A Letter of Mary - Laurie R. King [15]
I was forced to agree. We split up, Holmes to retrace Miss Ruskin's steps, I to continue on, in hopes of encountering her destination.
SIX
zeta
I was fortunate, in that the area was not wall-to-wall with hotels and short-term boardinghouses. The sixth one was distinctly second-rate, with pretensions, but my enquiry about an old lady in pantaloons and tall boots paid off. The man at the desk flicked his eyes over me appraisingly, and obviously he did not know what to make of my combination of wire-rimmed glasses, thick, old-fashioned hairstyle, tailored trousers and jacket, expensive silk blouse, and a gold band on my right hand, with no hat, no gloves, and flat shoes. He was forced to abandon all assumptions and treat me matter-of-factly, which was, of course, one of the reasons I dressed as I did.
"Yes, madam, the lady checked in on Monday afternoon. I saw her on Tuesday, in the afternoon, but I was off duty on Wednesday and Thursday."
"Is her key in?"
"Yes, madam, as well as a letter."
"Oh, I wonder if that's why she didn't meet me today at the restaurant? May I?" My tone and my waiting hand made it no question. He automatically held it out for my inspection, and I deftly took it from him. It had a Cambridge postal mark on it. I thrust it into my handbag and smiled at him. "Yes, it's mine. Very worrying, though. I hope she's all right. Do you mind if I have a look in her room, to make sure she's not ill, or perhaps left a note for me? She's very absentminded." I smiled vacuously at this non sequitur and held out my hand again for the key. The man had been off for two days but even so, it was astonishing that he had not yet heard that a woman had died half a mile away. The police could sometimes be terribly slow if they had no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary about an accident.
The man hesitated, but just then a taxi disgorged a family with several small American noisemakers and numerous bags, and he dropped the key into my hand and turned to the harried-looking father. I made haste to disappear.
The lock on room seventeen was much used, but it showed no obvious signs of being recently forced or picked. I let myself into a perfectly ordinary room, with sagging bed, battered dressing table, and bath down the hall. Not knowing Miss Ruskin's habits, I could not know how her room might have looked when she walked out of it on Wednesday, and too, the maid would have been in to clean it. I pulled on a pair of cotton gloves and wandered over to the bed, whistling softly through my teeth— a habit that severely tries my husband, friends, and anyone working near me in a library. Nothing in the drawers next to the bed. The little travelling alarm clock on the table had stopped at 7:10, and I picked it up cautiously to give it a gentle shake. It began ticking again— it had just run down.
Comb on top of the dressing table, several white hairs in it. No cosmetics. A small jar of hand lotion, in which a probing hairpin found no hidden objects. I opened the wardrobe, and the first thing I saw was her khaki bag on a shelf inside. So she had come back here before her dinner appointment, long enough to leave her bag, if not to change her clothes. I lifted one handle and shone my pocket torch at the jumble within, but I couldn't see anything inside that looked immediately different from the glimpses I had had on Wednesday. Wait, though— both glasses cases were occupied. Of course— it had been nearly dark by the time she left the hotel for her appointment, so she would not have needed protective lenses. I let the handle fall. Clothes hanging up, nothing much in the pockets, an overcoat, another pair of shoes, lighter than her boots, but still quite sensible. Two much-travelled