But the police have dropped the case.
I want you to go to Pearson City and find out why -- first-hand stuff for your modern crime series.
Take the same train Diana Beauclerk took and get there at the same time.
Go to the same hotel and occupy the same suite -- 1105".

"Will the hotel rent it so soon after the crime"?

"Why not?
The police have finished with it.
Besides, the number of the suite hasn't been published in any newspaper.
To the hotel people, you'll just be an innocent tourist who happens to ask for that particular suite".

"Still, they may not want to rent it".

"That's your headache.
Once inside, keep your eyes open"!

"For what"!
Alec was growing more and more skeptical.
"The police will have gone over every square inch of the place with a fine-tooth comb.
The hotel people will have scoured and vacuumed it.
Ten to one, it's even been redecorated"!

"There's always a chance they may have overlooked something", returned the chief.
"I'm betting on that chance.
Interview the bellboy and chambermaid who waited on Beauclerk.
Study the topography of the suite.
Soak up local color.
Reenact everything Beauclerk did.

Try to imagine you're going to be murdered yourself -- between eleven p.m. and one a.m. the night you arrive".

Alec smirked.
"Cheerful way to spend an evening"!
A sudden thought wiped the smirk from his face.
"Suppose the murderer should return to the scene of the crime"!

The chief's eyes gleamed.
He spoke softly.
"That is exactly what I'm hoping for.
After all, the murderer is still at large.
And the key to the suite is still missing".

On the train Alec refreshed his memory of the Beauclerk case by reading teletype flimsies -- spot-news stories about the crime sent out by the Pearson City Star, a member of the Syndicate Press.

Diana Beauclerk was a second-rate actress living in New York.
Two weeks ago she had gone west to Pearson City.
Daniel Forbes, her divorced husband, lived there.
So did the firm of lawyers who had got her the divorce, Kimball and Stacy.

She reached Pearson City at nine p.m. and went straight to the Hotel Westmore.
She telephoned the junior partner of her law firm, Martin Stacy, and asked him to call at her hotel that evening.

At the time of her divorce Forbes had promised to pay her a lump sum in lieu of further alimony if she remarried.
According to Stacy, she told him she was planning to remarry and she wanted him to ask Forbes for the lump sum.
Stacy replied that it would bankrupt Forbes, who had just sunk all his money in a real estate venture.

Stacy said he left her suite at nine forty-five p.m.
She was in good health and spirits, but still determined to get the money from Forbes.
No one saw Stacy leave.
No other visitor inquired for her that evening.

Next morning she was found dead in her suite with a bullet from a

Colt revolver in her brain.
According to the medical examiner, she was shot between eleven p.m. and one a.m.
Her door was locked and the key was missing.
So was the gun.

When Alec finished reading he was sure that either Forbes or Stacy had killed Diana Beauclerk.
Forbes had motive and Stacy had opportunity.
Find a motive for Stacy or an opportunity for Forbes and the case would be solved.

The Hotel Westmore proved to be one of the older hotels in Pearson City, and definitely second-rate.
Alec's first impression of the lobby was gloomy, Victorian dignity -- black walnut and red plush, a black and white tiled floor, and Persian rugs.

He studied the night clerk as a man measures an adversary.
"I'd like the room I had the last time".

"Certainly, sir".
The clerk was young and limp, with a tired smile.
"Do you recall the number"?

"It was 1105".

The clerk's smile congealed.
"That suite is taken".

Alec's glance went to a chart of guest names and room numbers hanging on the wall behind the clerk.
Opposite the number 1105 stood one word: Unoccupied.

The clerk's glance followed Alec's.
"We have better rooms vacant now", he babbled.
"Larger and more comfortable.
At the same rate".

Alec's face was dark, blunt, and sulky.
He always looked impertinent and he could look dangerous.
He was looking dangerous now.
He raised his voice.
"Anything wrong with the plumbing in 1105"?

There was a sudden stillness in the lobby.
Two women, who had been chattering like parrots, were struck dumb.
A man, lighting a match for his cigar, paused until the flame burned his fingers.
Even the bellboys on their bench were listening.

The clerk's eyes flickered.
"Of course not"!

"Anybody with a contagious disease been in there"?

"No"!
The clerk was almost hysterical.
"It's just that -- well, 1105 is being redecorated".

"I don't believe it".
Alec leaned on the desk, holding the clerk's eyes with his.
"Suppose you tell me the real reason", he drawled.
"There might be a story in it".

"St-story"?

"I'm with the Syndicated Press, Feature Service.
Either I get the story -- or I get the suite".

It was blackmail and the clerk knew it.
"There is no story", he piped tremulously.
"Front!
Show this gentleman to 1105"!

The stillness persisted as Alec followed a bellboy across the lobby to the elevator.
He could feel eyes on his back.
He wished it had not been necessary to announce the number of his suite quite so publicly.

The corridor on the eleventh floor was dimly lighted by electric globes at intervals of thirty feet.
A thick, crimson carpet muffled every footfall.
At the end of the corridor Alec noticed a door marked: Fire Stairs.
It was a neat setup for murder.

The bellboy unlocked a white door numbered 1105.
The room was dark but a neon sign flashed and faded beyond the window.
A few snowflakes sifted down through that theatrical red glow, languid as falling feathers.
Hastily the boy switched on a ceiling light.

The room looked normal and even commonplace.
There was no hint of a violent struggle now.
Deal furniture with a mahogany finish was neatly arranged as if it stood in the window of a department store.
The blue rug was suspiciously bright and new.
It had never been stained with blood.
Table covers and towels were clean, ashtrays empty and supplied with fresh matches.
The mirror over the bureau was a blank eye, round and innocent.

Alec played the part of an innocent tourist.
"Is there anything wrong with this room"?

"N-no".
The boy dropped his eyes.

"Afraid you'll lose your job if you don't keep your mouth shut"?

The boy raised his eyes.
"Listen, mister.
If you want my advice, pack up and take the next train back to New York".

"Were you on duty here two weeks ago"?

The boy hesitated.
Then, "I'm not talking.
But I wouldn't spend a night in here for a million bucks"!

He was in a hurry to get out of the room.
Alec gave him a tip and let him go.

Alone, Alec examined the doors.
There were three -- one leading to a bathroom, one to the hall, and one to the room next door which was immovable -- locked or bolted on the other side.
Alec locked the hall door and put the key with his watch on the bedside table.
It was just quarter of nine.

As he ranged his belongings on the bureau he noticed a film of white dust on the dark surface of the wood beyond the linen cover.
Not gray like the dust that collects in an unused room, but white.
Women didn't use white face powder nowadays, he recalled.
They used pink, tan, or cream powder.

Alec glanced into the bathroom.
Blood in the bathtub where the murderer appears to have washed his hands.
It seemed clean now, but Alec decided against a bath.
He crawled into bed and switched off the light.

In the darkness he could see the rosy reflection of the neon sign on the wall opposite the window.
It winked as steadily as a metronome -- on, off -- on, off.
In less than five minutes Alec was asleep.

He never knew just what woke him.
Yet suddenly he was wide-awake.
There was no sound and apparently no movement in the room except the noiseless pulsation of the red light on the wall.

He lay still, listening to the silence, watching the light.
Somewhere in the city a big clock sounded twelve solemn notes -- midnight.
According to the medical examiner she was shot between eleven p.m. and one a.m.

Alec heard a faint sound.
His heart seemed to swell and knock against the wall of his chest.
For the sound was inside the room.

He let his eyelids droop and breathed heavily, feigning sleep.
The sound was coming nearer.
A monstrous shadow fell across the illuminated wall, distorted and indefinable.

When the neon sign faded out, the shadow disappeared.
When the neon sign flashed on, the shadow was still there.
It stretched to an impossible height, climbing the wall to the ceiling.
That meant that something between the light and its reflection on the wall was moving closer to the source of the light -- in this case, the window.

Cautiously Alec tensed his muscles, ready to jump.
The bedsprings betrayed him with a creak.
The shadow vanished.
Someone had moved beyond the range of the light from the window.

Abandoning caution, Alec leaped out of bed and groped for the light switch.
Before he could snap it on, a stinging blow caught him in the ribs.
He lashed out blindly with his right.
There was a thick, squashy crack of fist on flesh.

Something hard grazed his knuckles.
He put everything he had into the next and aimed down where the stomach ought to be.
Rough cloth rasped his fist.
There was a grunt, curiously inarticulate, like that of an animal in pain.
Something heavy shook the floor as it dropped.

Alec waited a moment, on guard.
Nothing happened.
Again he groped for the light switch.

The blue rug had been rolled up and stacked in one corner of the room.
On the bare floorboards a man lay face down.
He had a short, heavy, powerful body.

Alec turned him over and discovered a round, lumpy face with narrow, slanting eyes -- a primitive Tartar face from Russia or the Balkans.
The man's shoes were too pointed, his overcoat too broad at the shoulders and too narrow at the waist.

There was a slight bulge under the left armpit -- a shoulder holster.
Alec promptly removed the gun.
He was familiar with this type.
He had seen it in the lineup at Police Headquarters in New York, in Broadway night clubs and Seventh Avenue pool rooms, in the criminal courts.
But he was surprised to meet it here.
Diana Beauclerk had no connection with the underworld.

A professional gunman would not have killed her with a weapon of such small caliber as a

.
Nor would he choose a respectable hotel as the scene for a killing when it would be so much safer to take his victim for a one-way ride on a lonely country road.

The man's eyelids fluttered.
He opened his eyes.

"What are you doing here"?
Demanded Alec.

The man made no reply.
His eyes were dazed.
His lips were bruised and swollen where Alec had hit him.

"Did you kill Diana Beauclerk"?

Alec expected an indignant denial, but there was no response at all.

"Oh, come on, snap out of it!
Or I'll turn you over to the police"!
The silence was getting on Alec's nerves.

The man opened his mouth, but no words came.
Only that curious, animal grunting Alec had heard during their fight.

"Don't you speak English"?

The man opened his mouth wider.
A forefinger pointed toward his gullet.
Alec leaned forward to look.
There were hideous scars inside the throat and the palate was mutilated.