Lots of things happened all at once. The grinning detective said to the three men who had been walking along with me, “You boys can leave now. Remember to be available when we call on you.” The other detective brought Esther Clarde out from the elevator. Bertha Cool, without looking back, walked to the telephone booth at the end of the hallway. She squeezed herself in, but wasn’t able to get the door closed. I saw her drop a nickel and dial a number. She put her lips up close to the transmitter so people outside couldn’t hear what was being said. The hotel night clerk came hopping down off the shoe-shining stand. One shoe was shined. The other wasn’t. His pants cuffs had been doubled back. He was dancing with excitement. He kept pointing his finger at me and saying, “That’s the one. That’s the fellow. I’d recognize him anywhere.”
He saw Esther and ran toward her. “Look, Esther, there’s the guy. That’s the one. That’s—”
Esther said, “You’re crazy, Walter, that isn’t the man. He looks something like it, but it isn’t the man.”
He looked at her in astonished surprise. “Why, it is too. You can’t mistake him. He’s—”
“He has the same build,” Esther said, “and about the same complexion, but the man who came in the hotel was a little broader, a little heavier, and I think a year or two older.”
The clerk hesitated dubiously, staring at me.
The detective said, “Be your age, guy. She’s been playing around with him and is trying to protect him.”
The clerk’s face went white as a sheet. He said, “That’s not so! Esther, you know that isn’t so! Tell him it’s a lie.”
“It’s a lie,” Esther said.
“Of course it’s a lie. Esther’s running a cigar counter, and she kids them all along, but when it comes to—”