As suddenly as it appeared, the illusion vanished with a curious dwindling effect. Suddenly bold, Arlene stared down from the window, thinking the intruder had dropped away, but no one was in sight.
Ronjan, having turned to open the door, apparently had failed to view the startling sight outside the window, so Arlene said nothing about it. Ronjan bowed her out and then followed, locking the door behind him, as he muttered something about an appointment.
They had reached the elevator when its door opened to emit a tawny-faced man whose features were marred by two white scars. Bowing, Ronjan croaked an introduction:
“Miss Forster, allow me to present Captain Dom Yuble from the Caribbean. He has proven very helpful in my present enterprise.”
Yuble’s gleaming smile rather impressed Arlene. When Ronjan offered Dom the key to the suite, the tawny man exhibited one of his own, then smiled again as Arlene entered the elevator with Ronjan.
All the way down in the elevator, even after she parted with Ronjan in the lobby, Arlene kept wondering about that fanciful occurrence upstairs. The more she wondered, the more she believed that Ronjan had tried to divert her attention from the window; indeed, had sought to have her leave before the weird interloper made that momentary appearance.
In fact, Arlene was ready to drop her feud with Phil in order to gain someone’s reaction to her strange experience, but Phil wasn’t around to hear her story. Starting back to her own hotel, Arlene decided that Phil must have gotten tired waiting for her, for which she couldn’t blame him. Looking up toward the towering roof of the Chateau Parkview, Arlene saw lights that probably represented Ronjan’s suite, tucked just beneath the eaves of the peculiarly ornate roof.
It looked trivial, that scene high above, so trivial that Arlene was ready to forget it. After all, when things seemed trifles, they couldn’t matter much.
Arlene Forster was wrong. Trifling things could mean a great deal, whether noticed or unnoticed. In the latter class could have been included the tiny blinks that were beginning somewhere off in the distance.
They came from a building flanking Central Park, those twinkling gleams, symbols that strange crime was again on the move!