A standard lamp with a yellow and blue parchment shade was alight in the big lounge. The casement doors leading from the lounge to the verandah stood open.
I paused at the head of the verandah steps at the sound of a voice: a woman’s voice, out of tune with the still, summer night, the scent of flowers and the big yellow moon. The voice was loud and shrill. Maybe it was angry, too, and the edges of it were a little frayed with suppressed hysteria.
“Oh, shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” The voice was saying. “Come quickly. You’ve talked enough. Just shut up and come!”
I could see her in there, kneeling on one of the big settees, holding the telephone in a small, tight-clenched fist. Her back was turned to me. The light from the lamp fell directly on her beautifully-shaped head and picked out the tints in her raven-black hair. She was wearing a pair of high-waisted, bottle-green slacks and a silk shirt of the same colour, and made the kind of picture Varga likes to draw. She was his type: long legged, small hipped, high breasted, and as alive and as quick as mercury.
She said, “Do stop it! Why go on and on? Just come. That’s all you have to do,” and she slammed down the receiver.
I didn’t think the situation called for stealth or super-refined cunning, and I wasn’t in the mood to play pretty. I was leg-weary and bruised and still short of breath, and my temper was as touchy as the filed trigger of a heist man’s rod. So I moved into the room without bothering to tread quietly. My footfalls across the parquet floor sounded like miniature explosions.
I saw her back stiffen. Her head turned slowly. She looked over her shoulder at me. Her big black eyes opened wide. There was a pause in which you could have counted a slow ten. She didn’t recognize me. She saw what looked like an overgrown sailor in tattered white ducks with a rip in one trousers knee, a shirt any laundry would have returned with a note of complaint and a face that had more dirt on it than freckles.
“Hello,” I said quietly. “Remember me? Your pal, Malloy.”
She remembered me then. She drew in a deep breath, pushed herself off the settee and stood firmly on her small, well-shaped feet.
“How did you get here?” she asked, her face and voice were as expressionless as the ruffles on her shirt.