The second-floor room into which we sneaked rather guiltily would have made a good closet for the palatial chambers assigned to Winnie and me at Claridge's. Well, almost. There was still plenty of space for a couple of good-sized beds, a writing table, an overstuffed chair, a couple of straight chairs, a dresser, a wardrobe, and a telephone stand, but if you wanted a morning workout in your room, you'd have to settle for simple setting-up exercises or move some of the furniture out into the hail.
A brand-new suitcase of pale-green molded plastic was open on a stand at the foot of the nearest bed. It had the right amount of stickers and tags on it to have flown, sailed, or swum across the Atlantic. Well, nobody in the business is going to miss out on an obvious detail like that. Elsewhere, closed, stood a smaller bag and a hatboxy sort of case to match, similarly labeled. Some nice new lingerie that did not look as if it had ever been worn showed in the open suitcase. Some nice new bedroom slippers or mules, the sexy kind consisting of a sole and a heel and not much else, stood by the beds.
Since it was getting late, and the Europeans go in for service in a big way, one bed had already been turned back by the maid, ready for occupancy. A long, shiny, pale-green nylon robe and nightgown had been laid out across the foot of it. Seduction-wise, I counted it a point in my hostess' favor. This shortie stuff may be cute, but who wants a woman to look cute in bed? I mean, in the absence of a Lolita syndrome, it's hard to get erotic about a female camouflaged to look like somebody's kid sister. It's practically impossible if she looks like Peter Pan.
Nancy seemed surprised and embarrassed by the intimate atmosphere of her quarters. Anyway, she started forward quickly, as if to smooth out the inviting bed and hang the seductive sleepwear out of sight. Then she caught herself and stopped.
"Just drop your things anywhere," she said.
Her voice was casual, maybe a little too casual, and she'd turned away so I couldn't see her face. Before I could offer to help her, she'd slipped out of her raincoat and hung it in the wardrobe, that massive piece of furniture that is a necessary adjunct to most European hotel rooms, since built-in clothes-hanging space is generally not provided. She turned back to face me. If she'd had any problems with her courage or her conscience, she had solved them very quickly. Her hazel-green eyes were clear and guileless.
"Would you care for a drink, Mr. Helm? I bought one of those customs-free packages they sell on the plane. We could ring for some ice."
I laid my hat, coat, and envelope on one of the straight chairs. "The British drink their whiskey neat, I hear," I said. "Let's not bother the management. If they can do it, I can."
"Well, there's an open bottle of Scotch and a couple of glasses over there on the dresser. Why don't you do the honors while I… while I slip into something more comfortable."
She stumbled a little on the last sentence. I couldn't help glancing at her sharply to see if she was serious. I mean, it's just about the oldest line in the world. Five will get you twenty Eve told Adam to hold that apple just a minute while she slipped into something more comfortable, even though the record shows she didn't have a stitch on at the time. Nancy's face turned pink under my regard. I grinned at her.
"Sure," I said. "I know, your girdle's killing you." I grinned again, wolfishly, and picked up the green nylon stuff on the bed and presented it to her with a bow. "Well, we sure wouldn't want you to suffer a minute longer than necessary, ma'am."
She took the garments, hesitated, and started to turn toward the bathroom; then she swung back abruptly. "Damn you!" she snapped. "You don't have to make fun of a girl just because she hasn't done this corny hotel-room routine quite as often as you have!" She stalked to the wardrobe, disposed of the lingerie, closed the door, and turned again to face me. "All right, Mr. Helm, if that's the way you want it! There's the family Bible and the rest of the papers, right there on the table. You can start researching any time!"
It was kind of like being bitten by a blind, newborn puppy. She'd been all set to go through the usual shabby motions-strong liquor and slinky lingerie and the works-but I'd insulted her by not approaching the situation, and her, with the proper respect. I had made a mistake. I had treated her as an experienced female operative who'd been through the sex bit often enough not to mind having it kidded a little, but she was apparently new enough at the game to take it with deadly seriousness and expect me to do the same.
It made me feel uncomfortable, as if I'd been caught contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but I said harshly, "Cut it out. You know damn well I didn't come up here with Bibles in mind-" I stopped. She did not speak or smile. Her eyes were hostile and unrelenting. I said hastily, "Okay, okay. Don't be mad. Bibles it is."
She hadn't been quite sure I wouldn't get rough, and I saw her face soften with relief as I turned away. I walked over and swung a chair around and sat down at the table with my back to the room. Presently I heard her let her breath out and give a kind of apologetic little laugh as if, since I was going to be nice about it, it wasn't such a grave matter after all. She busied herself at the dresser and came over with two glasses and put one beside me.
"There's your drink, Mr. Helm."
"Thanks."
She picked up my manila envelope. "Is this the material you brought? Do you mind if I look?"
"Help yourself."
She took it to the big chair in the corner, and set her drink on the end of the table. I noticed, because it's the sort of thing you make a point of noticing under certain circumstances, that she hadn't tasted it. I picked up my glass, watching her surreptitiously out of the corner of my eye. She was turning on the reading lamp behind her; she showed no reaction whatever. She went on to open the envelope without, apparently, the slightest interest in whether I drank or died of thirst.
Of course, the liquor didn't have to be loaded, this time. She might want to go a little farther toward gaining my confidence-as far as the nearest bed, say-before lowering the boom on me. And even if the drink was drugged, there was nothing for me to do but gulp it down like a good boy and hope I'd wake up in the right place, preferably in Scotland, without too many shackles and bars and bolted doors between me and the girl I was supposed to assist and the man we were supposed to kill.
I told myself to quit stalling, but I couldn't help the nasty sense of uncertainty you get before you commit yourself irrevocably to a risky course of action. There's always the nagging question: Have I figured this right? I couldn't help remembering that Buchanan and several others, who'd probably thought themselves, rightly or wrongly, just as smart as me, had figured wrong. They must have. They were dead. I tried to encourage myself with the thought that each man had lived long enough after being caught to get himself infected with a super-virulent disease, but somehow it didn't make the future look very much brighter.
I nursed the glass in both hands, warming it as if it contained precious old brandy, while I pretended to look over the papers on the table. Then I raised it deliberately to my lips. The girl was examining one of my photostats with absorbed interest. I started to drink. It was the lack of ice, and the stalling I'd done, that saved me. Just as the stuff touched my lips, I caught the faintest hint of a scent rising from the warmed-up liquor that I probably would not have detected if the drink had been cold: a flowery scent that never came from good Scotch, or bad Scotch either.
Incongruously enough, it was the fragrance of violets. It told me what I was dealing with. We'd first encountered this stuff a couple of years before in the possession of a man we'd captured, something nice cooked up by their backroom boys: a colorless, odorless, tasteless liquid completely miscible with water and alcohol. It was volatile enough so that if the medical authorities on the scene didn't take all kinds of precautions and work very fast they wouldn't find much to analyze in the dregs of a drink in an open glass, or the body of a man who had drunk of it. It worked almost instantaneously. They'd called it Petrozin K.