Miss Lally led the two men down a corridor, around a corner, and past several doors to number 1422. With her hand on the knob she turned a strained and frightened face up to Shayne. “See,” she whispered, pointing to the transom, “there’s a light in her room.”
Shayne reached past her and rapped sharply on the door. The corridor was quiet as a tomb and they waited without breathing, listening, hearing nothing in the silent room beyond the door.
Beatrice Lally began twisting the knob frantically, calling Miss Morton’s name loudly, begging her to open the door.
“Do you have a key?” Shayne asked.
“No-I-but I have a key to fourteen-twenty,” she stammered.
“What good will that do?” he demanded irritably.
She didn’t answer, but turned toward the next door with Shayne striding behind her. Rourke lifted his spine from the wall he had relaxed against, untangled his crossed feet, and followed them.
Miss Lally had the key in the lock, explaining, “There’s a connecting bathroom. I do my typing in here. Miss Morton always takes two rooms with a connecting bath if she can’t get a suite,” she ended, pushing the door open.
One of the twin beds had been removed to make room for a typewriter desk, a metal file, and two tables that were cluttered with papers, clipped portions of manuscripts, and reams of typing-paper. A chromium ash stand overflowed with cigarette butts, and wadded sheets of discarded script spilled over the top of the wastebasket onto the floor.
Miss Lally nodded toward an open door and said, “That’s the bathroom,” whispering again, her glasses dangling from her fingers, her eyes round and frightened. “She never latches the door on her side. Please, if everything is all right, don’t let her know I had anything to do-with this. She’d be terribly angry with me.”
Shayne looked at her for a moment before going to the door. There was little doubt that she was terrified of her employer’s wrath; and he wondered, vaguely, what sort of woman Sara Morton really was as he stepped into the tiled bathroom and switched on the light.