Fear is the Key

She wore a blue quilted silk dressing-gown over blue silk pyjamas. Her high-heeled slippers were blue, even the night-ribbon for holding those thick shining braids in place was of exactly the same colour. Her face, just then, was as pale as old ivory. Nothing would ever make it a beautiful face, but then I suppose that if it had been beautiful my heart wouldn't have chosen that moment to start doing handsprings, the first time it had shown any life at all, far less such extravagant activity, in three long and empty years. Her face seemed to fade and again I could see the fire and the slippers that I'd seen two nights ago and all that stood between us was 285 million dollars and the fact that I was the only man in the world the very sight of whom could make her collapse in terror. I put my dreams away.

She stirred and opened her eyes. I felt that the technique I'd used with Kennedy — telling him that there was a gun behind my torch — might have unfortunate results in this case. So I caught one of the hands that were lying limply on the coverlet, bent forward and said softly, reprovingly: "You silly young muggins, why did you go and do a daft thing like that?"

Luck or instinct or both had put me on the right track. Her eyes were wide, but not staring wide, and the fear that still showed there was touched with puzzlement. Murderers of a certain category don't hold your hand and speak reassuringly. Poisoners, yes: knife-plungers in the back, possibly: but not murderers with my reputation for pure violence.

"You're not going to try to scream again, are you?" I asked.

"No." Her voice was husky. "I — I'm sorry I was so stupid-"

"Right," I said briskly. "If you're feeling fit for it, we'll talk. We have to, and there's little time."

"Can't you put the light on?" she begged.

"No light. Shines through curtains. We don't want any callers at this time-"

"There are shutters," she interrupted. "Wooden shutters. On every window in the house."

Hawk-eye Talbot, that was me. I'd spent a whole day doing nothing but staring out the window and I'd never even seen them. I rose, closed and fastened the shutters, closed the communicating door to Jablonsky's room and switched on the light She was sitting on the side of the bed now, hugging her arms as if she were cold.

"I'm hurt," I announced. "You can take one look at Jablonsky and tell right away, or so you think, that he's not a crook. But the longer you look at me the more convinced you are that I'm a murderer." I 'held up a hand as she was about to speak. "Sure, you got reasons. Excellent reasons. But they're wrong." I hitched up a trouser leg and offered for her inspection a foot elegantly covered in a maroon sock and completely plain black shoe. "Ever seen those before?"

She looked at them, just for a second, then switched her gaze to my face. "Simon's," she whispered. "Those are Simon's."

"Your chauffeur." I didn't care much for this Simon business. "He gave them to me a couple of hours ago. Of his own free will. It took me five minutes flat to convince him that I am not a murderer and far from what I appear to be. Are you willing to give me the same time?"

She nodded slowly without speaking.

It didn't even take three minutes. The fact that Kennedy had given me the O.K. was the battle more than half won as far as she was concerned. But I skipped the bit about finding Jablonsky. She wasn't ready for any shocks of that nature, not yet.

When I was finished she said, almost unbelievingly: "So you knew about us all the time? About Daddy and me and our troubles and-"

"We've known about you for several months. Not specifically about your trouble, though, nor your father's, whatever that may be: all we knew was that General Blair Ruthven was mixed up in something that General Blair Ruthven had no right to be mixed up in. And don't ask me who ' we' are or who I am, because I don't like refusing to answer questions and it's for your own sake anyway. What's your father scared of, Mary?"

"I — I don't know. I know he's frightened of Royale, but-"

"He's frightened of Royale. I'm frightened of Royale. We're all frightened of Royale. I'll take long odds that Vyland feeds him plenty of stories about Royale to keep him good and scared. But it's not that. Not primarily. He's frightened for your sake, too, but my guess is that those fears have only grown since he found out the kind of company he's keeping. What they're really like, I mean. I think he went into this with his eyes open and for his own ends, even if he didn't know what he was letting himself in for. Just how long have Vyland and your father been, shall we say, business associates?"