She drew in her breath sharply. To hide her surprise or give herself time to think she introduced the husky customer in slacks and screamy-striped blazer.
“Jefford MacGregory, Mister Vine. Mister MacGregory is with Lanerd, Kenson and Fullbright.”
“Oh — Stack O’ Jack Show.” I smiled as if I’d never missed the program, knew all about him. It wasn’t hard to make a couple of close guesses about him.
MacGregory was thick-necked and bull-chested with big-muscled arms and legs; there was a slight indication of a paunch that said he did himself well at the board. He had a huge dome head, slightly bald in front but making up for it by a black spade beard. His face was Falstaffian with round, ingenuous eyes and a mouth that could have been humorous. It wasn’t, right then.
“You’re not the one who called me up — at the studio?”
I said no, I wasn’t. But the other guy and I wanted to locate Mister Lanerd for the same reason.
Marge Lanerd’s breathlessness was even more noticeable. “He telephoned me, too. Said there’d been some trouble.”
“Yair.” I couldn’t decide whether either of them knew about the murder. “Trouble. About one of Miss Millett’s guards.”
“Roffis?” She made it a question.
“He was killed.” No beating around the bush. I gave it to them cold. Everything except my talk with Ruth Moore and the cryptic Seven-for-a-secret business. “I’m working for the hotel. I have to clear Auguste. Miss Millett probably saw the killer; that would have been why she asked the guard to hurry into her bedroom, just before the murderer ran out of it and bumped into our room-service captain. You see why it’s important to find her. Fast.”