“Very pretty, but it don’t mean a thing. The swell surroundings only brought it on quicker. He wanted to die in comfort, in style, while he was about it. That’s been known to happen too, don’t forget. About his not being able to write, sorry, but”—they flirted the sheet of notepaper before his eyes—“this evidence shows he was able to write. He must have put one over on you. You probably tipped your mitt in giving him your writing test. He caught on you were looking for someone who couldn’t write, so he played ’possum. About the money—well, it musta gone out the window with him even if he was just in his underwear, and somebody down there snitched it before the cop came along. No evidence. The investigation’s closed as far as we’re concerned.” They sauntered out into the hall.

“Damn it,” Striker yelled after them, “you can’t walk out of here! You’re turning your backs on a murder!”

“We are walking out,” came back from the hallway. “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” The elevator door clicked mockingly shut.

Courlander said almost pityingly, “It looks like tonight wasn’t your lucky night.”

“It isn’t yours either!” Striker bellowed. He swung his fist in a barrelhouse right, connected with the city dick’s lower jaw, and sent him volplaning back on his shoulders against the carpet.

Perry’s moon-face and bald head were white as an ostrich egg with long-nursed resentment. “Get out of here! You’re fired! Bring bums into my house so they can commit suicide on the premises, will you? You’re through!”

“Fired?” Striker gave him a smouldering look that made Perry draw hastily back out of range. “I’m quitting, is what you mean! I wouldn’t even finish the night out in a murder nest like this!” He stalked past the manager, clenched hands in pockets, and went up to his room to pack his belongings.

His chief problem was to avoid recognition by any of the staff, when he returned there nearly a year later. To achieve this after all the years he’d worked in the hotel, he checked in swiftly and inconspicuously. The mustache he had been growing for the past eight months and which now had attained full maturity, effectively changed the lower part of his face. The horn-rimmed glasses, with plain inserts instead of ground lenses, did as much for the upper part, provided his hat brim was tipped down far enough. If he stood around, of course, and let them stare, eventual recognition was a certainty, but he didn’t. He’d put on a little added weight from the long months of idleness in the furnished room. He hadn’t worked in the interval. He could no doubt have got another berth, but he considered that he was still on a job—even though he was no longer drawing pay for it—and he meant to see it through.