Old Elihu Talks Sense
It was close to two-thirty in the morning when I reached the hotel. With my key the night clerk gave me a memorandum that asked me to call Poplar 605. I knew the number. It was Elihu Willsson’s.
“When did this come?” I asked the clerk.
“A little after one.”
That sounded urgent. I went back to a booth and put in the call. The old man’s secretary answered, asking me to come out at once. I promised to hurry, asked the clerk to get me a taxi, and went up to my room for a shot of Scotch.
I would rather have been cold sober, but I wasn’t. If the night held more work for me I didn’t want to go to it with alcohol dying in me. The snifter revived me a lot. I poured more of the King George into a flask, pocketed it, and went down to the taxi.
Elihu Willsson’s house was lighted from top to bottom. The secretary opened the front door before I could get my finger on the button. His thin body was shivering in pale blue pajamas and dark blue bathrobe. His thin face was full of excitement.
“Hurry!” he said. “ Mr. Willsson is waiting. And, please, will you try to persuade him to let us have the body removed?”
I promised and followed him up to the old man’s bedroom.
Old Elihu was in bed as before, but now a black automatic pistol lay on the covers close to one of his pink hands.