Karl laughed at her. The sound was flat, metallic — somehow reminding her of the click of the door latch. “Don’t fret, Stella. This toy is a thing I have seen before. It is the impact which releases the capsule of acid into the liquor. A pretty seal etched into the silver, don’t you think? Don’t you remember seeing it before?”
She could make no sense of his words. She felt as though she had been pushed onto a stage in an unfamiliar part. The other actor was giving her the cues, but she couldn’t respond. “No, I—”
“Think, my clever little one: Think hard! Surely one like you who comes to Karl Ehrlich and pretends to be a customer must also be observant.”
“I did not pretend. I have—”
His voice softened. “My dear, a man does not lie when he looks into the eyes of death. Roger Darron labeled you an imposter when he said that you have nothing of value with you.”
His huge frame and the uncanny quickness of his movements made any thought of escape impossible. She lifted her chin, tried to make her voice firm and confident. “But surely Roger Darron told you more than that. He must have—”
“Stella, my sweet, he had no chance to say more.”
“Then you—”
The silence in the room was intense. Her mouth dry, she looked into his eyes and saw what Roger Daron had seen — and Wanda. She saw the way Wanda had walked back and forth, suddenly alive as she talked of Roger. She saw Roger’s vague blue eyes, his florid face, the red puffiness of his hands. A fragment of memory returned. There had been a ring on the third finger of his left hand. A heavy ring, the flesh bulging above and below it. An odd seal on that ring. The seal matched the design on the flask.
Inadvertently she said, “His ring.”
“I knew you were observant, Stella. Now you know far too much, don’t you? When he was blinded he fumbled for that flask. I thought it must be some sort of a key to his activities. I brought it back here with me and put it away in the drawer. You must be psychic, my dear. Something led you directly to it. Now, suppose you tell me, very quickly, who your represent, what you are after.”
He stepped closer to her, one of his big hands clamping on her wrist. He twisted slightly, and the pain shot through her arm.
“Who sent you to me?” he asked, accenting each word.
He had his right hand on her left wrist. She moved a bit closer to him, and smiled. She slipped her right hand through the tear in her dress, snatched the jade hilt of the knife, felt the tape pull away from her flesh. She snapped it down to fling off the sheath and then drove it up at him.
He twisted back. The keen blade slit the fabric of his suit and that was all.
“The kitten has claws,” he said softly. On his toes, like a boxer, he began to move cautiously toward her. “It will be better if it is your knife that is used,” he said.
The door broke open with a splintering crash and Harrigan bounded into the room, the light glinting on the steady muzzle of the revolver he held aimed at Ehrlich’s middle. “Break it off right here, kids,” he said softly.
Ehrlich snatched the knife by the blade, pulling the hilt out of Latmini’s lax hand. With the same sweeping motion, he threw it at Harrigan, bounding after it like a great cat.
The crash of the shot in the small room was like the crack of a thousand whips. Harrigan had fired as he jumped back. He stood, his back against the closet door, and the jade handle of the knife quivered close to his head. His rush carried Karl heavily into the wall near the door. Then Karl crashed to the floor and lay still.
Harrigan put one toe under Ehrlich’s shoulder and grunted as he kicked him over. “Oh, unhappy day!” Harrigan said. “Right smack in the face. And so many people wanted to have words with him.”
He kicked the shattered door shut in the face of a shaking man who stood there, his eyes bulging. He said to Latmini, “Sit down, honey. I got a call to make.”
She sat numbly on the bed. It was finished now. Sakna Kahn would believe that he had been betrayed. Anything he might do, he would consider as a lesson to others who would think of betrayal.
She heard the murmur of Harrigan’s voice as he spoke over the phone. He hung up.
“What made you come here?” she asked in a low voice.
“We’ve had this outfit covered like a tent, sweetness. Our man was on the switchboard when I was in your room. One of the Federal agencies has been fastened to Ehrlich like a leech for months. We coordinated a little. That reminds me.” He stepped out into the hall, pushed some people aside and picked up a stethoscope from the floor, came back into the room and kicked the door shut.
“A very old gag, honey, but a good one. He was too smart for the boys to plant wires on. So I got this in a hurry from a doc in the hotel. Flat against the door, you can hear pretty good.”
She stared over at the dead face of Karl Ehrlich and shuddered.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Harrison asked. “You’ve heard about these things. The boys will be along in a few minutes now to wrap up Ehrlich. You’ll have to answer our questions, then we turn you over to the Federal boys for a thorough going over.”
“It won’t do any good,” she said dully. “It has all gone wrong for me. Everything. Nothing will do any good now.”
He walked over to her, squatted on his heels in front of her and peered up into her face. “Maybe you should tell Harrigan,” he said softly. “You sound beat.”
“I’ll tell you, but it won’t do any good. I was sent here to contact this man and buy weapons for shipment to Ceylon. I have failed. The man who sent me here will take his revenge on my family.”
Harrigan frowned. “So that’s why Ehrlich here was such an interesting item to the boys from Washington! But have you got that kind of money on you?”
She silently shook her head.
He stood up. “Then Harrigan can’t do anything for you, honey. We need a little more than a fairy tale from a beautiful lady to swing us into action.”
She shrugged hopelessly. “What could you do?”
“Simple. Our British cousins are also interested in Ehrlich, even though he’s dead. I spent some time in CIC during the late fracas. I know how far they’ll play along. With proof of some kind from you, I’ll bet they’d send their people to your family, pick them up and hold them in protective custody.”
Slowly she lifted her head. “Do you mean it? Really?”
“Of course I mean it.”
She stood up and wavered weakly. He caught her by the elbows and said, “Steady as she goes, lass.” For a moment their eyes met. She felt that something had passed between them. A certain understanding. With an odd flash of prescience, she knew that this man would be mixed up in all the rest of her life.
She walked to the closet door and said, as she wrenched the knife out of the wood, “You said there is a doctor in the hotel. Call him immediately.”
He stared at the knife. “But what—”
“Call him!”
As he crossed to the phone she went over and sat on the bed. He replaced the phone on the cradle and said, “He’ll come running. Now what—”
She had pulled the skirt of the green dress up above her knees. She glanced at Harrigan. He licked dry lips and she saw the confusion in his eyes.
Her mouth twisted into a grimace of anticipated pain, and she placed the keen edge of the blade against the ridge of white scar tissue, pressed down and drew the blade quickly across the scar, biting deep. The dark blood flowed quickly. Faint with pain, she flexed her thigh to bunch the muscles, pressed hard with her thumbs on either side of the wound.
A dark object slipped from the wound and thudded against the rug. She tried to press again, but all strength had gone from her fingers. Weakly she said to Harrigan, “Emerald... nearly thirty karat... imbedded in tissue... sterile... two others still there... half-million dollars... they were stolen from Buddhist temple.”