“What girl?”
“Olga Cassarova. She just came over from England. The Department tried to keep her out, but there was some hitch and she came in as sweet as the flowers in June. She is a Russian agent, and that’s about as much as we know about her. She’s been mixed up with the Bolshies in England — the same crowd that Ivan trained with when he was there. Now she’s here for some reason or other. We think we know, but can’t be sure.”
“What was she doing in my room then?” Barry asked, tapping the match box with the end of a finger nail. “I had nothing that would interest a Russian agent. And if it is the same girl, she wouldn’t be stooping to theft.”
“No,” agreed Dan.
“Then what? I knew subconsciously when I saw her, that there was something funny about her presence there. What was it?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Dan confessed. “If you had been connected with international intrigue at any time, or knew any of the gang, or were connected with the Service in some manner, there might be an explanation. As it is, I’m stumped.”
Dan left in the middle of the afternoon, promising to call up the next day. Barry picked up the latest issue of his favorite magazine and sat down by the window to read for a time.
He was occupied in that manner, silent, still, when a key slipped into his door lock with a little rasp of metal against metal. There was something furtive about that sound that quite precluded any thought that it could be the room maid or one of the hotel staff.
Barry sat up abruptly, and then as the key turned in the lock he got to his feet noiselessly and reached the open door of the clothes closet with three silent steps. He barely had time to draw the door partially shut before his own room door opened and a figure slipped in, and closed the door after it.
It was several seconds before that figure moved in far enough to come within Barry’s range of vision. And when it did, he almost gave an audible gasp of surprise. It was the girl in black, the girl of the Leviathan — Olga Cassarova.
She was dressed in black again, a trim, modish outfit for street wear, including a small close-fitting black hat that came down low over her black hair.
She stood in the middle of the room, Olga Cassarova, poised, alert, listening, searching about with quick, keen glances. There was no mistake this time, no chance that she could have got in the wrong room. She was in the right room, and she knew whose room it was, and what she wanted in there.
Barry almost stopped breathing as he stared out through the small opening at her. And as he did so a score of questions rioted through his mind. What did she want with him? What was the meaning of this second visit? How did she know where he was staying? Even to the hotel and the room. How had she got a key that would fit his door, and why?
She stepped to the door of the bathroom and tried the knob, and when it turned she opened the door and looked in. No one was there, of course. The sight seemed to reassure her. She came back into the room, and went without hesitation to the spot where Barry’s two kit bags reposed on the floor. She stooped down over them, looked for a moment, and then picked one of the bags up and placed it on the bed.
She carried a small leather purse. Opening that, she took out a tiny hooked instrument and inserted it in the lock. With a dexterity that was almost an art she worked on the lock, and finally opened it.
All the time Barry stood as though carved from stone, staring at her. He simply could not make himself believe that this young woman was the common thief she seemed to be. Even as he saw her opening the bag he could not believe it. There was nothing inside that had any value. Nothing that would pay her for the trouble of looking him up, getting a key to fit his door and making the risky attempt at entering and stealing.
Still, she worked as if by plan, certain that there was reward of some kind waiting for her. And Barry watched, struggling with himself, not knowing what to do about it.
Finally, as he saw his bag open and her shapely hand dart down inside, he could contain himself no longer. He shoved open the door and walked out into the room.
She heard the sound and whirled, the same small automatic appearing in her hand as if by magic.
This time Barry did not raise his hands; the sight of the weapon, coupled with his knowledge of her record, aroused in him a measure of anger. “Put that down,” he said coldly.
If sight of her had surprised him, his sudden presence almost dazed her. She stood there with the gun in her hand, staring at him, saying nothing.
“Put that gun up,” Barry ordered, scowling at her.
She started to lower it, and then caught herself and held it steady. The same movement seemed to give her self-control. She asked unsteadily: “What are you doing here? I... I thought I heard you go away.”
Barry did not choose to enlighten her. “No matter what you heard, I’m here now. So you were spying on the room, waiting until I went out?”
Her answer surprised him. Her voice was steadier, cooler, with a hint of hysterical laughter burbling down underneath it. “Certainly. You don’t think I would try to come in while you were present, do you?”
“I wouldn’t think, from your looks, that you would ever stoop to it,” Barry told her. He scored too. A bit of red crept up into the white of her cheeks.
Her chin came up. “What you think,” she told him, “does not matter in the slightest.”
“Yes, it does,” Barry assured her. “For on what I think rests the decision as to whether I call the house detective or not.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“No? Have you stopped to think that you are a common crook? You have entered my room, and opened my locked bag, and were searching it when I walked out on you. There is only one name for that sort of work, and usually only one treatment.”
All surprise and anger, all emotion, was out of her face now. She looked at him gravely from her big gray eyes.
“Quite true,” she admitted with a slight nod of her head. “Every word that you say is right — but have you stopped to think that I may have had a reason for entering your room this way, and opening your bag?”
Barry raised his eyebrows.
“Reason? Certainly. You must have had. I credit you with more sense than to do things like this for the pleasure of doing it. But — it will take a mighty good reason to cover what you have just done.”
She smiled — and the effect was astonishing. It was as if a veil of clouds had been whisked away from a fair, beautiful sky. No longer was she pale, no longer did she appear wearied. Years dropped away from her shoulders. She seemed what, in truth, she was, a beautiful young woman. Young.
“And if I should tell you that there was a very good reason, would it be all right with you?” she asked. “For you must see that I can’t be looking for anything to steal.”
In that moment Barry found it hard to believe that she could be all that Dan had imputed her to be. Olga Cassarova, Russian agent, Bolshevist, fellow-worker with Ivan Alexandranoff. A creature of the Red Menace. A beautiful lily, with roots thrust deep into the mire and muck of World Revolution.
Hard indeed — and yet here she was.
Barry wiped all expression off his face as he faced her smile. Knowing her for what she was, he knew the smile for what it was. A trap. He had caught her, and now she was trying to use her beauty to get out of it. Well — let her.
“I shall be glad to hear what you have to say,” he told her. “It does seem that you are looking in an unlikely place. I never carry valuables with me. In that bag you have just opened there is not a thing of value.”
“Perhaps there is. Listen to me — suppose with me. Suppose there was a girl on board ship who had something that was very valuable to her, and a little dangerous if found on her. And suppose that she saw a man on that ship who could make trouble for her if those papers were found — and who had the power to do so. And suppose she got to her cabin, and got the papers and hid them in the first place that came to mind—”