“You say she has had a caller since her dinner guests left?” Shayne interrupted angrily. “A man?”
Her black eyes shifted away from his hard gaze. She wriggled her pointed nose. “It isn’t for me to say,” she began weakly, and started to back away.
Shayne caught her bony arms and said harshly, “You’ve intimated that Miss Macon hasn’t been acting in accordance with the rules of a respectable house. What are you hinting at?”
She lifted her chin and answered in a spiteful tone, “I am a respectable woman who works hard all day and need my sleep at night. Such things that go on — men coming and going the back way. With my apartment next door I can’t help seeing what happens.”
Shayne held her arm, pulling her with him to Barbara Little’s door. He knocked loudly, and while he waited, asked, “The back way, you say! On the third floor? What are you hinting at?”
“It isn’t a hint. With my own eyes I saw the man leap from her balcony to the hotel balcony opposite. And now you come—”
“And wake you up ringing her bell,” Shayne interrupted. He let go of her arm and rattled the knob, calling, “Margo! Wake up. It’s Mike.”
“See,” said the woman. “She pretends to be out to avoid you. If you are a gentleman you’ll go away.”
“You don’t understand,” Shayne told her wearily. “It’s important that I see—” He was rattling the knob again. It turned and the door opened. He shoved it wide, saying, “There’s something strange here. She was expecting me.” He reached inside and found a wall switch, flooded the room with light and exclaimed, “My God!”
The woman pushed past him, screamed, and swayed back, crying wildly, “ Mon Dieu! It is she! The blood — murdered! La pauvre enfant!”