Part 16 (1/2)

The next few moments were a daze of shock, fear, and pain, in which, abandoning the attempt to call out or run for help, I cowered back against the pillows, trying, uselessly enough, to protect my face with my free hand. I'm not even sure if he hit me again. I think he did, but eventually when he saw that I was cowed and quiet he dropped the vicious grip on my arm and moved away from me, back to the foot of the bed.

I put both hands to my bruised face and tried to stop my body trembling.

”Look at me.”

I didn't move.

His voice altered. ”Look at me.”

Slowly, as if by doing so I would tear away the skin from my cheeks, I pulled away my hands. I looked at him. He was standing now at the foot of the bed, just at the edge of the pool of light cast by the bedside lamp, but I knew that I was still well within reach of that lightning athlete's pounce of his; and even without that I couldn't have hoped to run out of range of the gun which he now held in his right hand.

The gun s.h.i.+fted fractionally. ”You see this?”

I didn't speak. I was biting my lips together to stop them shaking, but he could see that I could see it.

He said: ”You've just seen how much use it is to scream in a place like this. There are two doors to this room, and the walls are half a meter thick, I should think, and in any case there's only that boy here, isn't there, the other side of the corridor, and quite a long way away? He'll be sleeping like a baby . . . but if you did manage to wake him, madame, that would be too bad for him. Do you understand?”

I understood very well. This time I nodded.

”All right. .. and if you try to touch that telephone again it will also be too bad for you.”

”What do you want?” I had meant it to sound furious, but my voice came out in a sort of thin whisper, and I cleared my throat and tried again. It still didn't sound like my own voice at all, and I saw him smile.

At the smile, some tiny seed of anger stirred somewhere inside me, sending a flickering thread of warmth through the cold and the fear.

”You were expecting someone, weren't you?” The smile grew. ”Or do you welcome all comers to your room, madame?” He lounged against the foot of the bed, holding the pistol carelessly, his look at once contemptuous and appraising.

Deep inside me the little flame caught and began to burn. I said, and was pleased to hear how steady and cold my voice sounded: ”You can see how much I welcomed you.”

”Ah, yes, the virtuous lady. You thought the husband had managed to get here after all, yes?”

So the first remark had been no more than a thug's routine insult. He contrived in some way to make the second sound equally offensive, and I managed to wonder fleetingly why any normal woman hates to be called ”virtuous.” But this was no more than a pa.s.sing irony; with his mention of my husband, the immediate fears for myself had fled and I had begun to think.

The thug knew that Lewis had been due. He had discovered that Lewis was delayed. Therefore, apparently, he had broken into my room to tackle me alone. . . . Without knowing anything further, I accepted Sandor Balog at this point as the enemy in Lewis's shadowy a.s.signment, as the center of the circus ”mystery.” No doubt I should know soon enough if he had come to find out from me anything about Lewis. . . .

My heart was beating in my throat somewhere. I swallowed, and said, fairly creditably: ”You didn't come here to be offensive. What did you come for? What is it to you when my husband is expected?”

”Nothing, my dear lady, except that perhaps I could not have come . . . like this ... if he had been here.”

”How did you know he wasn't here? If it comes to that, how did you know he was expected? I didn't tell anyone at the circus.”

A quick shrug of the broad shoulders. He still looked very much the circus athlete. He had, of course, changed from his performer's outfit, but he was still wearing black-tight dark trousers and a black leather jacket which looked as supple and sleek with muscle as the skin of a wild animal. ”You don't imagine I would come up and break into a place like this without finding all about it first, do you? Some of the servants live in the village. They were at the performance, and it was easy to talk to them afterwards and find out who the guests were. In this part of the world it is not customary for hotels to lock their doors at night, and I imagined that, shorthanded as they were, there would be no night porter on duty ... at any rate, not all night. So there was nothing to do but walk in and look at the register to find your room number-and make sure that he had not come after all.” That grin again. ”So don't try to frighten me, will you, madame, by persuading me your husband's going to come in and catch me here. And even if he did”-a brief gesture with the gun- ”I could deal with him as easily as with you, no?”

”No, you stupid animal,” I thought, but I didn't say it. I tried not to show the immediate relief I was feeling. Whatever he had come for, it was not Lewis, and it was apparent that he had not identified Lewis with Lee Elliott. He could hardly have found that ”Elliott” was expected, since I knew that Josef had only been told on his return from the circus, when the village contingent of servants had already left. So, though Balog didn't know it, Lewis was on his way, and, in place of the bewildered and frightened tourist he presumably imagined my husband to be, he would find himself tangling with a professional at least twice as tough as himself.

I said. ”All right. You've made your point. You've frightened me and you've hurt me and you've made it very clear that I've got to do what you tell me. Supposing you tell me what it is? What have you come here for? What do you want?”

”The saddle,” he said.

I stared at him. ”The what?”

”The saddle. When I saw that brooch affair on you I neverguessed . . . but then Elemer told me about the horse, and said you'd brought the saddle up here too. Where is it?”

”I don't understand. What can you possibly want?”

”You're not asked to understand. Just answer me. Where did you put it?”

I kept my eyes on his face. Suddenly I thought I understood only too well, and it took all my self-control not to let them flicker towards the dressing-table drawer where, wrapped in a handkerchief, lay the little pile of ”jewels” that I had cut off the harness tonight.

”It's in the stable, of course,” I said in a tone of what I hoped was surprise. ”Where else do you think?”

He made a quick movement of impatience, a slight gesture, but one containing so much suppressed violence that I felt myself flinch back against the pillows. ”That's not true. I went there first, naturally. Do you think I'm a fool? One of the servants told me the old man still kept a place for horses here, so I went straight there to look. I saw you'd put the horse to graze on the hill, and I thought the tack would be in the stable, but there was no sign of it. Did you bring it up here to tamper with it? Where is it?”

”Why should I tamper with it? It is in the stable, it's in the corn bin.”

”The corn bin? What sort of story's that? Don't lie to me, you little fool, or-”

”Why should I lie to you? All I want is to get you out of here as soon as possible. I don't know what you want with the saddle and I don't care, and I'm not stupid enough to fight you over it when it's quite obvious I can't win. It's perfectly true I put the thing in the corn bin. There are rats in that stable-I saw traces of them, and I didn't want the saddle left out and damaged in the night. In case you didn't know, corn bins are usually made of metal, simply to keep the rats away from the grain. You'll find the saddle in the bin beside the door to the coach house.” I had been holding the bedclothes up above my breast, and now I pulled them closer round me with what I hoped was a gesture of dismissive dignity. ”And now will you please get the h.e.l.l out of here?”

But he didn't move. There was the now familiar gesture with the pistol. ”Get up and get dressed.”

”What?”

”You heard me. Hurry up.”

”Why should I? What are you talking about? What are you going to do?”

”You're coming with me.”

I was still clutching the bedclothes tightly under my chin, but I could feel the dignity slipping from me. I felt myself begin to tremble again. ”But I-I've told you the truth. What reason would I have to lie? I tell you, you'll find the thing in the corn bin. Why can't you just go down there and take it and go away?”

Again that impatient movement that was a threat. ”Do you think I'm going to walk out and leave you here to raise the place? Now come along, don't argue with me. Do as I say and get out of that bed.” He gestured with the gun again towards the side of the bed away from the telephone and away from the door.

There seemed to be nothing for it. Slowly I pushed back the bedclothes and got out onto the floor. My nightdress was double nylon, but I felt naked. I remember that the feeling was not so much one of shame as of sheer helplessness, the feeling that must have driven the first naked man to fas.h.i.+on weapons for himself. It is possible that if it had been I who held the gun I should have felt fully clothed.

I picked up my clothes. ”I'll dress in the bathroom.”

”You'll dress here.”

”But I wouldn't be able to-”

”d.a.m.n you, don't argue. Get dressed. I'm in a hurry.”