[CHAPTER 4]
After a considerable wait the door was opened. By the light from inside George Hanlon saw a fairly tall native, his hair and beard sleek and burnished from much brushing, and trimmed with unusual care. He was wearing a sort of slip-on gown of heavy cloth, probably a lounging robe. Perhaps the man had already gone to bed—in which case he would undoubtedly be quite provoked at their untimely call, Hanlon thought. Indeed, the man's face showed surprise and petulance at this interruption.
But Hanlon could see shrewdness and a crafty trickiness inherent in the black eyes, that caused an inward tremor. "I'd sure better be on my toes with this fellow," he thought.
Yandor scanned the two for a long moment, without a word, then beckoned them inside. But as soon as the door was shut—and locked—he turned angrily on Auldin.
"Well now, what's the big idea, you stupid idiot, of coming here, and at night, and bringing someone with you. Are you trying to cross me, Ran? You know that isn't healthy."
Ran Auldin cringed somewhat and made his voice apologetic. "It's because it was night, nyer, and we wouldn't be noticed, that I came now. Besides, I think this is important. I want you to meet Gor Anlo, who's just come from Lura, looking for a chance, he says, to get into our businesses."
Auldin slightly emphasized that last word, and Yandor's eyes snapped wide. He swung about and faced Hanlon, studying him carefully. The young man bore the scrutiny without flinching, a smile of greeting on his face, but without a sign of boldness or brashness.
After a moment Yandor motioned them into an adjoining room, and himself went to sit behind a large, ornate, wooden table-desk. "Sit," he waved a delicate hand at the two chairs facing him in such a manner that the desk-lamp's light was strong in the faces of the two, while leaving his own more or less in the shadows. Hanlon could barely repress a grin at this—it smacked so intimately of the old Terran police-questioning technique.
During the short moments they had been in the hallway, however, Hanlon had noticed a small roch standing there, apparently one that Yandor must have partially tamed and kept as a pet. Quickly the S S man had transferred a part of his mind into that of the beast. Now, while his own body and nine-tenths of his mind were in that office room for the interview with Ino Yandor, the other tenth, inside the brain of the roch, was making the animal roam the house, seeking whatever secrets it might find there.