I opened it up. On it was written: Matthew Helm, Claridge's. Below was a hastily scrawled three-word message: Try Brossach, Sutherland. I'd found a real clue at last.
I studied it thoughtfully, not to say suspiciously-I don't have a great deal of faith in miracles-and got up and went to the table. The kid had come equipped. In addition to the family information she'd wanted to show me, she'd had maps galore. There were clan maps of Scotland, road maps of Scotland, and even a set of the half-inch-scale contoured Bartholomew maps that require over a dozen sheets to cover the Scottish mainland alone. It made me feel a sense of real loss. I mean, willing young girls aren't too hard to come by, these days, but girls bright enough to know the value of good maps are pretty scarce.
I knew approximately where to look. Sutherland is a county in northwestern Scotland; in fact, it's the county in northwestern Scotland. As I studied the map of the right area, somebody knocked on the door. It was a tentative, diplomatic little knock, the kind that might be used by a hotel employee with fresh towels, or by a friend who didn't want to interrupt if anything interesting was going on inside-except that I didn't have any friends in London with the possible exception of Crowe-Barham.
Hastily, I folded the map I'd been looking at and stuck it into my inside jacket pocket, and a couple of more besides, so as not to indicate too clearly, if I should be searched, the region in which I was interested. The slip of paper I tucked into the top of my sock, which was a little better than putting it into my wallet or wearing it in my hatband, but not much. I'd have preferred to destroy it, but I wasn't quite through examining it yet. The discreet little knock came again. I made sure that all Nancy's belongings were back in her purse, and that the purse was lying on the table in the proper, casual, tossed-aside way. Then I looked grimly at the dead girl on the floor.
Somehow it didn't seem right to drag her into the bathroom or stuff her into the wardrobe. I mean, she was a relative of mine, after all, and she could damn well be allowed what little dignity she'd managed to retain in death. Besides, anybody who was really curious would search the bathroom and wardrobe, anyway. I just pulled out my gun and went to the door, as the knocking came a third time, more sharply and impatiently now.
"Matt," a voice said. "Matthew, darling, let me in."
Even if I hadn't recognized the voice, there was only one woman I knew-in London, anyway-who'd deliberately address me as darling while I was engaged in another woman's room. I sighed, and checked my gun, and put it into my pocket, leaving my hand on it. I opened the door just far enough to let me slip out into the hall.
"Hello, Vadya," I said, pulling the door closed behind me.
She had made a quick recovery since I'd seen her last. Her hairdo had been reconstructed on a slightly less spectacular scale. Her rumpled suit and damaged blouse had been replaced by a straight black linen dress-well, as straight as her contours allowed-that covered her shoulders but left her arms bare. A diaphanous, multicolored chiffon scarf was strategically arranged to mask the bruises on her neck she hadn't quite been able to cover with makeup. She was wearing the kind of boldly patterned black stockings that were currently making a great fashion hit-I guess every woman has a secret yearning to look like a tart-and high-heeled black pumps.
"It's very thoughtful of you, Vadya," I said. "I certainly appreciate it. But it wasn't really necessary."
She frowned. "What in the world are you talking about, darling?"
"Didn't you come to give me back my coat? I thought you were afraid I might catch cold without it."
"Ah, you are joking me, and your coat is in my room at Claridge's," she said with a laugh. She glanced down at my bulging jacket pocket. "Is that necessary? You should be careful, Matthew, or you will become like those of whom we know, those who cannot even shave without aiming a gun at the man in the mirror and ordering him to stand still."
That took care of the polite preliminaries, and I asked bluntly, "Just what the hell are you doing here, doll?"
"Why, I am following you, of course." Her expression was bland and innocent. "Shall we say that I am protecting my interests? We are working together, are we not? That was agreed. When I see you consulting with another woman, and visiting her room, I am disturbed. That was not agreed."
I said, "Somehow I don't seem to recall all these ironclad agreements."
She smiled. "Perhaps I used the wrong word. Perhaps it was not agreed, merely understood. But we are working together in the matter of McRow, are we not? Despite your lousy behavior of this afternoon, which I magnanimously forgive." She touched her neck lightly, and let her hand fall.. "And if there is to be another woman involved, should I not meet her? Who is this girl, Matthew?"
I shrugged. "Just a kid who thinks she's related to me in some way. She asked me up to see her family papers."
Vadya looked at me for a moment, and threw back her head and laughed with real amusement. "You are very entertaining, darling. First it is a wife and then it is a distant cousin. You surely don't expect me to believe-"
It was the reaction I had anticipated. Sometimes the truth can be more useful than a lie. I said, "Hell, believe what you like."
"Matthew, please! I am still not convinced of this marriage and this bride of yours. Don't try to sell me any more of your relations today."
I shrugged. "Okay, so the girl is a desperate Mata Han type packing a gun in her purse and a knife in her stocking. Have it your way."
"And you will ask me in to meet her?"
I shrugged again. "Sure," I said. "Go on in. Meet her."
I stepped back and opened the door. Vadya rearranged the filmy scarf about her shoulders and walked in. She stopped short. I heard her breath catch. I made a note of the fact that her hand went, not to her purse, but to the top of her dress.
I said, "Be careful. This.38 Special makes an awful mess." I reached back left-handed and closed the door and locked it.
After a moment of silence, Vadya chuckled softly. "We seem to have already played this scene once. Did you kill her, Matthew?"
I said, "Hadn't you better make up your mind? A minute ago you were insisting she was my confederate; now you want to make her my victim. No, I didn't kill her. Did you?" When Vadya didn't answer at once, I said, "Somebody loaded that bottle on the dresser. The kid drank first. That's how I come to be still alive." Well, omitting some details, that was more or less true. I went on, "The poison seems to have been Petrozin K. I believe you're acquainted with the stuff."
"Of course, but it was unsatisfactory. It has not been issued to us for many months."
"You might have had some left in the back of a drawer or the bottom of an old purse."
"Why would I kill her, Matthew?"
I shrugged. "How should I know? But it's kind of a coincidence. I come to London with a wife, and right away the wife disappears, and you're sitting in the lounge downstairs. I meet another girl, never mind who, and immediately she's poisoned, and you're hanging around in the hall outside. And this time there aren't even any extraneous Oriental ladies around to confuse the issue. Could it be that for some reason you want me all to yourself, Vadya? It's a flattering thought. And what did you really come here for, to substitute a harmless bottle for the poisoned one to confuse the police, perhaps?"
Vadya gave the same soft, throaty chuckle. "Your ideas are very ingenious, but look at me, darling. Just look at me. I admit I am a fine womanly figure of a woman in this stupid Dumaire disguise, but surely I am not so well-developed that I can hide a whole fifth of Scotch under my dress. If I came to switch bottles, where is my bottle?" She turned to face me. "And you are being inconsistent, also. If I am getting rid of little girls so I can have you to myself, as you so modestly suggest, would I put poison where you might drink it? I am under orders to work with you, not kill you, Matthew. Until the work is done, you are safe from me."