She took the bill and stowed it away in her brassiere.
‘I’ll keep you out of it.’
I left her sitting on the settee, biting her under-lip and frowning. She looked a lot less happy and a lot more worried than when I had first seen her.
Out in the corridor again, I peeped to right and left, satisfied myself no one was watching me, then stepped across the corridor into Room 23. I closed the door and began a quick but systematic search of the room.
I was looking for some proof that would tell me the lean man had spent the night here. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I looked just the same.
First I examined the bed and found a couple of black hairs on the pillow. Gracie was blonde. If he had rested his head on the pillow, it didn’t mean he had stayed in the room all night. But it certainly hinted he had.
It wasn’t until I had covered practically every inch of the apartment and was giving up that I found what I wanted. There were two cupboards in the kitchenette: one contained cups and saucers and plates; the other, jugs and dishes and cooking utensils. There was a cup and saucer amongst the jugs. They shouldn’t have been in that cupboard. They should have been in the adjacent cupboard. That gave me an idea. I turned my attention to the trash basket. Dumped on top of the usual refuse was a small pile of coffee grounds; and they were luke-warm. There was no mistake about that. They had been emptied out of a percolator some time this morning.
Gracie hadn’t made coffee this morning. That was certain. If the lean man had returned because he had forgotten something he wouldn’t have made himself coffee. That I wouldn’t believe. But if he had slept there the night, he might have made himself coffee before leaving. It would be a cold-blooded thing to have done, as he must have known Gracie was hanging dead in the bathroom. Come to think of it, he probably knew she was dead before he went to bed; and that was even more cold-blooded.
Then suddenly it was as obvious as a neon light on a dark night. This wasn’t suicide: it was murder.