“Nothing.”
By the time she had raised herself to follow his glance, the hint of peril was gone. The next moment they were drawing up at the hotel.
III
Again as the door swung to behind them, they were greeted by sounds of merriment and dancing, only here the abandon was wilder than at Vienna. Hindwood saw at a glance that this was no assemblage of alien hucksters, drawn from all the world to gather bargains. As regards the men, they were devil-may-care and smart, of the same type as Captain Lajos—the sort who would follow the game to the last throw of the dice. Many of them had made no attempt to disguise their profession; they were clad in gorgeous uniforms of Hungarian regiments long since ordered disbanded by the Allies. Their breasts were ablaze with Imperial decorations. They strode the marble floors with the clink of spurs and the rattling of swords. While they drugged the midnight hours with laughter and debauch, their faces were feverish with listening expectancy—the expectancy of an event for which they waited.
The women looked like captives of a raid. Some hung back timidly; some were bold with wine; all were weary and pinched with hunger. Like the men, they seemed only to be acting a part. In the midst of recklessness they would give way to distaste, as though remorseful of this way of combating starvation.
With the stench of the death train still in his nostrils, Hindwood stared at the spectacle in pity and disgust. “Fiddling while Rome is burning,” he muttered.
His elbow was jogged by a black-coated individual with the appeasing manners of a tailor.
“I understand English. What is it you desire?”
Hindwood swung round. “So much the better. I want what one usually wants at a hotel—accommodation.”
The man rubbed his hands. “Sorry, sir. We're full up. Every room, in fact every lounge is taken.”