I spotted a phone booth at the foot of the stairs and ducked back down to it while Vadya was making use of the facilities down the hall. I had no trouble getting through to our London relay, but when I identified myself in code he gave me the flat wrong-number routine that means get the hell off the line before you can be traced and don't call again.
I hung up and went slowly back upstairs, frowning. In a way it wasn't an unexpected development. Colonel Stark had sounded like just the kind of stuffed shirt who'd lodge a protest through channels against my activities- real and imagined-even while he was having a tracking device planted in my car. I could guess that Mac didn't want to talk with me because, in the name of Anglo-American friendship, he'd been instructed by higher authority to do something he really didn't want to do, namely order me to look up our British compadres hat in hand and offer them my humble services even if it meant letting them have our Dr. McRow for a pet.
It's pretty standard treatment for a tricky official situation. After all, undercover communications are notoriously unreliable, and you can't recall a man you can't reach. I wasn't really surprised at the medicine, it was the way it had been administered that disturbed me. In my previous message I had asked certain questions. Even if our London man considered his lines unsafe, he could easily have given me a coded hint of where and when I could pick up the information I'd requested. The unqualified cutoff, with no alternative contact suggested, meant that there were no answers available and none expected. I was on my own.
When I re-entered our room, Vadya was standing in front of the dresser working at her hair and making dissatisfied faces at her reflection in the mirror. She glanced at me over her shoulder.
"Where did you go?"
I asked, "Do you want a lie or the truth?"
"Oh, a lie, of course. Lies are always more amusing than the truth. Tell me you went down to lock the car and never even considered using the telephone."
I grinned. She made a final effort toward perfection, grimaced, threw the comb aside, came over to me and put her hands on my shoulders. I was glad to see that she was back in her high-heeled pumps. As far as I'm concerned, women in sneakers can stay on the tennis court where they belong. She looked pretty good for having spent almost twenty-four hours in her clothes. Somehow she'd got most of the travel creases Out of the black linen dress, and while the black lace stockings had hit a couple of snags during the day's adventures, the figured stuff apparently didn't run like ordinary nylon, which made it ideal for a lady in our line of work: dark, durable, and sexy-looking. Hose-wise, what undercover woman could ask for more?
With her hands on my shoulders, she looked soulfully into my eyes and said, "I am disappointed in you, darling. I am hurt. Here we are, alone again after two long empty years, but you do not relax for a moment. You plot and plan and sneak off to telephone. Can we not, just for tonight, forget that we are agents and think only of each other and our love?"
I made an admiring sound. "Vadya, you're great. You do that beautifully."
She laughed. "I should. I've had lots of practice. But I'll do it even better after I have had something to eat and drink. Come on, I am absolutely starving."
There's a rumor, started by the French I believe, to the effect that the British can't cook. Being a meat-and-potatoes man from way back, I don't go along with this libel. The liquor laws on the island are incomprehensible, and even when you can legally get a martini it's atrocious, but the food has always seemed more than adequate to my simple taste. I may be slightly prejudiced by the fact that I'm a sucker for the white tablecloths and good service that practically always go with it, even in the remote Scottish Highlands.
On course, I was being skillfully seduced all through dinner, and that always improves a meal. This was apparently the real reason why Vadya'd had us stop for the night, and she was working at it hard and expertly. She continued to play variations of the basic theme she'd stated up in the room: we were two old pros, doomed by fate to fight on opposite sides, who'd once managed to snatch a moment of rapture nevertheless, and might find another if only we could keep the world and its conspiracies at bay, just for tonight. She was really very good. She almost had me believing that of all the men she'd met in the business, I was the one she always remembered, ever since that night in Tucson.
We practically closed up the dining room, which didn't make it very late, only about nine. There was still pale daylight at the windows when we went up the stairs. As far north as we were, in summer, we could expect only a few hours of real darkness. Back in our room again, I switched on the light, and then went across to pull the heavy curtains at the windows. They seemed to shut out not only the Scottish twilight, but all the world outside.
Vadya was still standing by the door. When I turned back to face her, she made a small adjustment to the fragile-looking scarf she was again wearing about her shoulders-the scarf with which she had killed a man- but she did not move otherwise. I walked across the room and took her in my arms and kissed her. It took a while to do a thorough job. At last she freed herself with a little sigh of satisfaction.
"Ah, that is better," she murmured. "That is much better. I thought you were going to make me do all the work, darling." She looked down, and loosened the scarf, and laid it aside. "Now you can take my dress off. Be careful. It is the only dress I have."
"Sure." I unzipped her and stripped her of one layer of clothing, leaving her clad in a black nylon slip. I performed the operation with great delicacy, as if I were skinning a mink and wanted to be sure to preserve the valuable pelt. I hung the dress carefully in the wardrobe and went back to her. "Yes, ma'am," I said. "One dress removed, intact."
She shook her head. "Matthew, you are being very difficult tonight. Very cynical and difficult. Anyone would think you suspected me of ulterior motives. How do I arouse you to real passion?"
I said, "Keep trying. There's still the slip and stockings. Taking off a woman's stockings-black stockings, yet-ought to affect any normal man the right way. Sit down on the bed and we'll give it a try."
A little anger showed in her eyes. "To hell with you, my friend," she said softly. "I do not think I like you like this."
I said, "And I do not like you like this, doll. Don't be so clever. It's been lots of fun watching you work, but you don't seem to know when to stop. This is your old friend Matt, Vadya. Do you know how long I've been in this business? And still you give me the old please-help-me-off-with-my-dress line, for God's sake, and expect me to go all helpless with desire, or something! Hell, I've pulled dresses off lots better-looking women than you and kept a steady pulse-well, almost steady. Steady enough."
She licked her lips. "What are you trying to say?"
"It's very simple," I said harshly. "I'll be delighted to sleep with you, but don't expect it to get you anything. It's been a long time since an attractive woman got my guard down far enough to profit by it. And she didn't do it by treating me like a gullible boy."
She hesitated. "And… and suppose I did want something from you, how would you suggest I get it?"
I said, "Well, you might try asking."
"Then I am asking."
I reached down and got Walling's note out of my sock and laid it on the table and set an ashtray on top of it to keep it in place.
"There you are. It names a certain place in the county of Sutherland, which starts just above Ullapool, which isn't too far ahead along this road. There are maps in my inside jacket pocket. Number 58 is the one you want. Now can we go to bed and make love like adult people, or do you have some other childish techniques you want to try on me?"