Evil That Men Do by Hugh Pentecost Read Free Book Online Page A

that,” Chambrun said.
    “Listening to you, I half-expect the corpse to sit up on the morgue table and start laughing at us!” Hardy said.
    “It wouldn’t be out of key,” Chambrun said, quite seriously I thought.
    “I can’t afford to make a mistake with her,” Hardy said. “She’s headlines whatever she does. She can hire the most expensive legal talent in the country.”
    “Instead of which, she hires a famous football player who’s only just begun to practice law. T.J. Madison,” I said.
    “Brother!” Hardy said. “Headlines wherever you turn.”
    “You need facts. The gun would be a fact,” Chambrun said.
    “And if we don’t find it?”
    “If what you call ‘the amnesia bit’ is a part of the game,” Chambrun said, “then you are supposed to look into the night of February twenty-fifth. If that’s how it is, you’ll find something that’ll lead you somewhere else—directly into a sea of red herrings. But if she’s telling the truth—well, the night of February twenty-fifth may have some real significance. It could be a starting point. It could be a hoax.”
    “What happened on the night of February twenty-fifth?” Hardy said. “Where? Beverly Hills? New York? Kankakee?”
    “If it’s a game, then we are supposed to look through those newspapers and well come up with something. If the girl is on the level and was looking herself and found nothing, then we probably won’t find anything. Finding nothing might lead us to believe her just a little bit.” Chambrun put out his cigarette. “Let’s go through those papers, with different eyes and different points of view. I suggest your secretary, Mark. She’s a woman.”
    “And how!” Hardy muttered.
    “Ruysdale. You and me and Hardy,” Chambrun said. He stood up. “Meanwhile, the hotel has to run. Oil has to be poured on the waves created by this excitement.” He smiled, faintly. “We have to roll out our best stiff upper lip.”
    “And I have to meet the ladies and gentlemen of the press,” I said. “What do I tell ’em?”
    “Send ’em to me,” Hardy said, “and I’ll tell ’em nothin’. Games!” …
    Focus your attention on one unusual situation in a place like the Beaumont and you suddenly become acutely aware of how much is involved in the daily routines that you handle automatically. It’s like one broken-down car on the West Side Highway, and immediately a thousand cars are stacked up behind it, tooting their horns.
    My girl Shelda was up to her ears in routines I should have been attending to, and nearly dead of excited curiosity. There were problems connected with transforming the Grand Ballroom from a show ring for Ormanski’s fashions into a banquet hall for a foreign-policy association. Mr. Amato, our dyspeptic banquet manager, was feeding his ulcer with his own patented brand of anxiety. Ormanski had to be gotten out, tables set up and decorated, place cards and favors put around. Time was running out. Mr. Amato had reminded Shelda of this a half-dozen times in the last hour.
    “I’ve got everyone working four-handed,” Shelda said. “So what’s the story on Doris Standing?”
    “She did or she didn’t,” I said, scowling at a list of messages. Mr. Cardoza, captain in the Blue Lagoon Room, wanted words with me; a representative of the Conservative Party wanted to engage one of the private dining rooms for a committee meeting two nights away; a big movie company wanted two adjoining suites for writers, producers, and whoever else might be involved in working on a pilot script for a TV show. The show’s star must have a suite on the same floor but not “contiguous”—a television word for “adjoining.” And on and on.
    “Will you pay attention to me and tell me what’s cooking!” Shelda demanded.
    I kissed her very firmly on the mouth. “That’s what’s cooking,” I said.
    “ Did she kill him ?” Shelda shouted at me, after a decent interval of nonresistance.
    “She’s a prime