The Longest Second by Bill S. Ballinger Page B

a bachelor, it was feared he might be ill, and a fellow employee had stopped by to see him. The police theorized that Merkle had been killed as a result of a burglary attempt. His apartment indicated that it had been searched but whether anything of value had been stolen was not known.
    The police, I knew, would carry through their investigation as far as they could, and then drop it. Merkle was unimportant; he was nobody. The authorities could not waste too much time on this unspectacular little man.
    It became increasingly important, however, for me to talk to Rosemary Martin. With Merkle’s death, I desired to remain even more inconspicuous than in the past, and I did not want to be held or questioned by the hotel for loitering on its premises. I believed that Rosemary Martin was staying very close to her own room, and I would need help to locate her. Therefore, I selected the name of a detective agency at random; it was located on Fifth Avenue just above Forty-second Street; this was a good address and it gave me confidence that the agency was efficient. I went up to see it.
    On the office door was the name “Bell, Investigators,” and the offices looked prosperous. A young woman at a switchboard doubled as a receptionist, and she introduced me to a Mr. Delton. I do not know whatever happened to Mr. Bell. I never met him, but Delton seemed to be in charge. He was a short compact man with heavy features and a full, thick upper lip. We went into his private office and I showed him the picture of Rosemary Martin. Then, slowly, I pieced together my story for him; it was not all of the story, but it was enough for him to know. When I had finished I put my pad to one side, and he summed it up briskly.
    “You say this young lady is a friend of yours and is staying at the Acton-Plaza, is that right?” I nodded. “You believe she is living in a room on the ninth floor, and is registered under a name other than her own?”
    “Yes.”
    “You want us to find what room she is in?”
    “Yes.”
    “That shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” Delton told me, his voice efficient. “I assume, though, this is not a matrimonial case. You assure me on that?”
    “Yes.”
    “We don’t handle matrimonial investigations,” he continued, “for financial reasons. Such investigations involve a great amount of time ... day, night, appearances in court to give testimony, and so on. It isn’t possible to make a profit from them. We stick to legal investigations—furnish plant and bank security, messengers and guards ... that type of work. I don’t want to get involved in anything complicated. Do you understand?”
    I indicated that I did.
    “Okay. I think we can locate this woman for you very easily, if she is still at the hotel. If it takes half a day it will cost you fifty dollars; if we spend a full day, the fee is one hundred.”
    Between what little money I had left, and what Bianca had been able to pay me, all that I could afford was the fifty dollars. I decided to gamble it through. Delton appeared capable, and with any luck might quickly locate Rosemary Martin. I nodded my approval to his terms.
    “Please sign here,” Delton said energetically, indicating a short half-form on which he had written, “Miss Rosemary Martin staying at Acton-Plaza. Locate room where living and assumed name.” I signed it, using the name Kenneth Sloan. “Thank you, Mr. Sloan,” said Delton. “Now do you care to give me a check?”
    Naturally I did not care to do so. Instead I placed five ten-dollar bills on his desk. “I’ll call you as soon as I have anything,” he told me. I shook my head, and again returned to my pad. I wrote that I would get back in touch with him. We parted with that understanding.
    There were no follow-up stories in the papers regarding Merkle. I began to feel more easy, although in reality there was little for me to worry about. It was doubtful if the police could find a motive for the murder of Merkle. It had