I had to get hold of Tildy Millett to clear Auguste, to knock down that inside-job obsession of Hacklin’s. I had to reach her before Hacklin did, too. Or they’d stop her from saying so much as hello to me.
Fran was down in the lobby, keeping an eye out for more of Edie’s sugarplums. I complimented her on tracing the first pair to Yaker’s room, told her to get Morry, send him up with that one-two punch: Guests in the adjoining room are being disturbed, sir, and, if that didn’t send the cuties scampering, five minutes later: There’s a man down in the lobby claiming his sister is up here in your suite, sir. We’re trying to keep him from coming up, but—
Fran said, “You won’t be around?”
I told her where I’d be. Signaled Zingy, none of his fancy manipulations, just the ancient crook-of-the-finger come-hither.
“What’ll it be, Mister V?”
I described the cream-colored suit Auguste had told about.
“Yeah.” Zingy laid one finger alongside his nose, Santa Claus style. Denoting intense concentration, no doubt. “I remember some customer — wearing a piece of custard pie like that. Lemme see, now—” He stared at the pattern in the carpet. He examined the shimmering chandelier which distinguishes the lobby. He gave up.
I was glad to find Auguste hadn’t been making it up; had been able to see the suit if he couldn’t delineate the wearer. But it wasn’t good news otherwise. The man wouldn’t have been Al Gowriss, the narcotic addict. Zingy wouldn’t ever have forgotten a face like that.
The individual who’d wiped his bloody fingers on Auguste’s sleeve had either been someone so ordinary, so average, so unworthy of notice that Zingy couldn’t pick him out of his memory file. Or he could be someone Zingy’d seen so often he’d been more impressed by the suit than by its owner.
Zingy was distressed. “I’ll wreck my brain, Mister V. Maybe it’ll come to me.”