Message From a Corpse by Merwin Sam Jr

Author:Merwin, Sam Jr. [Merwin, Sam Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NewBook, Mystery
Goodreads: 7496840
Publisher: Renaissance E Books
Published: 1945-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MARA PUFFED at her cigarette, then paused a moment longer to remove a piece of the paper wrapper from her lip. Breck put a hand to his temple, pistol fashion.

“I got it wet lighting it for you,” he said.

The girl went on with her tale. “It was not easy to follow our friend when he got into the hotel. Soranno did the job alone from then on, by the way. I knew he knew me and had a pretty fair idea of what he’d do to me if he caught me following him. I didn’t want to think about it.

“So I skulked around the lobby after him. He went into an elevator, and again I thought I was licked. But it turned out that the hotel was almost empty then. He was the only passenger who got into the cage. So I waited until the door closed and watched.”

“Nice going, Mara,” said Breck. Even if the girl were making this up out of whole cloth, which hardly seemed possible, she was telling a hell of a good and pertinent story.

“I kept an eagle eye on the indicator above the sliding door,” the girl continued. “It came to rest on the number nine. Just then another car came down, so I got in and asked for the ninth floor too. Once I was inside and on the way up, I was scared to death. Just what I would be able to do about tracing Soranno when I got to the ninth floor I didn’t know. It was obviously out of the question to go around banging on doors and asking politely if he were inside. And I wasn’t crazy about what I might be walking into if my luck did hold out and I found him. But since I had come along this far on my big chase, I couldn’t see any sense in turning tail and going home.”

“What a woman!” said Breck dryly. He chuckled, shook his head and ran a hand through his crinkly red hair. Mara Flanders was strictly out of this world in every sense of the phrase. She certainly was bothered not a bit by convention, inhibition or lack of courage. She looked at him, a puzzled vertical line appearing beneath her level dark eyebrows.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” he told her. “I don’t suppose it ever entered your very beautiful head to call the police and get a little official help on your side.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It didn’t — and for a very good reason. When would I have had time to call for a policeman and then spend more time convincing him I was neither a nut, a drunkard nor a jealous wife on the prowl for a roving hubby? Things were moving much too fast.”

“All right, all right,” said Breck, putting up both hands as if to ward off a blow. “So you didn’t have time.” He received a stern and reproving look from Mara before she continued with her story.

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