"I tell you, I don't know them."
"Who else has your key?"
It was as if he had hit her under the ribs. All the blood drained out of her face and turned the warm golden glow to a sick yellow. The strength seemed to go out of her with it, so that he felt her weight grow on the arm he was holding. He released her again, and she sank on to the bed as if her knees had turned to water.
"Well?" he said ruthlessly.
"I can't tell you."
"Meaning you won't."
She shook her head so that her long hair swirled like a dancer's skirt.
"No…" Her gaze was imploring, frantic, yet trying ineffectually to draw back and harden. "What are you trying to do anyhow, and what right have you got—"
"You know about me. I'm trying to break the iridium black market. And there was robbery and murder tied up with it even before I started. You may have heard that there's a small war in progress. Iridium happens to be a ridiculously vital material. Gabriel Linnet had had dealings with the black market, and I was going to talk to him last night. You were planted there to keep me away while he was having his voice amputated — and incidentally to make sure I wouldn't have an alibi so I could be hung for it."
"No," she said.