“Major,” Clay said slowly, “do you ever visit high buildings?”
The Major laughed. “Come, come, my boy. You are into a business far above your intelligence. Shooting bandits on the street is your business. This is a world game, great powers against great powers, far too big for you. Your country and my country. But tell me why you came. You have a message to deliver, a threat perhaps?”
“Perhaps.” Clay’s blue eyes knitted. “You’re right, Major, one country against another country. The game’s too big for me to play.” And when the Major nodded his satisfaction: “So let’s forget that and bring the game down to my size — one man against one man. If your next attempt to kill me fails, I’ll shoot you down like any common thug, anywhere, any time, any place.”
“You mean that?”
“Mean it? Take a look into my eyes now, and if that great brain of yours can’t turn the trick, you’ll have to die to find out.”
It was a full minute before the Major spoke. “Very well, Mr. Holt. I believe you. There’s a chance yet to save your life. There’s Judge Van Eden. You remember meeting his daughter with me only this afternoon?”
“What of her?”
“What of her?” The Major’s eyelid contracted. “Like you, Clay Holt, she might die at any moment.” There was no softness in the Major’s voice. “If anything happens to me, Muriel Van Eden dies.”
Davis and his table mate moved from their seats and the bull-necked man, and another were walking leisurely toward him. He knew that the Major’s eyes watched his, and he didn’t know what the Major saw there. But he knew what he saw in the Major’s face, and he wondered, did the other men see it, too?
He saw fear in those little, round eyes. Yes, even terror. The Major seemed to shrink down in his seat as Clay’s hand snapped under his arm and clutched at his gun.
Yes, the Major feared one thing. He feared death. Death that was about to strike. A death that neither the Major nor Clay Holt could control. It was beyond Clay now. A bursting plane in mid-air, women and children, other planes, other women, other children. They were bursting in Clay’s head — a kaleidoscope of twisting, turning bodies, and twisting and turning with them were the contorted, horrible features of the Major.
Time, place were forgotten. The consequences not even thought of. Four men approaching — a split second, and there might never be another opportunity.
And a voice called out: “Mr. Holt, paging Mr. Holt.”
Clay raised his eyes, and they rested fully upon a pair of sandy eyes behind glasses, unpleasantly old fashioned and stiffly arranged hair.
Clay Holt spun around and nearly knocked down Mr. Davis. “Out of my way, heel,” he said as he walked straight toward Agatha, whose reflection he had seen so plainly in the long mirror as the page boy called his name.
Clay Holt strode out, Agatha Cummings hanging to his arm.
“All right, Clay,” Agatha said when they reached the street, “bawl me out.”
He leaned over and patted the hand that clung to his arm. “No, kid,” he said. “I’d have killed him, shot him to death. Let’s go across the street and have a drink.”
At the table in the little place across the street Agatha said, “He got you, Clay. I saw your face. I had the page boy by the door ready.”
“It would have been murder, I suppose.” Clay’s hand was trembling when he put down his glass. “I never understood it before. He talked about seeing things in my eyes.” He gripped Awful’s hand. “It isn’t just rot, kid, for I saw things in his eyes. I saw his dirty, rotten soul. I could have killed him like that.”
“That would have been some floor show,” Agatha said lightly.
“Damn it, kid, I’m mad like he is.” Clay tossed off the rest of his drink and told Agatha what had happened. “He’s holding Muriel Van Eden prisoner. I can’t let him go through with it. And I can’t—”
“You can’t stop him,” she finished. “She’s cute and she’s young, but she’s weak. He’ll use her to trap you. Let us go to your apartment and wait there for word from the Major.”
“But he might keep us waiting while—”
Clay stopped talking. He and Agatha both looked up together. The Woman in White was now in black. She said, “I don’t admire your taste in women tonight, Mr. Holt. May I sit down? And will you dismiss your country cousin?”
Clay made a motion with his thumb. Agatha came to her feet. She was about to speak, but Clay spoke first. “On your way,” he said. “Sit down, Lady Una.”
Una turned, watched the girl leave the restaurant, ordered a liquor, then said to Clay: “Lady Una — are you facetious or have you been looking up my pedigree?”
“Twelve people were killed today,” Clay said bluntly.
“I was in the Walden.” The woman raised her eyes. “I was surprised it was not thirteen.”
“You saw?”
“No — heard. You are quite a young man, Mr. Holt. I have known the Major on and off for five years. It was his first fright.”
“You think nothing of those deaths?”
“You should have said, Mr. Holt, that I show nothing of what I think. Soldiers and doctors and nurses see worse every day. The ordinary person reads them without emotion in the papers. You know my profession, you must know I shut my mind to certain things. You forget that I asked you to see me safely from the dining room, that I might leave without hindrance from the Major. Does that tell you anything?”
“Plenty,” Clay nodded. “It tells me first that the Major wanted you to worm your way into my confidence. Why not begin?”
“You disappoint me, Mr. Holt. I saw in you the honest, fearless he-man, who fights only with the most feared weapon to all criminals and spies alike — physical force, violence, and sudden death. Surely you are not suddenly going to produce brains. All the others have that, but so few have a reckless physical courage. If you had wished to practice the fine arts you should have pretended to believe me, lead me on. You have that something women fall for to a remarkable degree. It’s the boyish honesty in your face.”
“You’re an eyeful yourself,” Clay admitted. “But it’s the filthiest piece of business I have ever been in, and I’ve been mixed up in some pretty dirty work. Tonight I nearly murdered a man. I don’t wish to invite a beautiful woman to my apartment and knock her around in the hope of gaining information.”
“There are countries,” she said, “where men and governments are not so considerate. I have been knocked around.” She came to her feet. “I have brought you a message. You are to wait in your apartment for a call — about Muriel Van Eden.”
“A trap of course.”
“Of course.”
“And you think I’ll fall for that?”
“I don’t know if you’ll fall, but I think you’ll come. You’re built that way.”
“I’ll come,” Clay told her.
“How interesting,” she smiled at him. “Gun play, and all that.”
“And all that,” he said.
The woman looked at his hard, cold, determined face. The sparkle went out of her eyes. Very carefully she removed her glove and extended her hand. “If you’ll forget the filth,” she said, “I’d like to shake hands with you.”
Clay extended his hand. The woman gripped it once tightly, then drew her fingers slowly away.
“Good-by,” Clay said.
“Good night,” said the woman. “I hope, just good night.”
Clay went straight to his apartment, slammed the door, and stood rigid in the hall. The hair bristled on the back of his neck like an animal’s. His gun was in his hand as a voice called: “Don’t mess up your own apartment with loose gunplay, Clay. I’m waiting for you.”