His heart gave a bound. She was near to him! He could see her again within a handful of hours. For a moment nothing else seemed to matter—neither Santa's safety, nor the agony of hunger by which he was surrounded. His blood ran hot with yearning. How had she reached Budapest so quickly? What was her object? To have accomplished the journey she must have set out from England ahead of him or else have left on the same day, traveling by the alternative route via Belgium. While he had been journeying in the company of Santa, going through the mummery of pretending he was married, Anna had been paralleling his footsteps. Was Varensky with her? But if she were alone...
Mechanically, as he entered the elevator, he slit the flap of the letter. It had evidently been left personally, for it bore no postmark and was hastily scrawled on the stationery of the hotel. The hand was unknown to him. The note read:
“Yesterday you avoided me. I have told her everything. I am more sure than ever you ought to send her back. I must leave you now for a little while. When we meet again, I hope it will be as friends.
“Lajos.”
At last they had got rid of him! But what was it he had told her? And what made him so sure that they would meet again? The man wrote as if he were confident that he could lay his hands on them at any moment.
Stepping out of the elevator, Hindwood made directly for Santa's room. He recalled it vaguely as he had seen it the night before, with its Empire furniture, painted cupids, silken hangings, and tall mirrors—its knowing air of having been the illicit nest of innumerable short-lived love-affairs. Its gaudy luxury, so glaringly in contrast with the embittered need of the outside world, had stirred his anger. In reply to his knock, her hoarse voice bade him enter. Before he was across the threshold, he was aware of the intoxicating fragrance of roses.
Just inside the room, frowning with bewilderment, he halted. There were stacks of them—sheaves of them everywhere. They were scattered on the floor. They were arranged in vases. They lay strewn about in boxes. They were of all shades and varieties.
“What's the meaning?”
She beckoned to him to join her at the tall window against which she was standing.
“We missed this last night.” She pointed.