“You think?” Simon repeated pointedly. “Did you see her go?”
Esteban shrugged, his face still blank and brown.
“There are so many. It is hard to say.”
Simon’s stare could have been fashioned in bronze. “You wouldn’t be stalling, would you, Esteban?” he asked with gentle deadliness.
“She told us she’d wait for us,” Pat said. “When did she leave?”
Esteban smiled suddenly, the accommodating host.
“I try to find out for you. Mrs Verity like to play the big, big stake, take the big risk. Maybe she hit too many times wrong at the blackjack; perhaps she went for more money... Please, will you have a drink on the promenade deck while I make inquiries? Out here...”
He ushered them towards French doors that opened on one side of the gaming room, and bowed himself away. The patio was dappled with moonlight and the shadows of palm fronds, but it seemed to have no appeal for the other customers. Simon lighted a cigarette, while Patricia walked to a rail trimmed with unnecessary life belts, and gazed out at the vista of landscaped ground sloping gently to the moongladed sea.
She caught her breath at the scene, and then shivered slightly.
“It’s so beautiful it hurts,” she said. “And yet it seems every time we find a romantic spot like this, there’s something... I don’t know, but this place gives me the creeps.”