Another five seconds, and I had the information. Miss Cutler had checked out about twenty minutes earlier. She had left no forwarding address.
I hung up the telephone, took the elevator down to the lobby, went into a luggage store, bought a suitcase, went back upstairs, threw all of my belongings into the suitcase. I packed the paper parcel on Roberta’s bed without unwrapping it. I also put in her nightgown and stockings. The creams and toilet articles on the dresser I managed to get into the little bag she’d purchased.
I moistened a towel and went over the place for fingerprints, rubbing door handles, mirrors, dresser tops — anything I thought she might have touched. When I had finished I telephoned the office to send up someone for the baggage. I went down and checked out, telling the clerk that my mother had passed away very suddenly, and that my sister and I were going out to stay with another sister who lived in Venice and was completely broken up. We didn’t want to leave her alone.
I took a taxicab to the Union Depot, let it go, checked the baggage, put the checks in a stamped envelope, scribbled my office address on the outside, sealed the envelope, and dropped it into the mailbox. I looked at my watch and saw I had just time to go down to the office, pick up Bertha Cool, and get out to the airport.
Chapter Twenty-One
The plane came roaring down out of the sky, to soar along for a few feet, skimming the ground; then the wheels touched the cement runway, and the big transcontinental express glided slowly to a landing, then snarled into speed as it came up the runway and swung gracefully around in a wide pivot, stopping almost directly in front of the exit gate.
Emory G. Hale was the second one off. He was talking with a rather distinguished-looking individual who wore a close-cropped, gray mustache, half spectacles, and looked altogether too much like a banker to be a banker.
Hale seemed in a rare good humor as though he had had a wonderful trip. When he saw us he came toward us with outstretched hand, his face wreathed in his characteristic set smile.
His greeting for Bertha was hurried. Most of his attention was for me.
“Lam, I’m certainly glad to see you! I was hoping that you’d get down here to meet the plane. That’s splendid of you. Lam, I want you to meet — but pardon, me, I’m forgetting my manners. Mrs. Cool, may I present Lieutenant Pellingham of the New Orleans police force? And this is Donald Lam, Lieutenant.”