Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

A hotel manager doesn't like it if a guest tells him she wants to post a guard outside her door because she expects to be murdered, so we hadn't bothered the Maidstone manager. Instead, we had invited the hotel dick, I mean security officer, up to the room, and Julie Jaquette had told him that a man had been annoying her, and he might even take a room in the hotel, and she didn't want any trouble. It helped that he had heard of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin and that I slipped him a double sawbuck. He even offered to supply a chair.

Since I had brought the Times and a magazine along, I didn't have to invent games to pass the time. There were do not disturb signs on the doorknobs of her suite, and the chambermaids skipped them. The traffic was light all morning. I hope I'm not a snob, but I decided that on the whole I preferred the tenants of the seventh floor of 2938 Humboldt Avenue to those of the ninth floor of the Maidstone. They had all looked worried too, more or less, but you had the feeling that you could stand hearing about theirs. Of course people in hotels aren't like people at home. I was deciding why that was so when one of her doors, the one to the bedroom, opened enough to let her head through, and she stuck it out and asked, "What do you want for lunch?"

I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to twelve. "I'll make out," I said. "A bellboy will be up later. All arranged."

"Huh. You're slipping. I'm ordering breakfast. What if he fixes the waiter and poisons it? You'll have to taste. What for you?"

"Just double your breakfast."

"I always have bacon and eggs. I'll open the other door."

She did. In a minute it opened a crack, but I didn't go in. Remember Simon Jacobs, and have a look at the waiter while he's still out in the hall. It sometimes happens that the difference between being sensible and being silly doesn't depend on you at all, it depends on something or somebody else. That time it was silly to wait out in the hall for a look at the waiter. When he came, at half past twelve, wheeling the chow wagon down the hall, I watched him to the bedroom door and then went to the other one.