The Black Door by Collin Wilcox

purposes as he jolted down the steps flapping his elbows.
    Watching Campion’s breezy, unconcerned progress, it occurred to me that I wasn’t really aggressive enough to be a good crime reporter. I wasn’t breezy or unconcerned. Nor was I cynical or thick-skinned, another good combination for the newsman. I thought too much and hesitated too often.
    It was a disturbing, unexpected moment of revelation. I wondered whether it were really true, or whether I was just tired or coming down with a cold.
    “I didn’t know you were coming out here,” Campion said. “I thought you were going to dig into Grinnel.”
    “I changed my mind. Can we get into her room?”
    “Sure.” He pointed. “It’s at the end of the right-hand, first floor hallway; second room from the end, in the back. There’s a police seal on the door, but it’s broken. Simcich’s inside. He’s waiting for the brass, I gather.”
    “Is it all right to go inside? I mean—”
    He grinned. “No problem. I understand the girls have posted a notice in the lavatory, advising caution for the duration.”
    I grinned in return and started up the stairs. “Thanks,” I said over my shoulder. “Where’re you going?”
    “I’m going to nose around in the coffee shop for a while. It’s almost noon now, and Johnson said two o’clock. It’s hardly worth going back downtown. Besides, there’re telephones in the coffee shop.”
    “Okay. I’ll see you over there, then.”
    “Right.” He turned and began walking behind a covey of coeds, appreciatively.
    I found the room without difficulty, knocked, and was admitted by a detective I’d met only once—a young man named Simcich, who was studying at the University of California’s Extension Division, hopeful of becoming a pharmacist. I gathered that he was still pursuing his studies, because he immediately returned to an easy chair and picked up a large book with an academic-looking title.
    Slowly, I looked around the room. For a millionaire’s daughter, it was a small, almost austere room with a single bed, a desk, an easy chair, a bookcase, and a bureau. The bed, I noticed, was unmade. Had she slept in it the previous night, then? Or had it gone unmade from the night before? Did the girls have maid service? I took out my notebook and scribbled, bed, when slept in?
    Surprisingly, with the exception of three books piled neatly in one corner, the desk top was uncluttered. The bookcase, too, contained no more than a dozen books; two of the bookcase’s four shelves were completely empty. The books had the look of having been seldom used, and indifferently.
    I turned to the bureau. Only a few tubes of lipstick and jars of make-up were placed on the glass top, not arranged with compulsive neatness, but somehow not scattered with a girl’s typical, hurried sweep. I stepped toward the bureau and tentatively reached toward the top drawer.
    “Ah, ah,” came the voice behind me. “Mustn’t touch.”
    I shrugged, returned to the center of the room, and once more looked around me, searching for some feeling of the girl. She’d been twenty; she was probably a senior. It was February; she’d lived here at least since September. Yet the room had no real feeling of occupancy. It could have been a hotel room, occupied for the weekend, and about to be vacated. There was none of the co-ed’s typical fripperies—pictures on the wall, clothes strewn about, panda bears and rag dolls on the bed.
    It was an impersonal, somehow unhappy room. In an hour, all traces of its occupant could be completely erased.
    The clothes closet door was half open. Although the light was dim, I could make out the contents—a closetful of rich, expensive clothes, mostly tweeds and woolens, to cope with San Francisco’s chilly, foggy weather. Glancing at the watchful Simcich, I took a single step closer. I was looking for party dresses, and toward the back of the closet I saw a few—colorful silks, and basic blacks. But, totaled, Roberta