doubt it. She’s a gentle, sort of wishy-washy little thing. It takes a certain amount of cool nerve to pull off that sort of business, and Annette certainly doesn’t have it.”
“Still,” Jake said, “those kitteny, soft-looking little brown-eyed blondes can be crafty as hell. I remember once in Detroit—” He paused and added, “That was a long time before I met you.”
Helene sniffed indignantly. “Stop trying to look as if you knew anything about women, outside of what you learned from me.”
“The fact remains,” Jake said, scowling, “that it looks as though Annette Ginnis and Ned Royal at least started for Crown Point. And I don’t think she called up Malone at five o’clock in the morning because she admires his handsome face.”
“It’s possible you’re right,” Helene said, starting to clear up the coffee cups. “At least, Ned Royal is the sort of young man you’d expect that sort of thing to happen to, sooner or later.”
“I’ve seen ideas expressed more clearly,” Jake said, “but you’ve been without sleep all night, and anyway I know what you mean. What is the sort of young man Ned Royal is?”
She made a face at him, carried the cups into the kitchenette, and returned. “He’s the kind of rich young man that makes everybody hate rich young men. Not bad, or vicious or anything like that. Just a kind of combination of limp and vague. Always getting drunk and noisy in night clubs and having to be tossed out.”
“And marrying chorus girls who promptly send him on home and telephone for a lawyer,” Jake added.
Helene yawned and stretched. “Well, it’s none of our business. And you said yourself Malone needed a few clients.”
Jake looked at his watch. “It’s seven-thirty. Do you think it’s bedtime?”
She looked at him. His lean, pleasant face was pale and drawn, his red hair was rumpled. “I don’t know whether you should be put to bed, or just buried the way you are. Wait right there, and I’ll get your slippers for you.”
He lit one last cigarette, leaned back comfortably in his chair, and looked at the familiar room around him. He knew every inch of it, yet he still loved to gaze around him and pretend it was for the first time. The soft blue-gray of its walls, the immense windows on the south wall that looked over Chicago’s roofs toward the spires of the Loop, the big, comfortable chairs and sofas, the painting of Helene in a pale gold dress which hung over the mantelpiece. For a moment he almost purred.
If the remodeled and reopened Casino didn’t succeed, and Max Hook took it over—no, he wouldn’t think about that now. Not this morning.
Helene came back with the slippers. “Put them on, and then go tuck yourself in bed, and sleep for hours and hours and hours.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep,” he said, in the tone of a fractious small boy. “I just want to stay right here forever and look at you. All I want in the world is just to be alone with you, here, like this.”
The phone rang.
Helene sprang to answer it, waving to Jake to stay where he was.
“Yes, he’s in,” she said, “but I don’t like to disturb him right now. Are you sure it’s important? Oh. Oh yes, I’ll call him.”
She handed the phone to Jake and said, “It’s the hotel manager. He says it’s very important.”
Jake’s side of the phone conversation consisted almost entirely of “Yes” and “I see,” and ended with, “I’ll be right down.” Then he put down the phone, turned to Helene and said, “Put the slippers away.”
“Jake, what is it?”
“The manager is very worried. It seems that Mr. Jay Otto left a very important call for seven-thirty this morning. Now it develops that they aren’t able to rouse him. The manager is afraid Mr. Otto may have been taken ill or something, and wants me to come down and be present when they break in.”
“When they break in,” Helene repeated, “and find that he isn’t there.” She started unfastening the clip at the neck of her housecoat. “Wait a minute, Jake.”
“What for?”
“I’m not going down there in a housecoat. And I’m not staying behind, either. And you aren’t going down there in a wrinkled tux.”
Jake looked down at his clothes. “I guess you’re right. I’d better change.”
She picked a dress out of the closet, laid it on the bed, and unzipped the housecoat. Then suddenly she paused.
“Jake, send for Malone.”
He dropped one shoe on the floor and stared at her. “What for?”
“They’re going to discover Jay Otto has disappeared. There will probably be a fuss about it.”
“Nonsense,” Jake said, taking off the other shoe. “They’ll just think he stayed out all night.”
“Allswell McJackson will tell them he never stayed out all night. Allswell will insist on sending for the police. You’d better have Malone there to do the talking.”
Jake sighed. “All right. Do we have Annette Ginnis’s phone number?”
“It’s in the little book right by the telephone. She lives on Oak Street, and he ought to be able to hop a cab and get here in five minutes.” She slid an almond-green wool dress over her shoulders and began fastening it.
Jake returned from his call and reported, “He’ll be right over. And you can imagine for yourself what he said on the subject of coming here at this hour.”
“We haven’t had any sleep either,” Helene reminded him.
“Stop rubbing it in,” Jake growled under his breath.
They were dressed and ready to go downstairs when Malone pounded on the door.
“A hell of a thing,” he said by way of greeting. “Eight o’clock in the morning. I hope the reason is worth it. What is it?”
Jake told him.
“Well,” Malone said, “it was bound to happen sometime today. Too bad it had to be so early. Why in blazes did he have to leave a seven-thirty call, anyway?”
“To make life hard for us,” Jake said bitterly.
“Malone,” Helene said suddenly. “What about Annette Ginnis?”
“She’ll be all right,” the little lawyer said. “I got one of her girl friends to come in and stay with her, and she’ll probably be able to get some sleep.”
“Wait a minute,” Jake said. “What is this? What’s happened to her?”
“I forgot you didn’t know anything about it,” Malone snapped. “There’s no time to talk about it now, though. Wait till we get back up here.”
“She hasn’t been
