“That’s right,” I said, smiling at him.
“I’m afraid, sir,” the butler returned with dignity, “Mr. Kruger never sees anyone except by appointment. Would his secretary do?”
“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry about the appointment. I couldn’t care less about the secretary. I want to see Kruger. Go tell him that Ross Millan of the New York Recorder wants to see him and tell him it’s important.”
The butler studied me for a second. “Very good, sir,” he said and floated away upstairs, leaving me standing in the lounge.
After a while, I began to think that he had completed his stroke and was lying upstairs making noises. The hands of the big old-fashioned grandfather clock kept moving forward with little jerky jumps and I got more and more tired of standing there.
Then I heard someone coming. It wasn’t the butler. Whoever it was came along the passage quickly and lightly and then a girl came down the broad staircase. She was thin, fragile and dark. Her eyebrows were unusually straight and her eyes were very large, cobalt blue with big irises and a vague expression. She wore a pair of biscuit-coloured slacks, a burgundy sweater and a biscuit-coloured handkerchief round her head. She was all right until you came to her mouth. That gave her away. It was a tight, lipless slit of red. I could imagine her sitting up in a half dark room pulling the legs off spiders and getting a lot of fun out of it. Back and front her figure looked like she had been fed through a mangle.
“I’m Mr. Kruger’s secretary,” she said. Her voice was deep and musical.
“Well, well,” I said, “well, well, well.”
One of her eyebrows went up and she tried again, “you wanted to see Mr. Kruger?”
“That was the idea, but I’ve changed my mind. My doctor only lets me have one meal a day,” I said, adjusting my necktie. “What do you do with your evenings?”