Cunweather said, “Come, come, Mrs. Cool. You’ve received a hundred and sixty-five dollars of my money. You know where Morgan Birks is. I think you should tell us.”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully, and said, “That information might not do you any good. Again it might be worth money. I’m not one to give something for nothing.”

The telephone rang while Cunweather was rocking back and forth thinking the thing out. “Would you answer it, m’love?”

“Answer it yourself,” she said, sitting perfectly still.

He sighed, tightened his fingers around the arms of the rocking chair, heaved himself to his feet, and waddled out into the other room. He took the receiver off the hook, and said, in a cautious voice, “Yes, what is it?” After that, he was silent for eight or ten seconds. Then he said, “You’re sure?—well, come on out here, and I’ll give you some instructions. There’s a new angle on the case.”

He dropped the receiver into place without saying “good-by,” came waddling back, and beamed at Mrs. Cool. “I can well appreciate how you feel, Mrs. Cool,” he said. Then he turned to his wife and said, “Morgan Birks is dead, m’love. A girl named Alma Hunter shot him in Sandra Birks’ apartment early this morning. She shot him in the back, just as he was trying to run from the apartment.”

“Dead?” Mrs. Cunweather asked.

“Like a doornail,” Cunweather assured her.

“That,” she said, “makes it different.”

Mrs. Cool said, “Come on, Donald.”

I got to my feet. She closed her purse, slid her legs back so that her feet were as far in under the chair as she could get them, pushed her hands down against the arms of the chair, and got to her feet.

We started for the door. Cunweather and his wife were whispering. After a second or two, and before we were out of the hallway, Cunweather called, “Just a minute, Mrs. Cool. I want to ask you a question.” He came waddling out into the hallway, and said, “Do you know whether Morgan Birks was in room 618 all the time? In other words, was he in there when this mistress of his registered?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “How about it, Donald?”

“No chance,” I said, “unless she was standing in with the bellboy, and Morgan Birks had been planted there. The clerk rented her 618 as a vacant room. She’d telephoned and asked for two rooms with a connecting bath. She’d been assigned 618 and 20. When she registered, she gave up 620, saying the other party hadn’t—” I broke off as something came to my mind.

“Hadn’t what?” Cunweather asked, interested.

“Hadn’t shown up. The bellboy took her up to 618. The captain got me the information, and I rented 620.”

“Who had the bath?”

“I did.”

“Then 618 had been rented without the bath?” Cunweather asked me.