“Earlier in the evening Cunweather was confident that Morgan Birks never got to the Perkins Hotel. He seemed to know everything I did at the Perkins Hotel. I played one person at the Perkins Hotel for information. That person was the bell captain. The bell captain must have been one of their gang who was planted there.”

She said, “That’s sense.”

“Then they must have planted the bell captain before I got there.”

“That’s right.”

“And it probably took a little money and preparation so they must have been working on that for a day or two.”

“All right.”

“But the Perkins Hotel didn’t actually figure in the play until Sally Durke went there,” I said, “and I was right on her heels. And the bell captain was pretty well established by that time.”

“That means they had a good tip-off service,” she said.

“It means more than that. How did anyone know Sally Durke was coming to the Perkins Hotel? She didn’t have any occasion to meet Morgan Birks until after I’d gone to her and made my play. That was what started her hunting for Morgan.”

“Go ahead. What’s your idea, Donald?”

I said, “Cunweather knew Birks used the hotel as a place to meet his sweetie. He didn’t know who the girl was. He did know Morgan Birks would come there to meet the girl sooner or later. Cunweather is a pretty able citizen. You can gamble he had that hotel sewed up so Birks couldn’t get in or out. Yet Birks got in, and he got out.”

Mrs. Cool said, “What the hell are you trying to pull, Donald? You say he couldn’t get in or get out—and yet he did get in and get out. You’re the one who’s screwy.”

“Look here,” I said. “Let’s figure this thing from a different angle. Notice that they put us in room 620. I tried to get a room across the hall. That’s what a detective would ordinarily have done. He’d have wanted a room where he could watch the door of Sally Durke’s room. But all of those rooms had been taken. Now that may have been an accident. You’d think so if it weren’t for the fact that Sally Durke had reserved room 620 for me.”

“For you, Donald?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“How do you figure?”

“She’d telephoned in and reserved two rooms with connecting bath. She had 618 and 620. When she came in, she took 618. Unless there was another bath in connection with that, she took the room without the bath. That left 620 with the bath for me. Now that was damned considerate of Sally, no matter how you try to figure it.”

“But what makes you think she left it for you?”

“Everything. She wanted me to have the room with the bath because she wanted me to use the bath.”