“You’ll recognize him from his photographs?” Sandra Birks asked.

“Yes, I’ve studied them carefully.”

“How are you going to get in?” Bleatie asked me.

“I’m going to ring the room, tell them it’s the office talking, that there’s a telegram for Mr. B. F. Morgan, and ask if I shall send it up.”

“That’s an old dodge. They’ll get suspicious, and tell you to slip it under the door.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll have the telegram and a registration book. I won’t be able to get the book under the door. I’ll try. The telegram will be real.”

“They’ll open the door a crack, see you, and slam it shut.”

“Not when they see me, they won’t,” I said. “I’m going out and collect the stage properties. You stay here and hold the fort. Don’t get excited if Morgan comes in. I’ll be back inside of half an hour. He’s certain to stay at least that long. Remember, she’s brought an overnight bag.”

“I don’t like it,” Bleatie said. “It sounds crude and—”

“Everything sounds crude when you outline it in cold conversation,” I said. “It’s the build-up. Look at all the bunco games which are pulled by the slickers. You read about them in the newspapers, and they seem so crude you can’t imagine anyone falling for them. Yet people fall for them three hundred and sixty-five days out of the year just like clockwork. It’s the build-up.”

“Nevertheless, I still think it’s crude. I—”

I didn’t see any sense debating it with him. I slipped out of the door and into the corridor, leaving him to explain to the others how crude it was.

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

I WAS gone about an hour. When I came back, I had a bellboy’s uniform which I’d rented from a costume house, a telegram I’d sent myself, under the name of B. F. Morgan, and a notebook with ruled pages, half a dozen of which had been scrawled with signatures that I’d faked with lead pencil and fountain pen.

I tapped gently on the door of my room in the hotel.

Alma Hunter opened it.

Looking past the open door, I saw Bertha Cool squeezed into the big, overstuffed chair, filling it to overflowing. A bottle of Scotch, some ice, and a siphon of soda were on the table beside her. She was sipping from a tall glass. Sandra Birks came gliding toward me, like some supple shadow. “Oh you bungler!” she said. “You’ve ruined things.”

“Why the bouquets?” I asked, my eye drifting past her to rest apprehensively on the head of the Cool Detective Agency.

“For God’s sake, close the door,” Bertha Cool said to Sandra. “If you want to bellyache, go ahead and do it, but don’t advertise your troubles to the hotel. Come on in, Donald.”