It wasn't really a watertight argument, but I found myself inclined to believe her, just as a working hypothesis. I guess what I really believed was her involuntary start when she saw the dead girclass="underline" she hadn't been expecting that. At least I didn't think she had. I took my hand from my pocket and grinned.
"Okay, Vadya. It was just a notion. I thought I'd better check it out. Well, we'd better get out of here. Just let me pick up my own stuff and wipe off a few fingerprints. No sense making things too easy for the British constabulary-"
I stopped talking and put my finger to my lips. Somebody had been passing in the hall outside. At least I'd thought they were passing, but then the footsteps had stopped. I waved a hand at Vadya. She nodded, reached down to slip off her pumps and, moving very quietly in her stocking feet, on tiptoe, she vanished into the bathroom. I looked around quickly. The dead girl looked convincingly poisoned with her glass beside her. I went over to my own broken glass and arranged myself carefully on the rug, closed my eyes, and started breathing as shallowly as I could.
There was a wait of at least three full minutes, as the person in the hall stood silent, presumably listening. At last I heard the sound of a key being inserted into the lock, and the door opened.
chapter TWELVE
It went as smoothly as if we'd rehearsed it for hours. I heard our visitor enter and lock the door again and come forward. I heard him set something on the table. He paused briefly by Nancy's body, and came over to me. I had placed myself so that, because of the table and chair, he had to make his approach from the bathroom side. As he stopped above me, in approximately the right position, I stirred very slightly and let out a feeble moan.
I heard him jump back, startled. There was a quick, predatory movement beyond him, a faint scuffle, a choked-off gasp, and some ugly, muffled, cracking and snapping sounds, followed by a kind of expiring sigh and the sound of a body slumping to the floor.
I heard Vadya's voice: "You can get up now, Matthew."
I rose and brushed myself off. She was calmly putting her pumps back on. The scarf she'd worn about her shoulders now hung from her hand, twisted into a kind of rope. Obviously it wasn't as fragile as it looked. A man in a dark suit lay face down on the rug between us with a broken neck. He looked very dead. It seemed unnecessarily drastic, but I made no complaint. It wasn't as if the guy had been a particular friend of mine. I did, however, wonder briefly if she'd had some reason for silencing him permanently-or maybe it was just an object lesson to show me that, when it came to garottes, two could play.
I glanced toward the table. A bottle stood there, identical with the one on the dresser except that, presumably, the contents were safe to drink.
I said, "My apologies, ma'am. This character seems to have come to do the switch job I accused you of. Do you know him?"
She rolled him over with her toe, looked at him, and shook her head. "No, do you?"
Her denial sounded convincing, but then, I reminded myself, her denials always did. I regarded our visitor- well, to be accurate, Nancy Glenmore's visitor. He was a big, dark man with a broad, Slavic face. I had seen the face before.
"I won't say I know him," I said, "but I saw him this afternoon. He's the guy who was tailing us in a souped-up Mini when we went for that little spin in Crowe-Barham's Rolls."
Vadya was touching her hair into place. She shook the creases out of her scarf and draped it gracefully about her shoulders again, frowning at the man on the floor. "When you saw him, was he alone?"
"No, but I didn't get a good look at the man with him."
"That means there may still be another nearby. We must watch for him as we leave. But first I think we should take a quick look around."
I made my voice casuaclass="underline" "For what?"
Vadya glanced at me. "Don't be stupid, darling. Maybe this one did come only to switch bottles, but maybe he came to find something, also. He must have had some motive for poisoning the girl, must he not? You search the room and check that purse, there's a good boy. I will search the girl-"
"Leave the kid alone," I said.
There was a brief silence. Vadya straightened up deliberately and swung away from the body on the floor to face me.
"So there was something," she murmured. "And you have it."
"There was something," I said. "I have it."
She was a pro. There were a dozen questions she undoubtedly wanted to ask, but she hesitated only a moment. Obviously, I would tell her about it when I damn well felt like it, if I ever did. In the meantime, questioning me would be useless and humiliating. She shrugged.
"In that case," she said, "there is no more for us to do here, is there?"
She walked to the door. I followed her, and let her out. I couldn't help looking back before I joined her in the ball and pulled the door shut behind us. The kid still lay on the floor, in her rumpled, modernized Glennmore kilts. Beyond her lay the man who was probably most directly responsible for her death. At least his attempted bottle-switch seemed to point toward his being the one who'd planted the poison in the first place. You could call his fate a retribution of sorts, but it didn't really help Nancy Glenmore much.
The slow London twilight was fading when we came outside, having aroused no apparent interest in our progress down the stairs and through the lobby. Nobody followed us away from the hotel. For the moment it wasn't raining, and the streets were drying, but it seemed a little chilly for Vadya in her sleeveless dress. Presumably she was capable of catching cold just like an ordinary woman. My gentlemanly instincts made me turn on the Spitfire's heater for her as we drove away, but I got no thanks for it. She was busy powdering her nose with the aid of the little mirror in her purse.
Presently she closed the purse with a snap. "There is no sign of the little Austin, but we have a 3.8 Jaguar behind us," she reported. "Three men. Somehow I think it is your British friends. They seem to lean toward honest faces and elaborate transportation."
I had already spotted the black sedan following us. "I'll check with Les," I said. "He did mention having a Jag available, and I want to call him anyway."
"Crowe-Barham?" Her voice held a wary note. "What are you cooking up with him now, darling? Your last cooperative venture wasn't very comfortable for me."
I grinned. "You're a suspicious Communist bitch," I said, "and a sadistic one. If you wouldn't go around killing people unnecessarily, I wouldn't have to plead with other people to intercede with the police. Or would you rather have us dodging cops clear to Scotland?"
She glanced at me sharply at this mention of our destination, and was silent. I found a phone and parked beside it. As I closed myself into the booth, I saw that the Jaguar had stopped to wait a block behind us, lights out. I decided they were just a little too conspicuous and obvious to be true. They were being clever. Everybody in London was being clever except me, and it was about time I started.
I managed to figure out the combination of the instrument in front of me-some of those British pay phones have more pushbuttons than an old Chrysler transmission – and I got a secretary on the line, identified myself by name, and asked for Les, as I had done once before that day. This time my request got me a funny little pause, as if I'd said something unexpected. After a bit, a male voice I did not recognize spoke in my ear.