Somebody did.

The central stairway stopped at each floor for a small landing and a couple of apartment doors, then jogged on up to the next landing. The janitor had a basement apartment, and I could’ve checked with him, but he might warn his tenant a cop was on the way. Instead, I went up to the first landing, knocked on the door of Apartment 1-A, and waited.

A cutie about twenty with Clara Bow curls peeked around the door at my upheld badge. She frowned.

“You’re new,” she said. Betty Boop with a bad attitude and a cigarette.

“Pardon?”

“I paid already this month. I’m not made of money.”

“Miss, I’m just here for some information. I don’t want your money.”

“Oh,” she said, warming. She opened the door wider. Her slender little shape was wrapped up in a blue-and-pink floral kimono. She looked as easy as ticktacktoe, but her timing was lousy.

“How can I help you, cowboy?”

“Do you know if any new tenants moved into this building recently?”

“Why, no.”

“Well, then-any apartments empty right now, that you know off?”

“No. I don’t think so.” She blew a smoke ring. “Didn’t you check with the janitor?”

I gave her my best suave smile. “Maybe I’d rather talk to you.”

Ronald Colman had nothing to worry about, but she bought it just the same, a sultry smirk making the cigarette in her lips erect.

“I’ve been here over a year, cowboy, and nobody’s moved in or out in all that time.”

I thought about that. Then I took out the circular and folded it so that all she could see was Bernice Rogers’s picture.

“Know her?”

“Sure,” she said. “That’s Bernice Smith. She lives upstairs in 4-B.”