The woman hesitated. Tracy Whitney was obviously overqualified for the job Mrs Murphy had in mind. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I know this isn’t up your alley, but there’s a waitress job open at Jackson Hole. It’s a hamburger place on the Upper East Side.’
‘A waitress job?’
‘Yeah. If you take it, I won’t charge you any commission. I just happened to hear about it.’
Tracy sat there, debating. She had waited on tables in college. Then it had been fun. Now it was a question of surviving.
‘I’ll try it,’ she said.
Jackson Hole was bedlam, packed with noisy impatient customers, and harassed, irritable fry cooks. The food was good and the prices reasonable, and the place was always jammed. The waitresses worked at a frantic pace with no time to relax, and by the end of the first day Tracy was exhausted. But she was earning money.
At noon on the second day, as Tracy was serving a table filled with salesmen, one of the men ran his hand up her skirt, and Tracy dropped a bowl of chili on his head. That was the end of the job.
She returned to Mrs Murphy and reported what had happened.
‘I may have some good news,’ Mrs Murphy said. ‘The Wellington Arms needs an assistant housekeeper. I’m going to send you over there.’
The Wellington Arms was a small, elegant hotel on Park Avenue that catered to the rich and famous. Tracy was interviewed by the housekeeper and hired. The work was not difficult, the staff was pleasant, and the hours reasonable.
A week after she started, Tracy was summoned to the housekeeper’s office. The assistant manager was also there.
‘Did you check Suite eight-twenty-seven today?’ the housekeeper asked Tracy. The suite was occupied by Jennifer Marlowe, a Hollywood actress. Part of Tracy’s job was to inspect each suite and see that the maids had done their work properly.
‘Why, yes,’ she said.
‘What time?’
‘At two o’clock. Is something wrong?’
The assistant manager spoke up. ‘At three o’clock Miss Marlowe returned and discovered that a valuable diamond ring was missing.’
Tracy could feel her body grow tense.
‘Did you go into the bedroom, Tracy?’
‘Yes. I checked every room.’
‘When you were in the bedroom, did you see any jewellery lying around?’
‘Why … no. I don’t think so.’
The assistant manager pounced on it. ‘You don’t think so? You’re not sure?’
‘I wasn’t looking for jewellery,’ Tracy said. ‘I was checking the beds and towels.’
‘Miss Marlowe insists that her ring was on the dressing table when she left the suite.’
‘I don’t know anything about it.’
‘No one else has access to that room. The maids have been with us for many years.’
‘I didn’t take it.’
The assistant manager sighed. ‘We’re going to have to call in the police to investigate.’
‘It had to be someone else,’ Tracy cried. ‘Or perhaps Miss Marlowe misplaced it.’
‘With your record –’ the assistant manager said.
And there it was, out in the open. With your record …
‘I’ll have to ask you to please wait in the security office until the police get here.’
Tracy felt her face flush. ‘Yes, sir.’
She was accompanied to the office by one of the security guards, and she felt as though she were back in prison again. She had read of convicts being hounded because they had prison records, but it had never occurred to her that this kind of thing could happen to her. They had stuck a label on her, and they expected her to live up to it. Or down to it, Tracy thought bitterly.
Thirty minutes later the assistant manager walked into the office, smiling. ‘Well!’ he said. ‘Miss Marlowe found her ring. She had misplaced it, after all. It was just a little mistake.’
‘Wonderful,’ Tracy said.
She walked out of the office and headed for Conrad Morgan et Cie Jewellers.
‘It’s ridiculously simple,’ Conrad Morgan was saying. ‘A client of mine, Lois Bellamy, has gone to Europe. Her house is in Sea Cliff on Long Island. On weekends the servants are off, so there’s no one there. A private patrol makes a check every four hours. You can be in and out of the house in a few minutes.’
They were seated in Conrad Morgan’s office.
‘I know the alarm system, and I have the combination to the safe. All you have to do, my dear, is walk in, pick up the jewels, and walk out again. You bring the jewels to me, I take them out of their settings, recut the larger ones, and sell them again.’
‘If it’s so simple, why don’t you do it yourself?’ Tracy asked bluntly.
His blue eyes twinkled. ‘Because I’m going to be out of town on business. Whenever one of these little “incidents” occurs, I’m always out of town on business.’
‘I see.’
‘If you have any scruples about the robbery hurting Mrs Bellamy, you needn’t have. She’s really quite a horrible woman, who has houses all over the world filled with expensive goodies. Besides, she’s insured for twice the amount the jewels are worth. Naturally, I did all the appraisals.’
Tracy sat there looking at Conrad Morgan, thinking, I must be crazy. I’m sitting here calmly discussing a jewel robbery with this man.
‘I don’t want to go back to prison, Mr Morgan.’
‘There’s no danger of that. Not one of my people has ever been caught. Not while they were working for me. Well … what do you say?’
That was obvious. She was going to say no. The whole idea was insane.
‘You said twenty-five thousand dollars?’
‘Cash on delivery.’
It was a fortune, enough to take care of her until she could figure out what to do with her life. She thought of the dreary little room she lived in, of the screaming tenants, and the customer yelling, ‘I don’t want a murderess waiting on me’, and the assistant manager saying, ‘We’re going to have to call in the police to investigate.’
But Tracy still could not bring herself to say yes.
‘I would suggest this Saturday night,’ Conrad Morgan said. ‘The staff leaves at noon on Saturdays. I’ll arrange a driver’s licence and a credit card for you in a false name. You’ll rent a car here in Manhattan and drive out to Long Island, arriving at eleven o’clock. You’ll pick up the jewellery, drive back to New York, and return the car … You do drive, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Excellent. There’s a train leaving for St Louis at seven-forty-five A.M. I’ll reserve a compartment for you. I’ll meet you at the station in St Louis, you’ll turn over the jewels, and I’ll give you your twenty-five thousand.’
He made it all sound so simple.
This was the moment to say no, to get up and walk out. Walk out to where?
‘I’ll need a blonde wig,’ Tracy said slowly.
When Tracy had left, Conrad Morgan sat in the dark in his