Miss Johnson. His room when I saw him was, I think it was room 225. It was down a corridor to the right. My room was 319, on the next floor. You turned just a little to the left to get to it. His was about 225 or something like that. So he had probably been moved to a cheaper room. My room would probably have had the same rent as his—$3 a day—but later his was maybe a little bit less.
Mr. Slawson. I see. And would the woman employee of the hotel who told you that Mr. Oswald had gone have had charge only of the old corridor and not the corridor with room 201 in it?
Miss Johnson. No; I think she would have had charge of his new room too, but he would have entered it possibly from the other side of the landing. I rather forget where the 01 was, but he might have entered it rather than from her desk turning right and then going down a corridor and then turning left. He might have taken his key from her and gone off to the left from her desk and from the elevator. She would have had charge of his room, but she might have been on duty for the first time since he moved, and only been aware that he had left—she might not have been trying to mislead me. It might have been her first day on duty since he switched his room, and she might have seen he wasn't in 225 and not realized that he was on the same floor but in another room.
I think the key thing is they probably gave him a very inexpensive room, since they were paying or since he was very poor. They perhaps accommodated him in allowing him to switch rooms.
Mr. Slawson. You mentioned a minute ago that he might have taken his key from her. You mean by that that ordinarily—or rather, frequently—a hotel guest would leave his key with the woman on his floor, but that it was possible to carry the key with you so that you would not have to pick it up from her?
Miss Johnson. No; customarily you pick it up from her when you go to your room and you leave it with her when you leave your room. It is simply that she would have had a book in which she had written down the room number of every guest, and I think each morning changes would be recorded there. My guess is that she rather than consciously misleading me—although she could have been told to say he was out, was gone—that there is a very good chance that she simply had not taken in that he was still there and in another room.
He would have left his key though, and customarily she would have always asked him for the key when he left.
Mr. Slawson. Did Oswald say something to you which would have led you to believe that he was interested in getting a less expensive room at the hotel?
Miss Johnson. He struck me as notably reticent about his finances, about his financial situation. He told me, truthfully or otherwise; that he had been there for 10 days on Intourist. He said he was paying the standard room and food rate, and said "I want to make it clear they are not sponsoring me." I must have asked him about his financial situation in some detail, because I thought it would give a clue as to how they were handling him. If they had allowed him to go from the $30 a day rate, that is the rate if you come Intourist which he said he was on, if they allowed him to go from $30 to a lesser sum, since mine was $3, that would indicate that they had an interest in him and they were seeking to help him, whether he knew it or not.
And he was defensive. He bristled on the point, and I assume that there was more of an exchange of words than I took notes of, and that there was something there. I just didn't know what it was, and I couldn't get it out of him.