He found Etter at the bar in what they seemed to call the Venetian Room, talking to a group which included the Swedish Consul. He stood at the bar close to this group and ordered a glass of champagne. The Consul saw him and came over and shook hands—and he was drawn into the company.
He endured patiently while yet more people shook his hand and smiled upon him and poured out praise. He gave an excellent performance of Nils—and underneath wondered desperately how long they would all take to go, so that he could be alone with Etter.
They took, it seemed to him, an unconscionable time; but go they did, one by tardy one. The Consul was the last, and he shook hands yet again.
“Your quota number,” he said. “It will be through without any trouble. Come to the Consulate to-morrow . . . no, perhaps the next day.” He smiled again, and went away to Nils’ murmured thanks.
Etter yawned enormously, stretching long thin arms. “Better be going,” he said.
“One moment,” Otto said quickly: he was waiting for the barman to move away. “When . . . at what time do you wish to take the photographs?” He managed an embarrassed chuckle. “For the Kosmo article?” he said.
“To-morrow morning.” Etter stared at him. “Thought I told you. Around eleven—if that’s all right with you?”
The barman had moved now. “Oh, yes,” said Otto. “Yes. I wished to make sure there was no change.” He pulled a little notebook from his pocket—and then the pencil. He said:
“I will note that. To be sure.” He scribbled something in the book, feeling Etter’s eyes on the pencil-head. Without too much parade, he put book and pencil back in his pocket.
“What . . .” began Etter—and then broke off and spoke in an entirely different tone; spoke just as a faint perception of the perfume came to Otto’s nostrils.
“My dear lady!” said Etter. “I’ve been waiting on the chance of seeing you for a moment.”
Mrs. Van Teller was standing between them. She smiled upon Otto and was gracious to the journalist.
“How nice of you,” she said to Etter. “This is the first moment I’ve had to breathe!”
Etter said: “You’ve done a wonderful piece of work! Wonderful!”
She smiled at him and bowed. She looked magnificent.
“Some more like you,” said Etter, “who really did things—and Hitler wouldn’t last a month!” His eyes gleamed behind the spectacles, and Otto gave silent applause.
“We can only try,” she said, and gave the man her hand as he took his leave. She was turned in such a way that Otto could not move without rudeness, so he stood motionless, looking for some sign from Etter.
Etter glanced at him. “So long, Jorgensen,” he said casually. “See you in the morning. I’ll be around first—before the photographers.”
“Yes,” said Otto. “Yes. Thank you.” A great weight was lifted from his mind. He was conscious of the perfume again and the marble perfection of the shoulders against the dark velvet.
“Benson!” She was speaking to the man behind the bar. “Close this now. Most of the guests have gone.” She slipped a hand into the crook of Otto’s arm—and he found himself walking beside her from the room and along a corridor which he had not been in before. She said:
“There’s something about that man Etter I don’t like. . . . You were a nice boy to wait such a long time.” She laughed softly. “But it was bad of you to try and run away. Suppose I hadn’t caught you!”
They stopped walking and she was opening a door and they were entering a small, pretty room which seemed half-study, half-library. She said:
“If I were a man, I suppose they’d call this my ‘den.’ But it’s nice, don’t you think? Now you just sit down and be comfortable. There are drinks there. . . . Mix yourself one . . . and smoke . . . and wait for me just five minutes while I speed the left-overs.”
She was gone, and Otto was left staring at the door. After a moment he crossed to the side-table where the tray was and poured himself a small drink. He carried the glass around the room, looking at pictures without seeing them; noting without conscious thought the several inner doors—three in all—which led from this room to others; thinking, very deliberately, about nothing at all except that in no circumstances should his reactions be other than those of Nils Jorgensen.
She was back in less than ten minutes—and with her was a man-servant who carried a tray and champagne glasses and a silver-bound oaken bucket from which, beneath the napkin which covered the ice, protruded the neck of a gold-foiled bottle.
“Down there, Charles.” She pointed. “And the glasses here. No, don’t open it.”
The man obeyed with silent deftness and was gone, the door closing softly behind him. Otto crushed out the cigarette he had just lighted—and then took another one. He became aware that his hostess had crossed behind him and was now sitting at the strange-shaped little writing-table. He lighted the new cigarette and smiled at her—even Nils Jorgensen could do that!
She said: “We’ll have a drink in a minute, Nils.” She had opened the centre drawer of the desk and was searching in it. The strange hair gleamed and the soft light caressed the smoothness of her shoulders.
She said: “I want to write an address down for you—now, while I remember it. I’ll tell you why later.” She took a pad of paper from the drawer and began to scribble fast upon it in a large dashing script.
A sound came from Otto’s lips; a strange sound, instantly repressed, which was half grunt, half gasp. He had come nearer to the table as she took out the paper—and now he was staring at the pencil with which she was writing: it was a small, slim thing of gold and silver, but in place of its cap was a tiny, neatly whittled plug of cedar-wood!
The point broke, and she threw the thing down with a gesture of annoyance. She said, without looking up:
“Lend me a pencil, will you? This has broken.”
Automatically, Otto’s hand went to his breast-pocket and came away with his own pencil. He laid it on the table, near her hand. His mind felt numb.
She picked it up and sat back in her chair and looked at him. Her face was different somehow: the eyes seemed to have changed colour. It was difficult for Otto to meet their scrutiny.
He was waiting for her to speak; but she did not and he remembered. He said:
“It . . . must be very late. Do you please know the time?”
“It’s seventy-one minutes past the hour—or earlier.” Her voice, whetted to a sharp edge of impersonality, was as changed as her face.
“The thirtieth of February is the day,” she said then—and Otto’s cup of somehow humiliating astonishment was filled to overflowing, for this was the phrase which meant that its user was no mere cog in the Machine but a master part.
He stood stiffly to attention now, though it is doubtful that he knew he was doing so. The eyes which had seemed to change colour studied him through a long silence. His mouth felt dry, and he moistened his lips with the point of his tongue. He tried to keep all sign of feeling from his face. She said:
“You seem . . . astounded, Captain.”
“I . . . I confess I am . . . surprised.” Otto fumbled over his words. Again he tried to moisten his lips.
The eyes still studied him. “You should not show it—in your new line of duty.” She took a cigarette from a silver box and put it between her lips. “A match,” she said. “In front of you there.”