Vicki had difficulty in locating an address and telephone number for Dr. Alice James, in San Francisco or in any of its suburbs. She used the same methods as in her search for Whitney Decorators, with the same result: there was no record of any Dr. Alice James. No such person existed.
Lucy in New York had lied again. And on this point, Mr. Dorn had lied.
Up to now Vicki had more or less dismissed her doubts about why Dorn’s findings did not tally with hers, by taking the blame for any error upon herself. But now she was brought up short. Mr. Dorn was guilty of a lie about the search for Lucy Rowe!
It struck her as odd that, so far as she had checked today, he had lied only about this one point—about the nonexistent Dr. Alice James. On what other points involving Dorn could she check?
“Well, Mr. Dorn said he met Lucy last Sunday in the lobby of the St. Clair Hotel,” Vicki recalled, “and Mr. Bryant, that first day at lunch, mentioned Dorn’s being at the St. Clair Hotel. I assume Dorn stayed there on his second visit last week, too. Let’s see what a check turns up on that.”
She tried calling the St. Clair Hotel, but the desk would not release any information over the telephone. Vicki powdered her nose, put on her hat and gloves, and went over to the hotel.
She was obliged to see the hotel manager, prove who she was, and state her business (as far as she discreetly could) before she could persuade him to have an assistant look up back records. The assistant, a Mr. Craig, finally told her:
“Mr. Thurman Dorn stayed at this hotel from January twelfth through January twenty-first, and overnight on February twenty-first.”
But these dates did not fully tally with Mrs. Bryant’s statement! According to her, Dorn was in San Francisco, and presumably at this hotel, January tenth to twenty-third, and February twentieth to twenty-second. Two days were unaccounted for at the beginning of his January trip, and two days were unaccounted for at the end of his January trip. Also, two days were unaccounted for on his February trip. Where had Dorn been? At another San Francisco hotel? Not likely, no point to it. At Pine Top? But in January, Lucy and Mrs. Heath had not yet left San Francisco for Pine Top, so Dorn would have had no reason to be there. And in February—on Sunday, February twenty-second—Dorn and Lucy had said they met in this hotel lobby.
Where had Mr. Dorn been on those unaccounted-for days, and what had he been doing? Since he flew from coast to coast, traveling had not eaten up those several extra days. Unless he had made a stopover somewhere en route, and not come directly from New York to San Francisco? But that was sheer speculation.