And with that sharp sting of awareness in his mind he walked into the lobby of the hotel where he had left Barbara Sinclair.
He nodded to the desk clerk who had signed them in, and rode up in the elevator to her floor. He knocked on the door, and waited a little while. He said: "Saks Fifth Avenue, ma'am. A C.O.D. package for Mrs Tombs."
12
He waited a little longer, and then the door opened two or three inches, and he saw a narrow panel of her face — hair like a raven's wing, a dark eye, and carmine lips.
He went in.
"I wondered what had happened to you," she said.
"I had lunch. I met some friends."
His eyes strayed over the room with the most natural unconcern, but they missed nothing. Actually it was in an ashtray that he saw the proof that at least half of his timing had been right, but his glance picked up the detail without pausing.
Barbara Sinclair moved to a deep low chair by the window and sat down, curling one shapely leg under her. Her other foot swung in a short off-beat rhythm, so that every interrupted movement of it gave him a measure of the effort of will-power that was maintaining her outward composure.
"Has anything else happened?" she asked.