The Poisoners by Donald Hamilton

Author:Donald Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan Books

16

Approaching Roberta Prince’s room, I made a little bet with myself as I had before, quite recently, under very similar circumstances. I mean, the girl had said she was merely going to fix her makeup while I went and cleaned up in my room, but once she got to thinking about the situation, I was fairly sure other ideas would occur to her, if they hadn’t already. After all, this was Hollywood country or close to it, and once they get a good script out there, or even just a passable one, they’ll all gang up on the poor, lonely little idea and beat it to death.

I knocked on the door and got no answer. Checking, I found it unlocked, as I had left it. I walked in, since I’d told her I’d be back shortly and she’d said that would be fine. The first thing I noticed was that the black and white pants outfit she’d been wearing was kind of scattered around the room along with everything that went with it, intimate and otherwise. The second thing I noted was that the bathroom door was closed and the shower was running. I made a mental check in my mental notebook to indicate that I’d won my own money once more.

I knocked on the bathroom door. “Roberta,” I called. “Miss Prince. Bobbie. Are you all right?”

The shower stopped. After a little pause, the door opened, and as expected, she had on absolutely nothing except a towel wrapped around her head, turban-wise, to protect the long blond hair from the spray. Another towel was being used for drying purposes, but it was carefully deployed, at the moment, so as not to obstruct much of the view.

Her body was more feminine than I’d anticipated, despite its lean greyhound proportions. After all, even greyhounds come in two sexes, and there was absolutely no doubt which one she was. She was smoothly tanned all over. I reflected on the philosophic truth that the difference between being embarrassingly naked and interestingly nude can be just a nice coat of tan.

“Get my robe out of that closet, will you, darling?” she said calmly. “The blue terry cloth beach thing. You’ll see it.”

“Sure,” I said, and grinned, not moving. “Just how long did you stand under that shower, Bobbie, waiting to make this spectacular appearance?”

She was slightly disconcerted; then she laughed. “Too damn long. I’m practically waterlogged. What the hell kept you, anyway?”

“I had a visitor. A lady dope-cop with the sniffles. We had to compare notes and strategy.”

“The sniffles? What’s she got to sniffle about?” Bobbie asked.

I couldn’t see why she should be interested in Charlotte Devlin’s respiratory symptoms, when there were other things in my statement designed to concern her more, but at the moment, feeling out the situation, I was happy just to follow any conversational lead she offered. As for my promise to Charlie, I’d only promised not to tell the people for whom she worked. The chances of this girl discussing with them the health of one of their agents was fairly small.

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