Funny he should be calhng down now. Only twenty minutes ago that Miss Payne in 414 had called him from her room. Evelyn had listened in, of course. Sometimes you heard some real good stuff when the guests of different sexes called each other late in the evening. And she'd seen that affair shaping up the last few days, too. Miss Payne was tall and had a sort of haughty way about her, but with a welcoming eye for the men for all that. Funny how she couldn't do better than old Drood. But then she was plenty old, too. Thirty-five at the least. And when you got that old, Evelyn thought complacently from her point of vantage at nineteen, you were just about ready to take anything that wore pants.

But they'd been very circumspect on that earlier call. Almost like they might have some idea a girl downstairs on the switchboard wouldn't have anything better to do than listen in, Evelyn told herself indignantly.

Just Miss Payne saying she'd found that piece in the paper she'd told Mr. Drood about that afternoon, and would he care to come up and get it? And Mr. Drood drooling into the phone how he'd love to, and maybe Miss Payne'd like it if he brought along a night-cap for the two of them. And Miss Payne saying she had the ice if he had anything to go along with it.

That was it, Evelyn told herself as the plug went in. No ice had gone up to 414 since about five o'clock. Probably she just had a couple of half-melted cubes left, and when they decided to stretch the night-cap out into another one, old Drood had slipped back to his own room to order it- as if that was going to fool anybody in a hotel.

Into the mouthpiece beneath her chin, Evelyn Thompson said in dulcet tones, "Your call, please?"