He_was talking too fast — too fast and with a sibilance that did not belong to Shirer. The room, too. Walter Shirer had been an ordinary, simple sort of person. Maybe he’d reacted against his environment. He’d been a coal miner. But even then the room didn’t seem to fit and I was filled with uneasiness.
He handed me my drink. Then he raised his glass. ‘Up she goes!’ I remembered Shirer in agony over those gas blisters raising a glass of filthy medicine to his lips and saying ‘Up she goes!’ He’d always said that as he drank.
An awkward silence developed. Zina Valle had closed her eyes. She looked relaxed and almost plump. A clock on the mantelpiece ticked under a glass case. ‘How did you know I was at the Nazionale?’ Shirer asked.
‘Oh — somebody told me,’ I replied.
‘Who?’
‘I’m not sure.’ I couldn’t tell him I’d overheard him give the address to the taxi-driver last night. ‘I think perhaps it was the Contessa, this morning when she came to see me.’
He turned quickly towards her. ‘Zina. Did you give Farrell my address this morning? Zina!’ She opened her eyes. ‘Did you tell Farrell I was at the Nazionale?’
‘I heard you the first time, Walter,’ she replied sleepily. ‘I don’t remember.’
He gave an impatient shrug of his shoulders and then turned back to me. ‘Well now, suppose you tell me why you’re here?’
I hesitated. I wasn’t really sure. I wasn’t sure about anything, the room, the man himself — it was all so strange. ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come. It was just that I didn’t want to leave it as it stood between us last night. I quite realise how you must feel. I mean — well, at the time I thought you’d understood. I stood two of their damned operations, but the third—’ My voice trailed away.