“No. I think you’re too scared to know what you’re doing.”
She examined me searchingly then for the first time. “Yes, I am, that’s true. I shouldn’t have expected you to come up here with me. I have no justification for dragging you into this hideous business.”
“You didn’t drag me up here. I came willingly.” I wasn’t surprised to find the telephone one of the old-fashioned sort with the receiver hanging on a hook. I picked it up, waited for the operator.
“They must have thought it queer, downstairs. How did you register? John J. Jones and wife?” She made an attempt at a smile.
“Maybe I should just have written Mister and Missus Lx.” I jiggled the hook.
She stood in front of the gay-nineties bureau, taking off the kerchief; she froze with both hands up to her head.
“Lx. What do you mean?”
I took the note out of my pocket. “This was stuck in your mail pigeonhole after you left the suite tonight.”
She came, reached for it as if it were a scorpion. Her expression was wooden; she didn’t seem puzzled at all.
The operator came on. I gave the P-R number. Asked for Fran Lane.