She saw comprehension flood Teresa’s face, and as she dashed off she heard the door lock. Nancy turned the corner and came to a complete stop in front of the elevator.
The corridors in both directions were empty. The red lights on the plaque above the elevator showed that the car was going down, down, all the way to the garage level before it stopped.
It was too late to catch whoever was on the elevator. Nancy scooped up the house phone on the console table opposite the elevator door. “This is an emergency! Send someone from Security to the third floor right away!”
As she dropped the receiver Nancy detected a faint moaning. Her heart pounding, she traced the sound to a room scarcely fifteen feet away. Should she wait or take a chance?
If someone was wounded, there was no time to lose. Nancy hammered on the door, then tried the handle.
“Just a minute, miss!” A heavy hand closed on Nancy’s shoulder. As she jerked around, the burly man produced his badge. “Security. Suppose you explain what’s going on.”
Quickly Nancy identified herself. “I’m a guest on the floor below. I phoned for you because I heard shots—right here by the elevator, I’m sure. And I just heard moaning from beyond this door.”
“There’s no moaning now,” the house detective answered skeptically. Sure enough, the third floor was as quiet as a tomb. “From the second floor, are you? What were you doing up here, anyway?”
“Visiting a friend,” Nancy said briefly. “And I did hear shots!” Rapidly Nancy scanned the walls and floor around the elevator. Suddenly she dove beneath the console table. “Look at this,” she exclaimed as she straightened up. “It’s a spent bullet. A nine-millimeter, isn’t it?”
The detective’s eyes narrowed. “You heard moaning? As if somebody’d been hit?”
“I’m not sure. It was very weak, but there doesn’t seem to be any blood around here.”
The detective knocked on the door. “Security! I’m holding my badge up to the peephole for you to see. Open the door or I’m coming in with a passkey!”
The door opened slowly. “Oh, thank goodness. I’ve been so frightened,” a small, white-haired woman said weakly. “I tried to call the front desk to tell them, but my hands were shaking so—”
“Tell them what?” Nancy asked gently.
“Why, about the kidnapping—” The little woman stopped, gasping for air. Nancy steered her to a velvet chair as the detective went to the bathroom for a glass of water.
“Drink that, and try to tell me. I’m sorry, ma’am, but it may be important.”
“Yes, I know.” The woman sipped some water, then went on. “I’m Mrs. Sherman. Mrs. John Sherman, from Atlanta. I was taking a nap before dinner. And I heard pushing and shoving coming from the hall outside. Then somebody screamed. I suppose I shouldn’t have, but I—I opened the door a crack. I was afraid it was children playing, you know, and that one of them was hurt. So I looked out—”
Mrs. Sherman swallowed hard. “That’s when the shots came. And I saw three men—no, four. One of them had the gun. He was pointing it at a nice young man while the two others were shoving him into the elevator.” She spread her hands. “I would have helped him if I could! But it was happening so fast—they fell into the elevator, and the door slammed, and then I—I started having a dizzy spell.”
The detective strode to the telephone. “This is Dixon. There are a couple of patrolmen having coffee in the coffee shop. Get them up to Room Three-twenty-two pronto!” he ordered. Then he turned back to the woman and took out a pen and notepad. “Do you think you can describe the men you saw?”
“Oh my, yes,” Mrs. Sherman said firmly. “One of them was your size, and the other two were a little shorter. They were in their twenties, I would say. The bigger one, the one with the gun, was older. They all had olive skin, and one of the young ones had a small mustache. The other had a scar on his face. They were wearing dark pin-striped suits.”