“So it has,” I said. “So it has.”
I didn’t like doing it, but the idea only occurred to me as she stood up. It was one of those ideas that come like a bolt from the blue and are so good that you’ve just got to play them without thinking.
I hit her on the point of her chin with a short tight. I’ll swear she never felt it and she was on the floor before I had regained my balance.
I knelt beside her, lifted her eyelid. She was out for a long count. Well, if Peppi had Myra, I certainly had Lydia. In playing with a rat like Peppi it was just as good to have one of his toys if he had one of yours.
I took a quick gander out of the window. The copper was still there. That was going to make things difficult but not impossible.
I went into the bathroom and found a long roll of adhesive tape. Then I came back into the sitting room and taped Lydia’s hands and ankles. I gagged her with my best silk handkerchief and put her on the sofa.
Then I lit a cigarette and did some thinking. The moment Peppi knew I had her .he’d send a bunch of strongarrns to my apartment. So she’d have to be moved from here. The question was where could I put her? And when I’d found the right place, how was I going to get her out with that copper nesting on my doorstep?
This certainly called for a little thought.
There was the back way out of the apartment block. But, I guessed there’d be a copper watching that too. I went into the kitchen and looked out into the alley. I was right. A big beefy man loitered at the entrance of the alley.
How I was to get out of this building with Lydia and not be seen baffled me. I couldn’t imagine her going with me willingly, now that I had dipped her. And to carry her out with the law looking on just wouldn’t do.