Nightwork

I waved her back. If you don't mind, for the moment I'd rather be alone. That's the way I've always been when something is wrong with me. Ever since I was a kid.' I didn't want to be lying helpless on a bed with Flora Sloane loose in the room. 'Drink the champagne for both of us, dear. Please put this bottle on my bill,' I called to the barman.

'Can I come and see you later?' she asked.

'Well, I'm going to try to sleep. I'll call you later if I wake up. Just don't worry about me, dear.'

I left her there, the brightest and fullest flower in the garden, splendid and pouting in her tight green slacks and snug sweater, as I maneuvered out of the bar.

Just as the last light of the afternoon was dying in a pink glow on the farthest peaks I could see from my window, the door of my room opened softly. I was lying in bed merely staring brainlessly but comfortably at the ceiling. I had had lunch sent up and had eaten heartily. Luckily, the waiter had been in to take the tray, because it was Flora Sloane who poked her head around the door.

I didn't want to disturb you,' she said. 'I just wanted to see if you needed anything.' She came into the room. I could barely see her in the dusk, but I could smell her. 'How are you, honey?'

'Alive,' I said. 'How did you get in here?' Being an invalid excused me from gallantry.

The floor maid let me in. I explained.' She came over to the side of my bed and touched my forehead in a Florence Nightingale gesture. 'You have no fever,' she said.

The doctor says I can expect it at night,' I said.

'Did you have a good afternoon?' she asked, seating her->elf on the edge of the bed.

'I've had better.' This was not true - at least for the time I had been at St Moritz.

Suddenly, she swooped down and kissed me. Her tongue, as ever, was active. I twisted, so as to be able to breathe, and my bad leg (as I now considered it) dropped off the edge of the bed. I groaned realistically. Flora sat up, flushed and breathing hard. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'Did I hurt you?'

'Not really,' I said. 'It's just ... well, you know ... sudden movements.'

She stood up and looked down at me. It was too dark in the room for me to see her face clearly, but I got the impression of the birth of suspicion. 'You know,' she said, 'a friend of mine picked up a young man on the slopes at Gstaad and they arranged to meet that night and, well ...do it, and he broke his leg at three o'clock, but he didn't let it stop him. By ten o'clock that night, they did it.'

'Maybe he was younger than I am,' I said lamely. 'Or he had a different kind of break. Anyway, the first time ... with you, I mean ... I wouldn't like it to be anything but perfect.'

'Yeah,' she said. Her voice was flat and unconvinced. 'Well, I better be going. There's a party tonight and I have to get ready.' She leaned over and kissed me chastely on the forehead. 'If you want, though,' she said, 'I can look in after the party.'

'I don't think it would be a wise idea, really.' 'Probably not. Well, sleep well,' and she left the room. I lay back and stared once more at the dark ceiling and thought of the heroic young man at Gstaad. One more day, I thought, and I'm getting out of here, crutches or no crutches. Still, Flora Sloane had given me an idea. Without a key to my room, she had had the door opened. The floor maid...

* * *

That evening I dined alone, late. I had seen Flora Sloane, in a blazing evening gown, at a distance, sweeping off to her party with a group of people, some of whom I recognized, some of whom I didn't, anyone of whom might have my seventy thousand dollars in the bank. If Flora saw me, she gave no sign. I took my time over dinner, and, when I went up to my floor, I deliberately avoided asking for my key at the desk. The corridor on which my room was located was empty, but after a moment I spied the night maid coming out of a room farther down. I stepped in front of the Sloanes' door and called to the maid. 'I'm terribly sorry,' I said, moving heavily toward the woman on my crutches, 'but I seem to have forgotten my key. Will you let me in, please?' I had never seen her before.