The bedroom was in contrast, the walls refinished in pale gray, the furniture new, modern, inescapably cheap.
The hop said, “They’re redecorating. In this layout the bedroom’s all done but they haven’t touched this sitting room yet.”
She wasn’t used to the currency. She handed him the largest of her silver coins and it seemed to be adequate. “Call the desk if you want anything,” he said, let himself out. She affixed the chain across the door, hurried to the bedroom and did the same with the bedroom door which opened on the corridor. Then she slipped the taped knife into her sleeve.
On impulse, she turned off the lights, stood by the wide windows and looked down into the honking, confusing traffic of Fiftieth Street. For the first time in many days, she felt almost relaxed. With relaxation came reaction. She walked into the bedroom, sat listlessly on the edge of the bed, the tip of her cigarette making a subdued red spot in the darkness. When the cigarette was done, she stubbed it out and lay back on the bed. The traffic noise was a vast, throbbing lullaby...
She started violently, suddenly aware of the tapping at her door. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. Her sleep had been sound. She stood up so quickly that she wavered dizzily. In the sitting room, she turned on the floor lamp and a table lamp and arranged her hair quickly as she walked to the door.
“Who is there?”
“Are you ready yet, Miss Walters?”
She slipped the chain off and opened the door. The stocky man came in, his hat in his hand. He had a violently florid complexion, hair so blond as to be almost white, his eyebrows and small mustache startling against the veined red of his skin. His eyes were pale, watery blue, quite vague — but she got the impression that those eyes saw all that was necessary to see. He was very well dressed.
He closed the door behind him, slipped the chain back in the slot, and took off his topcoat, threw topcoat and hat on the frayed couch and sat down heavily in the nearest chair, looking at her with evident approval.
“I’m Roger,” he said, as though that one word explained everything.
“Roger? I don’t—”
“Of course you don’t, my dear.” His voice had the clipped, flat accent of a Lord Haw Haw. “It isn’t necessary that you know.” He looked at her intently, his eyes ranging from ankle to throat. She backed away and sat down. “A very nice job of selection by our friend, Sakna,” he said.
“Against my will,” she said.
Roger laughed. “Of course, my dear. No one willingly does this sort of thing, you know. That is, unless they happen to be psychopathic. I would assume that you are — quite normal.”
“What is the next step?” she said.
“You will tell me every detail of your instructions,” he said quietly.
She shook her head. “No. I cannot.”
His face turned a deeper shade and his eyes narrowed. “May I ask why not?”
“Part of my instructions are to tell no one.”
He smiled. “Oh, but those instructions came from Sakna Kahn. Here you are under my jurisdiction, my dear. I countermand his orders.”
“I won’t accept the change,” she said firmly. “It is all very well for you to ignore him, but I have to go back there. You don’t. As long as I have to go back and report to him, I will do exactly what he told me to do.”
His anger faded. “You are stubborn, my dear. Very well, then. If you won’t, you won’t. At least we’ve done part of our job. We’ve put you in the same hotel where Karl Ehrlich is staying. Sakna Kahn at least managed to tell us that much of your mission.”
“Ehrlich is — here!” she gasped.
“Certainly! You’ll know him by sight?”
“Sakna Kahn had one picture. A poor one, cut from a Berlin newspaper from before the war.”
“He hasn’t changed. He’s tall, heavy through the shoulders. Coarse features. He is very mild in action, quite courtly in fact. He has a — shall we say — pronounced regard for the fair sex.”
“Sakna Kahn knew that when he — selected me.”
Roger smiled. “I assume that Sakna Kahn has the usual safeguards to guarantee your obedience?”
She remembered the look in Sakna Kahn’s eyes when he had said to her, “Remember, my dear, you have two younger sisters. Any deviation from your instructions would be unfortunate. We would have to pay them a visit. Your family plantation near Ratnapura is quite isolated, is it not?”
“Yes,” she said weakly to Roger. “My obedience is beyond question.”
“He is a clever man. But so is Ehrlich. It takes a clever man to get a clean bill of health from the War Crimes people when you have Ehrlich’s background. I must be leaving. You have the number. In case of trouble, telephone again.”
He picked up his coat and hat. She followed him to the door. At the door he turned, smiling at her, twirling the hat in his hand. Suddenly the hat smashed up at her face, the room swung like a giant pendulum and there was a touch of fire along the line of her jaw. She felt herself topple toward the floor, but she couldn’t feel the impact of landing on the floor. She fell endlessly...
Light stung through her eyelids. She moaned and put her arm across her eyes. From far away Roger said, “Ah, awake again, I see.”
She blinked at him. He sat in his shirtsleeves looking at her. She was on the couch. Her jaw hurt. She touched her fingertips to it.
“There will be no mark,” he said, “if that’s what you’re worried about. I masked my fist with my hat.”
Under cover of her arm, she reached gently with the fingers of her other hand, found to her dismay that her sleeve was unbuttoned, the jade knife gone.
“Your plaything is on the bureau,” he said. “I took the liberty. I thought you might be dangerously angry.”
She sat up dizzily, the pain throbbing along the lean line of her jaw. “Why did you?” she whispered hoarsely.
“An elementary precaution. Your little gift for Ehrlich would have been taken if you had had it here. If I could take it, Ehrlich could take it. I assure you, my dear, that you have been carefully searched. I trust you left it in a safe place?”
He smiled with his lips alone. The vague blue eyes had glints of anger.
“I don’t believe you, of course,” she said.
“That is of no interest to me.”
“Had you found what you sought, Roger, you would have been gone by the time I awakened.”
“Possibly,” he said casually.
“I want to laugh at you,” she said. “You have made me feel good. Very good. I was foolish. I thought that Sakna Kahn and the ones like him — you, for example — were selfless fanatics. It is a pleasure to find you are a common thief. It makes all of you less formidable.”
He stood up and slowly slipped into his suitcoat, smiling down at her as he buttoned it. “One round for you, my dear. It is like a mathematical equation. Had I won, you would have been proven a poor one for Sakna Kahn to have sent.” He picked up his coat and hat again and hurriedly let himself out. She walked over to the door and replaced the chain.
As she was getting dressed, she ordered her dinner. It was too late to go out alone. When she had finished, she pushed the cart out into the hallway, locked her door and glanced at her watch. Nearly eleven. She thought vaguely of calling Ehrlich, even went so far as to rest her hand lightly on the phone. The idea was poor, she realized, and she was motivated by the urge to get the business over with quickly. She forced herself to relax. She sat in the darkened room for a time, watching the night silhouettes of the buildings of central Manhattan. She went to bed.