Jail Bait

Ten minutes later when she opened the door he came staggering in under the weight of a mammoth and venerable table model, a thing of aged walnut, with mysterious lights and bands and tuning eyes. He plugged it in and turned it on. Many portions of it lit up. They watched it anxiously. Nothing happened. The bellhop turned dials at random and finally located a faint voice. He turned up the volume. The voice could almost be heard across the room. It was quarter to eight and the station identification announced that it was one of the major local stations, the one with the greatest power. The rest of the dial was silent. The old man asked if one station would be enough. She said it would have to be.

She listened with part of her mind to the news broadcast while she leafed through one of the magazines Dave had brought up. She came to abrupt focus and gave the program her full attention when she suddenly heard her own name.

“...Jane Bayliss by authorities for further questioning in the knife slaying of Walter Fredmans last Saturday night. Miss Bayliss visited her fiancé at City General Hospital this afternoon and has not yet returned to her apartment. This situation became known when Deputy Chief of Police Vernon Patricks requested station WBBO, seven-forty on your dial, to broadcast hourly appeals to Miss Bayliss to get in touch with police headquarters. A city-wide search is being conducted. Though there has been no official statement of alarm over the safety of Miss Bayliss, John Aarons, Fusion candidate for mayor in the coming elections, interrupted a formal speech given by him earlier this evening to the Galton County Women’s Club to ask why the present Commissioner of Public Safety had not made certain that Miss Bayliss had a police guard or that she had been taken into protective custody. Miss Bayliss, if you are listening to this program, you will be performing a public service by going to the nearest phone and calling police headquarters immediately.

“Today the residents of...”

Jane turned the dial quickly. Just as she reached out and started to lift the phone there was a knock at the door. She froze, replaced the phone with great caution, tiptoed toward the room door.

“Who is it, please?”

“Jane, it’s Dave again.”

She unlocked the door and he came in, looking apologetic. He had his hat in his hand and he turned it around and around as he talked. “I got there just a few minutes after seven-thirty, Jane. There were a couple of policemen by the desk. I went up and asked if I could see Howard. The policemen moved in on me and wanted to know what for. I got sore and told them I was a friend and I’d been a friend for years. They made me show my driver’s license and identification. They asked me if I knew where you were. I said no. Then they let me go see him. There was a cop in his room, too. Howard was worried sick about you. He wanted to get out of there and go look for you. They wouldn’t let him. I tried to catch his eye and calm him down. I couldn’t talk to him with the policemen there; you said not to let anybody know. I thought I could get the idea across by winking at him, but he didn’t tumble. He just said. ‘This is no time for corny jokes, Dave. See if you can make them give me my clothes.’ Then I took a look at the parking check. Here it is.”

Jane took it from him. She stared at it, turned it over, studied it. It was on heavy stock, orange-colored, roughly the size of a dollar bill, and folded once. She opened it up, read what had been written on the dotted lines.

She stared at Dave, her mouth open. “Why, it’s a pawn ticket for a mandolin! Why in the world would Howard give me that? He can’t even play a mandolin!”

“Look, I don’t know where he got it. All I know is, you aren’t going to get a car out of a parking lot with it.”

“I’m awfully sorry, Dave. I’ve put you to a lot of trouble.”

“That’s okay. Any other errands, girl? I’m a little late for a date with Connie.”

“No. Good night, Dave. And thanks.”

After he left she studied the pawn ticket again. It was from the Ace Loan Company on lower Harrison. It was date-stamped for the previous Thursday. The mandolin had been pawned for four dollars. She wondered how that ticket could have gotten into the drawer of the night stand beside Howard’s hospital bed.

Again she went to the phone. As she touched it, it rang. She smiled. There seemed to be a sort of conspiracy to keep her from phoning the police.

“Hello?... Hello!... Hello!”

There was no answering voice, but she heard a soft click as a phone was replaced on the cradle.

She hung up, trembling. She was sure that, by now, the elevator was clattering slowly upward to her floor.

The wind, which had died for a time, returned with refreshed fury, and through the sound of it she thought she could hear the creak and grinding of the old elevator. The high old door looked frail to her. She reached for the phone again, snatched her hand back. She picked up her purse and went to the door.