“What do you mean?”
“A deed was recorded at noon over at the courthouse. I got a glimpse of the tax stamps. Fifteen. You got time to get it out of the bank. Bring it on over as a down payment, guy.”
“When?” Peter asked weakly.
“Soon as you can make it. Get the cash and put it in a brown paper bag. I’ll be up in my room.” He hung up.
Peter walked blindly down to the bank, wrote out a check for the fifteen thousand. The cashier looked at him peculiarly as he said, “Small bills. Nothing more than a fifty.”
“Trouble, Mr. Hume?”
“Of course not! Do as you’re told!”
“Sure, Mr. Hume. Sure.”
He shoved the bills into his briefcase, walked back up to the office. With the door shut, he transferred them to a brown paper bag.
He heard a soft step behind him and half turned before his head exploded into fragments and he fell down through unending space into blackness.
He came to on the floor, stretched out on his back. Somebody was bathing his forehead with cool water. He opened his eyes, winced and reached up to touch the lump over his ear.
Robina smiled down at him and said, “Good morning, morning glory.”
He struggled up to a sitting position. “Somebody hit me!”
“The heat hit you, Peter. Heat stroke, I guess. I went down the hall for a minute. When I came back I found you on the floor. You’d keeled over and hit your head on your desk on the way down.”
“Brown paper bag!” he gasped.
“Say, are you off your wagon?”
He lurched to his feet, wavered dizzily. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“The brown paper bag!”
It was completely and definitely gone. He sat down heavily behind his desk. In a dull tone he asked, “Did you see anyone leave the office?”
“Didn’t see anyone come or go.”
“Robby, that bag had fifteen thousand dollars in it.”
Her mouth was a round O.
“I was supposed to take it over to — her.”
“What do you do now?”
“I’ve got to go tell Krakow. He’s the man with her. He’s expecting me.”
Chapter Four
Nightmare
Krakow opened the door to 413, his right hand out of sight behind the door. He sighed, said, “Come in, guy. Where’s the bag?”
He stuffed a small blue-black automatic pistol back under the oxford gray suitcoat. It went into place with an audible click.
“I haven’t got the bag. I haven’t got the money,” Peter said hopelessly.
“Leave us not have fun and games, guy. This is a town I want to get out of. Maybe you’d like Lynda to go calling on Miss Owen this afternoon?”
“I had it all ready. I swear it. I had my back to the office door. Somebody came in and hit me. See the lump?”
Krakow jabbed the lump with the tip of his finger. “So that’s the angle, guy? Not good, my friend. Not good. That won’t save you either the dough or a lot of trouble.”
“But I tell you somebody slugged me and took it!”
Krakow looked at him for five slow seconds and then said softly, “You know, I can almost believe you. Yes, I do.”
His small white fist whipped up and smashed against Peter’s mouth. Peter staggered but didn’t fall. He lowered his head and started toward Krakow. The gun appeared in the man’s hand. “Go sit down on the bed, guy. Honest, I could lick you, but it would take a little time and you might mark me. Sit down.”
Peter sat on the bed, dabbed at his lips with his handkerchief and looked dully at the spots of blood on the white linen.
“That was for being careless,” Krakow said. “Who knows the whole story?”
“Nobody but you and me and Lynda.”
“Oh, come now. How about the beautiful Annaly?”
Peter shook his head.
“How about that redheaded crow in your office?”
“She doesn’t know anything.”
“What kind of phone setup you got in there?”
“A phone on her desk and a PBX on mine.”
Krakow sighed. “Maybe I was careless. Maybe I ought to give you a poke at me. But I won’t. Our baby is the redhead. She heard you on the phone. What’s her name?”
“Robina Bray.”
The door swung violently open. Krakow spun toward it, the gun still in his hand. Lynda stood and looked at Peter. She merely looked at him. But it made his mouth dry and tightened the muscles in his back and shoulder.
She wore the same taffeta housecoat. One hand was half hidden in the folds of the skirt. She smiled widely, an idiot smile. She took small mincing steps toward Peter. The room was very still. He heard the distant sounds of traffic on the street outside the hotel, the drip of a tap in the small bathroom.
Her lips pulled away from her teeth and she lunged at Peter, small nail scissors clenched in her hand. She drove them toward his eyes. Even as he rolled back away from her, he heard a thudding sound. She fell limply and rolled off onto the floor. The nail scissors were on the counterpane beside him.
Krakow shut the room door. He had slapped her across the temple with the barrel of the automatic. She lay on her back, her eyes shut, breathing heavily through her open mouth.
“See the trouble I’ve got?” Krakow said. “Her room door is open. Open this one and take a look at the hall. If it’s clear, Jet me know.”
The hallway was clear. “Okay,” Peter said.
Krakow picked her up easily. Peter stood aside. Krakow grinned. “After you, guy. Always after you.”
Inside Lynda’s room, Krakow threw her roughly onto the couch, brushed his hands together and said, “I got her clothes locked up, but I don’t know how long I can keep her off your neck. She’s worse since she saw you yesterday.”
Peter licked his lips. “What’s going to keep her from coming back here after you take her away?”
“The syndicate keeps bargains, guy. You pay off and no trouble. She won’t be back.”
“How do I know that?”
“You don’t. I take her back to the coast and put her back on the snow and then we unload her on a friend. The snow will keep her in line.” He chuckled. “Old Lynda will probably wind up in one of those peep-hole joints in Cairo or Shanghai.”
Peter swallowed thickly. He looked at the thin, beaten, unconscious woman on the couch and thought of the way she had looked in Calcutta. He thought of the yellow evening gown she had worn, of the way she had looked in the moonlight.
Krakow sighed. “There’s the phone. Tell that Robina chicken of yours to get herself over here, but quick.”
“No!” Peter said.
“Stop being an eagle scout! I’m not going to kill her.”
Slowly, Peter walked to the phone, got the number.
“Peter Hume’s office. Miss Bray speaking.”
Hoarsely, “This is Peter.”
“Yes?”
“I wonder if you could come over to the Sayreton House right away, Robina.”
“Oh! You can’t talk.”
“Right.”
“And the way you said my name. It’s about the robbery?”
“Room 414, Robina. And you might as well bring along the papers on the Daniels case. I’ll sign them here and you can mail them in the lobby on your way out.”
He hung up. Krakow grinned. “Still a cutey pants, hey? Daniels is the chief of police here. So she comes with cops?”
Lynda stirred and sat up, slid her feet down onto the floor. She didn’t say a word. She merely began to stare at Peter again. She ignored the trickle of blood that began to dry on her cheek. Her dark hair was tangled. She made no effort to smooth it back.
Krakow took a key out of his pocket and threw it to her. It landed in her lap. She kept looking at Peter.