He bent and kissed the revolting hand. "You are much too lovely a lady to have escaped from such a predicament as you describe without suffering—shall we say, a more romantic—fate?"
Miss Hafner blushed at the thought and wavered between outrage and ecstasy for a dangerous moment. With time-tested genius, Sextus withdrew quietly and left her to her thoughts.
He must get in touch with Dr. Bradford, atom business or not. This place could blow sky-high any minute.
He slipped the key into his own door and entered his suite. He took two brisk strides into his bedroom, tripped over a lady's overnight case and sprawled into his unmade bed. Even as he landed he realized it had an occupant, a gorgeous, strangely familiar blonde creature, touselled and asleep hugging her pillow with a creamy arm. A crash from the bathroom brought his head bouncing off the silken coverlet even as the girl awakened with a scream and tangled them both with the bed clothes.
Gary Gable charged from the bathroom, face dripping and a tuft of lather under each ear. "What in the Goddam hell—" He leaped for Sextus with his internationally famous shoulders knotted into bunches of muscular menace.
"I'm the hotel manager," Sextus blurted loudly. For once his self-assurance wavered under fire. Even to himself his words explained nothing.
Meanwhile, Gable tripped over one of Sextus' heavy suitcases and joined the pair in bed. Another male voice issued from the bathroom, and as they all thrashed about, Sextus became aware that a second female had somehow appeared between Gable and his brand new bride. They came up together, face to face, the beautiful, sleepy blonde and the very wide-awake, queenly brunette. Now a pot-bellied little man in shorts and undershirt emerged from the bathroom, his mouth a gaping hole in a fully lathered face.
Sextus wriggled free, made for the door and off down the hall. To his horror, the automatic signal light on the vector "H" elevator was flickering and fading. The whole H-vector must be collapsing. He dashed for the stairwell and then reconsidered. He moved to the end of the hall which overlooked the low roof of the adjacent building. He tried the window and remembered that it was sealed. Back in the alcove he seized one of the sand jars and headed back for the window. A growing tide of commotion swelled from behind almost every door now. Grunts, screams and wrestling sounds came over the transoms.
He dashed the sand jar through the window, chipped off the jagged edges with his heel and climbed out. It was a twenty-foot drop to security, and he made it without hesitation. What could a man hope to do with a mess like—
Spang! His feet struck, not with a crunch on gravelled tar, but into a springy fabric that sagged under his 180 pounds, tossed him six feet in the air, caught him on the rebound and then juggled him down with diminishing bounces.