“Suits me,” Johnny agreed. “I'm a night bird. Where's your roost?”
“At the unfashionable Hotel Alden,” Tremaine said drily.
“I'll see you,” Johnny told him, and hung up. He dialed the Spandau number as quickly as he could get a dime out. There was something he wanted to know. “Your boss around, little sister?”
“Johnny? He just rushed out of here when his answering service called him. I thought it might be you he was calling back.”
Johnny ignored the implied question. “He doesn't trust his little secretary?”
“He trusts Jules Tremaine.” Her tone changed. “What happened over at Empire?”
“If you know somethin' happened, you should know what it was,” Johnny pointed out.
“I only caught snatches. Jack called, nearly in hysterics. I heard your name.”
“Arends hysterics easy. Where'd you learn French and Italian?”
“I went to school in Switzerland. You learned French in the South, didn't you? I could hear that soft Provencal accent.”
“Marseilles.”
“I thought so. Mine is the accent du nord. Jules' is Parisien. Although his English is Britishy. Did you know he speaks seven languages?” Her tone changed again. “Stop distracting me. What happened?”
“You could call Max Stitt,” Johnny suggested.
“I'm not speaking to Max Stitt.”
“Then it wouldn't break you all up to hear that he ran into a little hard luck?”
“The only thing that would break me all up is that I wasn't there to see it.” Gloria Philips made no effort to disguise the malice in her tone, or the impatience. “What happened?”
“Well, he come waltzin' out of the chute with his front hoofs in the air before I got to say a word. At his age he should be a little more careful of the matches he makes for himself.”
“Max Stitt has never had to be careful. He has a reputation for hospitalizing people.”
“What's he so sudden about?”
“He enjoys it,” the girl said flatly. “He has an appetite for violence. I can't believe you beat him. Everyone's afraid of him.”
“Until he run into the hard luck he was way ahead on the score card. He can go.”
“It must have been quite a load of hard luck. Madeleine called me twenty minutes after Jack called Jules, which means that he'd called her, too. She wants to meet you.”
“She a buddy of yours?” Johnny asked cautiously.
Gloria Philips' laugh was brittle. “She doesn't even know I'm alive, until she wants something. Right now she wants to meet you. Her Majesty has commanded. I'm to arrange it.”
“What kind of a string's she got on you?”
“She owns stock in Spandau.”
“How's she think you're goin' to be able to do it?”
“My girlish charm. She knows I met you at the hotel when we found Claude.” She does, does she, Johnny thought. What a nice, tight little community of interests this was turning out to be. “I thought the best way to handle it would be to have her meet us when you pick me up for dinner,” Gloria continued. “If you don't mind. We can stop off for a drink at her place. She can afford it better than you can.”
“Suits me, if it does you,” Johnny said with pretended indifference. “She'll meet us at your place?”
“Not in the office. She won't come within a mile of Jules, if she can help it. He hates her, and she's deathly afraid of him, although she won't admit it. I'll see you at five?”
“You will, little sister. You will indeed.” Johnny replaced the receiver pensively.
The slowly widening ripples from the stone cast into the pool, he thought. The slowly widening ripples…
He left the phone booth and hurried upstairs to change.
CHAPTER IV
Johnny stepped from the elevator into the stream of people in the lobby of 222 Maiden Lane with Gloria Philips on his arm, and the redhead's hand tightened on his elbow. “There she is,” the girl murmured. “That's Harry Palmer with her.”
Johnny looked with interest at the tall, regal-looking blonde in a pastel mink stole who swept up to them, trailed by a short, bouncy, aggressive-looking little man in a dark business suit. “So good of you to be able to make it, darling,” the blonde said crisply to Gloria, semi-enveloping her in the phantom embrace with which women meet in public without ever quite making contact. “And how is dear Ernest these days?”
“Dear Ernest is just fine,” the redhead replied. “Mrs. Winters, Mr. Killain. Mr. Palmer, Mr. Killain.” Johnny was conscious that the eyes of both were upon the marks on his face.
Madeleine Winters was a green-eyed ash blonde, Johnny discovered as he pressed the tips of her fingers, which somehow managed to be the only part of her hand available to be shaken. What he could see of her legs beneath the faille suit were excellent. He suspected that her figure was just as good, if a man held no prejudice against the greyhound type.
Harry Palmer's handshake was firm and surprisingly strong. “Glad to meet you, Killain,” he said buoyantly. Confident good humor quirked the corners of his wide mouth. Johnny felt the transfer of a bit of cardboard from the little man's hand to his own. He palmed it as Palmer turned to Madeleine Winters. “Now that I've done the honors, my dear, I'll be running along.”
“Certainly, Harry.” The blonde smiled at him cozily. “And thanks for being so sweet about escorting me.” She addressed herself to Gloria as the little man strode jauntily away. “You won't mind that I've asked Jack Arends to join us for a drink at my place? I feel he can add so much to the gathering.” Madeleine Winters smiled again.
“I don't mind in the least,” Gloria replied. She disengaged her arm from within Johnny's. “I'm going to have to hold you up a moment, though. I've forgotten my little case with my homework. Excuse me, please?” She stepped back onto the elevator as she spoke.
For a second Johnny thought it might have been an arrangement to leave him alone with Madeleine Winters, until he saw that lady's expression as she stared at the elevator's closed door. In the lobby's harsh overhead light, tiny crow's-feet radiated from the eyes but only slightly negated a very good complexion. She was older than the redhead, Johnny thought, but it would take a woman to appraise the difference.
Suddenly conscious of his eyes upon her, Madeleine Winters showed her teeth in what was not quite a smile. “Extraordinary girl, Gloria. Isn't there something in the natural history books with tentacles ending in claws?”
“Not since the Ice Age,” Johnny said.
“A prehistoric background would suit her nicely,” the blonde said acidly. “But I shouldn't prejudice you on your first date.” Johnny again saw the flash of her even white teeth. “You must tell me all about it some time. I adore naughty stories.”
“You don't pull many punches, do you, Mrs. Winters?”
“Madeleine, please.” The green eyes inspected him searchingly. “If I don't, I understand I'm in good company. Max Stitt is not considered an easy man to handle.”
“His foot must've slipped.”
“Why did you go to see-” She broke off as the elevator ejected Gloria, attache case under her arm. “We can always get into that later, can't we?” The blonde smiled at Johnny. The smile evaporated as she turned to the redhead. “You're quite sure you're ready now, darling?”
“Quite sure,” Gloria returned evenly, drawing on white gloves. Johnny followed them through the lobby's revolving doors onto the sidewalk. Brother, he thought to himself, if there's a lamb in this crowd its name is Killain.
Facing away from the women with his arm upraised for a cab, Johnny was able to take his first look at the business card Harry Palmer had pressed into his hand. Beneath the block-lettered name it said Heritage Building, in the upper left hand corner Factoring, in the lower right Financing. Diagonally across its face in a bold, pencil-stabbing scrawl appeared Drop around and see me.
Now here's a money man no one took the trouble to mention, Johnny thought. He slipped the card in a pocket as he opened the taxicab door.