Winter at Death's Hotel by Kenneth Cameron

Arthur.”
    â€œThen I order you to tell me whatever nonsense you have to say about a murder! So that I can go back to work!”
    She considered being angry, perhaps weeping. She was hurt, no doubt of that; on the other hand, he was the man and he had been working. She settled for a somewhat girlish chagrin and utter simplicity. “I found a picture of the murder victim in a newspaper. The murder in the Bowery that I told you about. I recognize her. I saw her in the hotel lobby yesterday.”
    At least he didn’t ask her where she’d got the newspaper; she’d have had to lie again. Instead, he asked for details of the murder, which he’d quite forgotten; he asked to see the newspaper sketch; he asked her to explain why she remembered the woman. Then he tore the newspaper sketch to bits and told her that she was being utterly silly and he never wanted to hear about the matter again.
    â€œI have a duty to report it.”
    â€œDuty to whom? To report what? I forbid you to do such a thing.” His voice fell back to the level of a patient father’s explaining life to a child. “What you think you know about the woman is pure surmise. And what in the world do you know about trysts and assignations? You know nothing about why she was in the hotel; you know nothing about the man. In fact, your ‘recognizing’ her is pure female romancing and wouldn’t stand up in a court of law for ten seconds. Louisa, what can you be thinking of? I think you are exhausted and have overexcited yourself. Remember that you have been ill! Low fever can lead women to hysterical invention—you have woven an entire tapestry of cobwebs, my dove!” He took her hands and sat them both down. “My dearest wife, think how it would look if you went to the police with this tale. What would a sharp detective make of a perhaps non-existent encounter in a hotel lobby, and a newspaper hack’s sketch that could be any of a hundred thousand women in New York? My love, think!”
    â€œYou always say that police detectives are the stupidest men in the world.”
    â€œDon’t throw my words back at me, Louisa! It’s not becoming to you. I ask you to think . Think of what it means if Mrs. Arthur Conan Doyle tells the police she has a clue in a murder case. Do you know what the newspapers would call you? ‘Mrs. Sherlock Holmes.’ That’s what they’d call you. ‘Mrs. Sherlock Holmes Finds Novel Clue.’ Do you see? My dove?”
    She drew her hands away. “You think I’m imagining things.”
    â€œNo, dove, no—you’re too bright and too much my shining star for such a thing! I mean you don’t have facts .”
    And of course, he was right. She didn’t have any real facts, if by “facts” one meant something like the date of Magna Carta. “Of course you’re right, Arthur. Please forgive me for interrupting you.”
    He kissed her. “You should always be able to interrupt me. I was rude and churlish to you. Forgive me?”
    They kissed. He went back to work. She went into the bedroom.
    But, dammit, that woman was the one I saw in the hotel lobby! I know what I saw!
    ***
    A closed carriage assigned to Commissioner Roosevelt pulled up at a side entrance of the City Mortuary. Roosevelt was out the door before its wheels stopped grinding against the curb. He bustled across the pavement and yanked open the door as if he expected to make an arrest on the other side. “Well?” he bellowed.
    â€œAll clear.”
    â€œYou’re Cleary, are you?”
    â€œYes, sir, Lieutenant Cleary. Murder Squad.” Cleary was a tall, sad-eyed man with black hair that stood up like a hog’s bristles. He was in fact the commander of the Murder Squad, and if he was offended because Roosevelt didn’t remember having met him twice before, he didn’t show it.
    Roosevelt dropped his voice. “Harding’s in my