a young man who sat on the arm of one of the couches. He was tall and very slender, immaculately dressed in white flannels and a light blue, double-breasted sports coat with dull gold buttons. Bill was astonished to see that the highly manicured nails of his white, tapering fingers were tinted carmine. His soft voice when he spoke lisped like a girl’s. “I’m Slim Johnson,” he said languidly. “What did you want to see me about, buddy?” Bill imitated Sanders’ quick, nervous nod. “Zenas!” he said, and waited.... “Okay,” lisped young Johnson. “Bill Bolton, isn’t it?—The guy that dished von Hiemskirk’s hash?” “It is,” Bill said shortly. “I had orders to be here at nine tonight.” Slim Johnson glanced at a diamond-studded wristwatch. “You’re three minutes late,” he purred, “but I guess that’s near enough. Take one of those chairs and make yourself comfortable. I’ll talk to you in a few minutes.” He turned to a man who entered at that moment, a stockily built bruiser, as rough in his appearance as Jake. Bill sat down in a chair near the wall. Except for the three men and himself, there was no one else in the room, though it was apparently furnished to accommodate a large number. “Spill the beans, Hank,” Johnson smiled pleasantly on his henchman. “Make it snappy, though. I don’t want to keep Mr. Bolton waiting too long.” “Humph! Ye had me drug up here,” snarled Hank. “I ain’t done nuthin’—I couldn’t help them guys highjackin’ the truck. If I’d ha’ made a move they’d have put me on the spot right there.” “Oh, no,” Johnson smiled, “come now—surely that’s a bit of an exaggeration?” The man glared belligerently about him. “If any guy says dat dem guys didn’t have the drop on me, he’s a liar!” “I fancy that is the unadulterated truth, my boy, but the trouble is, you leave out a few things.” “I ain’t left out nothin’—” “Oh, yes, you have!” The purring voice directed itself toward Bill. “You see, Mr. Bolton, the sad story runs this way. Last night, Hank, who drives one of my trucks, got highjacked with a full load by the Muller gang up near Ridgefield. What he omits to tell us is that Tubby Muller passed over half a grand to him for his part of the job.” Here, at a smothered exclamation from Hank, his inquisitor put up a slim hand in gentle protest. “Now don’t try to look like the picture of injured innocence, Hank. What Hank doesn’t know, Mr. Bolton, is that I have watched him for something like this ever since he and Tubby got together up at Glendale one night last week. And although they were not advertising the fact, I heard of it. Last night—and this will also be a surprise to Hank—I was behind the stone wall at the side of the road when he turned over the truck, and I saw Tubby hand him the money.” Slim Johnson’s arm shot out like a serpent uncoiling. There came a sharp click and Hank rolled off the couch on to the floor. Bill stared at the man’s body in horrified amazement. Then he heard the smooth voice of Johnson speak again to him. “Airguns,” he said pleasantly, “certainly have their uses.” Johnson slipped the revolver up his sleeve again and crooked a finger at Jake. “Take that stiff out of here,” he ordered in his lisping tones, “he’s spoiling my rug and I paid five grand for it.” While Jake dragged the dead man through the doorway beyond the card table, Slim Johnson drew out a gold case, selected a cigarette which he lighted, and filled his lungs with smoke. “No doubt you’re shocked by the summary justice you saw meted out,” he remarked with a return of his languid air. “Treachery has its own reward in this business. I’m sorry if it disturbed you, Mr. Bolton.” Bill did not reply. He was thinking that of all the cold-blooded murders he had ever heard of, this was certainly the worst. He saw now that the young man’s languid effeminacy was but a cloak to camouflage a nature hard as nails and utterly ruthless. Nobody had to tell him that he himself was in very dangerous waters and that unless he could handle this lady-like monster with kid gloves, he, too, would be removed from the Oriental rug as a piece of loathsome dÉbris. Bill made an effort to be matter-of-fact. “Suppose we come to business,” he suggested. “Exactly what I was about to propose, Mr. Bolton, or shall I say ‘Bill’—you don’t mind if I call you Bill, do you? So much more clubby, you know—” “Not at all.” Bill felt that anything would be preferable to this silly chatter. He, therefore, took the plunge. “You want to know where Mr. Evans may be found?” “That is so. Where is he?” “Somewhere in Stamford, I presume. Just where, I can’t say.” “Oh, come now. How about your phone talk at seven-twenty?” “What do you know about that?” Slim Johnson took a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his coat. “Just about everything, Bill, old thing,” he smiled. “Everything except the number you called. Here’s a report of the conversation. Amusing reading it makes, I must say. I might mention that we have tapped your home line, but the silly fool who listened in didn’t wake up until you’d been put through to your friend Evans. Come, let’s have the number!” “Nothing doing, Johnson,” Bill said steadily, although he fully expected to see the gangster’s arm shoot forward the next instant, as it had done when Hank was killed. “You already know what I said to Evans. Well, that goes with you too, so far as I’m concerned.” Slim Johnson gave him a quizzical glance. Then he lit another cigarette, which he smoked in a long gilded holder. For several minutes he stared at a print above Bill’s head and sent smoke rings toward the ceiling. “From what I know of your character,” he said at last, and his voice sounded to Bill for all the world like the purr of a great cat playing with its prey, “you mean just what you say—at present. By morning, you may change your mind. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’ll have to use other methods. Go in to the bedroom now. I’m sorry that you will have to bear with all that’s left of dear Hank for a while; but we’ll remove the body later. Good night to you—and sweet dreams!” Bill saw that Jake stood by the door with the automatic menacing him once more. Without a word he got to his feet and walked into the bedroom. Behind him the door closed and he heard a bolt shot home. In the soft glow from rose-shaded lamps, Bill saw that this room was also of good size. The place reminded him of those impossible boudoir-bedrooms one sees portrayed on the screen. The bed was a huge, canopied affair of gilt and rose, and stood on a dais at one end of the room. Twenty or thirty small pillows covered with rose-colored silk were piled at the head on a rose damask coverlet. The walls and ceiling of the room were of white painted wood with panels of rose silk framed in gilt. On the hardwood floor, a rose rug, silk-piled, was spread. A chaise lounge, wicker arm chairs and mirrored tables laden with jars and bottles all bore out the same color scheme. Bill thought that all that was needed to complete the screen picture was a movie actress lying back against the pillows, being served with breakfast on a tray by a “French” maid—“Gosh! what a dump!” He looked about him, but saw no sign of Hank. He investigated the two closed doors at one end of the room, found that one led into the wardrobe closet, where thirty or forty of Slim’s suits hung on padded hangers, together with numberless other articles of wearing apparel on the shelves. The other door opened into a rose tiled bathroom. Onyx shelves held piles of towels, sponges, soap, bath salts in glass jars, and in one corner stood a large wicker hamper, painted rose color. Bill noticed that the single stained glass window high in the bathroom wall was barred. That gave him a new slant on the plan. He went into the bedroom and pulled the curtains back from the two windows there. Both were crisscrossed with heavy bars of steel. Slim Johnson’s bedroom was well protected from all intruders, and he, Bill Bolton, was as effectually a prisoner as though he had been cast into an underground dungeon. He stood near the door to the sitting room, and through the panels he could hear the mumble of voices. Instinctively he moved nearer and placed his ear against the keyhole. Slim Johnson was speaking: “Give him an hour. He’ll be in bed and asleep by that time. Then go in there and remove the—er—laundry. Better take Alec with you. It will be heavy. Come along with me, now. I’ve got to see Dago Mike about that shipment he landed tonight. It won’t take long and then we can come back to this job. If the big boss makes us let that lad go after we torture him in the morning—what he doesn’t know about the laundry won’t hurt anybody, eh?” Bill heard Johnson giggle, and then the door slammed to the corridor. He straightened himself thoughtfully, stared at the bed and saw that a pair of silk pajamas, rose-hued, had been laid out on the coverlet. Slowly he walked into the bathroom again. The next instant he had the lid of the hamper open, and disclosed to view a bundle of soiled shirts, crumpled pajamas, collars and handkerchiefs. Bill scattered these articles to right and left. Then uncontrollably, he shrank back. Huddled in the basket, doubled awry, was the body of a man. Only the head and shoulders were visible. But the head was the head of Hank. |
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