“Board and lodging for the night! As soon as I’ve rung that janitor about Tanya we’re bound for Jones’s flat. We can lie up there till I get things sorted out. Jones is going to have those kittens when he knows, but that’s just too bad.”
Rogoskaya Street was a quiet row of tall old houses north of Red Square. Shaw, with Virginia behind him, ran quickly up a flight of steps into a hall with a staircase rising from the back regions. They went on up to the first floor, where they found a solid oak door with a card in a brass holder carrying Jones’s name. On the remote off-chance that Jones might have turned his flat over to a colleague for the night, Shaw knocked and waited. Nothing happened. Then he tried the door; it was, naturally enough, firmly locked.
“Won’t take long,” he murmured. “Just keep a lookout on the stairs, will you?”
Virginia said, “Okay,” and moved back towards the staircase. Shaw fished in his pocket and brought out his special bunch of keys once again and began trying them in the lock. He was successful at the fourth attempt; the key slid in, clicked as he turned it, and the lock went smoothly back. No troubles this time; there was a mortice, but he was able to deal easily with that. He glanced round, hissed between his teeth at the girl, and pushed the door open. Virginia followed him into a small, dark hall. He closed the door behind her, locked it, and drew the bolts across at the top and bottom. Leaving the hall in darkness, he felt around and then opened a door leading off to the right; a glow from the street lamps showed up a big window and he went across and drew the curtains. Then he came back to the door and explored for a light switch, which he found immediately. As he depressed it, a gold-shaded table-lamp came on in a corner of the room.
Shaw looked around him with interest. So did Virginia. “Jones,” she observed, “lives in what one might well call a certain style…”
He squeezed her arm and whispered into her ear. “Private homes can be bugged in this country.”
She whispered back, “Sorry. So?”
“So I go on a bug hunt and you stay here.”
He went across the room, his feet sinking into the thick pile of a carpet of a fragile shade of green. His eye noted comfortable-looking, well cushioned sofas and chairs, an exquisite cabinet with priceless old china displayed, a big knee-hole desk of polished walnut with a red-leather top edged with gold tracery inlay. The curtains were thick and heavy and hanging in folds of warm, dark-red velvet. Carefully and minutely, he examined pictures and curtains for concealed wires or the tiny microphones that would pick up conversations and feed them back to tape recorders in adjacent flats, devices that could so easily be fixed by servants or caretakers. He went on hands and knees around the skirting-boards, pulled back the carpet all along its edge. He took up the hand-piece of the telephone and carefully unscrewed the mouthpiece and earpiece and then, using a small knife as a screwdriver, he opened up the body of the instrument.
He found nothing.
This room at all events was clean and bug-free; and if this room wasn’t bugged it was unlikely that any other room would be — with the possible exception of Jones’s bedroom, of course.
He grinned reassuringly at Virginia and said, “All right, come on in and talk all you want!”
She came over to him. “If all this isn’t Jones’s own furniture,” she said, “he must be paying a fortune to rent it. It’s superb!”
“It is,” Shaw agreed. “I dare say he’s well enough paid to carry it, though.” He went over to a tall cupboard, which he opened. He gave a sound of satisfaction. “Thought so,” he said.
She joined him. “What is it?”
“Whisky.”
“Scotch or rye?”
“Scotch. I’m sure Jones won’t mind if we help ourselves. I think we’ve earned it — don’t you? Just a night-cap… and then bed.”
“Sounds wonderful to me.” She gave a curious little laugh, a rather excited yet uncertain sound. “I… suppose your Mr Jones has a spare bedroom?”
Shaw was looking for glasses and she couldn’t see his face. He said lightly, “Probably. But if he hasn’t does it have to worry us all that much?”
She gave him a long look as he turned; her face had flushed. “Maybe not all that much,” she said quietly. Then she turned away suddenly and walked towards one of the sofas. She sat, tucking her ankles up beneath her skirt and letting her shoes slip to the thick carpet. A few moments later, Shaw came across with the glasses. The measures were stiff, with just a dash of soda.
“Do you good,” he said. He lifted his glass and smiled down at her, the gold-shaded light catching his profile and bringing into relief the long, hard line of his jaw, shadowing the deep-set eyes. He didn’t seem to notice the particular way Virginia was looking at him. He said, “Here’s luck!”
“And will we need it!..” Virginia gave a sudden shiver and then sipped her whisky appreciatively. “Say, this is really good. Pulls a girl together.” She added, “What time did you say Jones is due back here?”
“I don’t know what time he’ll be back in the flat, but he’s out of Moscow till morning. He’ll probably go straight to the Embassy.”
“Uh-huh.” She was silent for a few moments, studying him again with a curious look in her eyes; then she said, “Well, I reckon I’ll just go and take a look at the domestic arrangements, right?” She set her glass down rather hard on a small table. “I’ll be back.”
“You’d better be!” He smiled at her absently and she went out of the room, closing the door behind her. Shaw sat in a big chair and leaned back thoughtfully, jiggling his whisky-glass. He felt in his bones that things were coming to a head and he was damned certain he knew just where the boil would burst. Maybe, in Jones’s absence, he should contact Worth-Butters right away… but a moment’s reflection told him that wouldn’t do at all. Very unorthodox methods would have to be employed from now on, to get him into the atomic-industry area, and Worth-Butters himself would certainly not play along these particular lines. Jones still had to be his man…
Shaw was almost startled as, in the middle of his reverie, he heard his name called very softly.
He turned towards the door.
He saw Virginia standing there quite naked.
He got to his feet, the blood pumping through his veins like a sudden fire.
Twenty-three
Her lips had parted and he could see the tip of her tongue; it did things to him. She held her arms out towards him in an appealing gesture, a somehow pathetic movement that went straight to his heart. Yet he hesitated. Virginia MacKinlay, however short the time he had known her, attracted him strongly; but no matter how much he wanted her, he shrank from hurting her by sweeping her off her feet into a casual affair. There were women with whom one did that kind of thing and it didn’t hurt them; there were the others who meant too much for such a thing to be casual and meaningless. Further, and on another level, Shaw was reluctant to complicate the work-out of an assignment by getting too personally involved in the middle of it. On that score at any rate, afterwards was different.
Virginia moved a little. She said almost timidly, “Please! Steve, don’t have any doubts, not on my account. I’m not a child. I know what I’m asking.”
“You mean that?” he asked in a low voice.
“Truly. I know the kind of lives men in your job live. I know I can’t have you for always.” She added, as if seeing the thought in his eyes, “You’re not going to hurt me, Steve. I promise you that.”
He crossed the room slowly and took her in his arms. Her lips came up to meet his; she closed her eyes and when they had kissed — and it was a long one from which he didn’t pull his mouth away — she gave a deep, shuddering sigh of content. Putting his hands beneath her body, Shaw lifted her; he carried her across the room, his urgent fingers caressing her skin.