I’d somehow assumed it was later than that. I’d taken it for granted that, having found a quiet place to pass out, I’d have had the good sense to remain unconscious until a civil hour. Now, knowing it was still the middle of the night, I immediately felt exhausted.

The bed beckoned. I glared at it and stalked out the door.

The sign on the stairway entrance reminded me I couldn’t get back in. The warning was meant for lesser mortals, but suppose my tools were not where I’d left them? Oh, I could walk down to the lobby, but I remembered how much fun that had been the last time I did it. I patted my pockets and found a wooden toothpick, then pushed the snaplock back with my thumb and jammed the toothpick in next to it, wedging it in place. Now the door would close without locking, and anyone entering from the fourth-floor hall would notice nothing out of the ordinary.

The stairwell still smelled of smoke. That was fine, just so long as no one had started a fire.

And nobody had, as far as I could tell, at least not a serious fire, because the firehose mounted on the stairwell wall at the fifth-floor landing looked undisturbed. I unscrewed the heavy brass nozzle-what a fine blunt instrument it would make-and shook out my handy-dandy ring of picks and probes and my little flashlight, the whole array double-wrapped in a pair of plastic-film gloves. Then, from the canvas hose itself, I drew out the little jewelry case that still contained a ruby necklace and earrings. I slipped various articles into various pockets and finally screwed the nozzle back on the hose.

I walked back down to Four, and I had the door open and was retrieving my toothpick when I changed my mind and let the door swing shut. If knowledge was power, I realized, I was a ninety-seven-pound weakling, and I didn’t even have to send in the coupon to Charles Atlas and get the secrets of Dynamic Tension going for me.

I sat down on the top step and started ticking off the things I didn’t know. I didn’t write out a list, but if I had it might have looked something like this:

THINGS I NEED TO KNOW AND DON’T

1. Who killed Anthea Landau?

2.Where did the knife come from, and what happened to it?

3. Why hadn’t I heard from Alice Cottrell?

4.Speaking of Alice, why couldn’t I reach her?

5.How did the jewels get into that room on the third floor?

6.Where were the Gulliver Fairborn letters?

7.How was Isis Gauthier connected to Anthea Landau?

8. How was I going to get out of this mess?

I walked down one more flight of stairs, and it’s an indication of the efficiency of my mind that I searched my pockets for another toothpick to jam the lock, so I’d be able to return to the stairwell. Light dawned when I reached for the knob and there wasn’t one. I got out my tools and opened the door.

When I emerged from that third-floor room, the proud possessor if not the lawful owner of a ruby necklace and earrings, I of course hadn’t bothered to note the room number. Why bother? I had other things on my mind, and it didn’t seem like something I would ever need to know. The room was just something I’d passed through, and I wouldn’t need to pass through it again. I’d already taken what was worth taking. Why go back?

Still, it wasn’t terribly difficult to narrow it down. I’d been in Anthea Landau’s bedroom when I ducked out onto the fire escape. The room I’d wound up in was three floors below, and if it wasn’t directly beneath Landau’s it wasn’t that far from it. Landau’s room number was 602, so the place to start was 302, and if that didn’t pan out I could try the rooms on either side of it.

I got my bearings and found Room 302, conveniently if unimaginatively tucked between Rooms 301 and 303. No light showed beneath any of their doors, but it was getting on for four in the morning, so the same could be said for most of the doors in the hotel, and indeed most of the bedroom doors in the whole city. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but at that hour a good number of its citizens tend to close their eyes.

I’d have liked to join them. My headache was back, and I felt a great weariness. I couldn’t quite catch my breath, and wasn’t even sure it was worth catching. Once I caught it, what would I do with it?

I stared at all three doors and felt like one of the dimmer contestants on Let’s Make a Deal. I had to pick one of those doors, and what was I going to trade for whatever was behind it? My freedom? My future?

I stepped up to 302, put my ear to it to no particular purpose, then took out my tools and picked the lock. It yielded without a fuss, and I slipped inside and drew the door shut.

I stood absolutely still, letting my eyes accustom themselves to the darkness. The curtains were drawn, but they were a less efficient lot than Anthea Landau’s, and once my pupils had had time to dilate I could see just about enough to keep from bumping into the furniture.

But I could hear enough to keep me from moving.

What I heard was breathing, the deep slow breathing of a sleeper. It was curiously reassuring, signifying as it did that the room’s occupant was alive. If I had to walk in on somebody, I’d just as soon the person was still oxygen-dependent.

Get out, I told myself. Somebody’s home, and they don’t know you’re here, and if you leave quickly and quietly they may never find out. So what are you waiting for?

But if I left, I still wouldn’t know if this was the right room. I’d just know somebody was in it, and what good did that do me?

I got out my pocket flash and positioned my thumb over the little button. I wouldn’t need very much light, and I wouldn’t need it for very long. As soon as I saw Elvis on black velvet, I’d know I was in the right place. As soon as I’d assured myself he wasn’t there to be seen, I’d know I wasn’t.

I aimed the flashlight at the wall, tapped the button, let go of it almost immediately, and repeated the procedure at intervals of a few feet, working my way around the room. There was, I managed to establish, no painting on black velvet on any of the room’s four walls, not of Elvis, not of a big-eyed waif, not of a sad-faced clown.

Wrong room.

I reached for the doorknob, turned it ever so gently, opened it a crack and paused to listen for signs of life in the hallway, then got out of there and closed the door. I played a little mental game of eeny meeny miney mo, trying to guess which of the remaining doors concealed Elvis on black velvet. I wondered, too, what version of Elvis the painting showed-Elvis Young or Elvis Old? Elvis lean and hungry or Elvis puffed up with too many peanut butter and banana sandwiches? Elvis bright-eyed and bushytailed or Elvis with a pharmaceutical glaze? I hadn’t seen the painting myself, and-

Of course I hadn’t. I’d heard it described by Marty Gilmartin, and he’d seen it in Isis Gauthier’s room up on Six. So why was I looking for it down here on Three?

I’ll tell you, a mind is a terrible thing to have, especially when it doesn’t work any better than mine did. I had a killer hangover, and that explained a lot, but I wondered if there might not be a little more to it than that. Could I still be drunk? Was that possible?

It didn’t seem the least bit fair. One or the other, okay, fair enough, I’d earned it. But both at once? Wasn’t it like lightning and thunder? They were both the result of the same phenomenon-in this case, strong drink and plenty of it-but the lightning got there first, and had disappeared by the time the thunder came rolling in.

It occurred to me that I ought to go back to bed and sleep this off, whatever it was. But opportunity had knocked, hadn’t it? And wasn’t it my job to open the door?

In this case, the door to 302. I’d already opened it, and now I opened it again. This time I didn’t actually enter the room. I stood at the door, using my pocket flash to supplement the light that slanted through the opening I’d created, and looked around for something familiar.